Selon Human Rights Watch, la LRA a tué au moins 321 civiles et enlevé 250 autres personnes, dont au moins 80 enfants.

Anneke Van Woudenberg, chercheuse principale pour la division Afrique à Human Rights Watch dit dans ce rapport que “ces quatre jours d’atrocités démontrent que la LRA reste une menace grave pour les civils et non un groupe affaibli, comme le prétendent les gouvernements ougandais et congolais.”

En effet, ce rapport remet en question les affirmations faites par les autorités congolaises et ougandaises selon lesquelles leurs opérations militaires contre la LRA l’ont substantiellement affaibli, et que seuls des poches résiduels de combattants, ne dépassant pas plus de 200 rebellas au total et éparpillés dans la région qui inclue la République centrafricaine et le Sud-Soudan, continuent à pauser problème.

L’armée ougandaise a accueilli ce rapport avec scepticisme. “Je doute de ces chiffres”, a déclaré lundi à l’AFP le porte-parole de l’armée ougandaise, le lieutenant-colonel Felix Kulayigye. Il a ajouté, “Vu la population dans la région et le nombre de combattants (de la LRA), je doute qu’ils aient eu le temps de tuer 300 personnes et d’en kidnapper 250.”

En lisant le rapport de Human Rights Watch, on s’aperçoit très vite que derrière les faits rapportés se cache un plaidoyer pour le maintien de la MONUC en RDC.

La publication du rapport à quelques semaines de la décision du Conseil de sécurité sur le retrait de la MONUC n’est pas une coïncidence. Presque tous les rapports de Human Rights Watch sur la situation en RDC on été publiés à un moment critique pour influencer l’opinion publique.

Le Conseil de sécurité doit donner une réponse à la demande des autorités congolaises à l’ONU de retirer complètement sa force de maintien de la paix en RDC (MONUC) d’ici Juin 2011. Selon les discussions en cours, les casques bleus devraient commencer à se retirer des régions de l’ouest, du centre et du sud de la RDC à partir de Juin 2010.

Selon Anneke Van Woundenberg, “les habitants du Nord-est du Congo ont désespérément besoin d’avantage – et non pas moins – de protection.” Elle a ajouté, “le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU devrait arrêter tout retrait de soldats de maintien de la paix de la MONUC des zones où la LRA menace de tuer et d’enlever des civils.”

La MONUC se trouve en RDC depuis 1999. Elle est la plus grande force de maintien de la paix de l’ONU au monde avec plus de 18.000 casques bleus. Son budget annuel s’élève à plus de 1 milliard de dollars américains.

Bien que les casques bleus donnent un appui logistique aux FARDC, et assistent dans la protection des civils, ils ne sont pas engagés dans les combats directs contres la LRA ou encore les rebelles des Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR).

Alan Doss, le Représentant spécial du Secrétaire général de l’ONU en RDC et chef de la MONUC, a dit au Conseil de sécurité en octobre 2009 que “les opérations menées par l’armée congolaise, connue sous le nom des FARDC au Nord-Kivu, Sud Kivu et la province orientale ont considérablement érodé la capacité des rebelles hutus des Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) et des rebelles ougandais de l’Armée de résistance du Seigneur (LRA).”

La LRA est l’un des groupes rebelles les plus brutaux en Afrique. Personne ne doute de sa capacité, même diminuée, à commettre des atrocités contre les populations. Des milliers de civiles ont périt aux mains de ces terroristes depuis des décennies en Ouganda, au Congo, dans la République centrafricaine et au Sud-Soudan.

Leurs atrocités contre les populations congolaises sont souvent rapportées dans la presse tant locale qu’internationale, ou encore par les agences humanitaires et celles de l’ONU qui opèrent dans la région.

Ce qui étonne dans ce dernier cas, c’est que Human Rights Watch affirme que ces massacres n’ont pas été rapportés dans la presse et que son rapport constitue “la première recherche documentée détaillée sur le massacre de Makombo et d’autres atrocités perpétrées par la LRA au Congo en 2009 et début 2010.”

Le fait que la MONUC a actuellement 1000 soldats de maintien de la paix en Province Orientale, et n’a apparemment rien su sur des massacres d’une telle ampleur, alors que quelques chercheurs de Human Rights Watch ont pu les documenter en quelques jours, met en question l’efficacité de la MONUC et sa capacité à accomplir son rôle principal de protection des civiles.

Human Rights Watch says that the LRA killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children.

According to Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, “The four-day rampage demonstrates that the LRA remains a serious threat to civilians and is not a spent force, as the Ugandan and Congolese governments claim.”

This report does indeed call into question assertions made by the Congolese and Ugandan authorities that their military operations against the LRA have substantially weakened the rebel group, and that only residual pockets of fighters, not exceeding more than 200 rebels in total and scattered in the region that includes the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan, continue to pause problem.

The Ugandan army responded with skepticism to the report. “I doubt these numbers,” Lieutenant-Colonel Felix Kulayigye, spokesman for the Ugandan army, told the AFP on Monday. He added, “Considering the population in the region and the number of LRA fighters, I doubt they have had time to kill 300 people and kidnap another 250.”

In reading the report, one quickly realizes that behind the reported facts lies a plea for MONUC to remain the DRC.

The Security Council must respond to a request by Congolese authorities for the United Nations to completely withdraw its peacekeeping force, known as MONUC, from the DRC by June 2011. Based on ongoing discussions, the peacekeepers should start withdrawing from parts of western, central and southern DRC by June 2010.

The release of this report only a few weeks before the Security Council responds is no coincidence. Almost all Human Rights Watch reports on the situation in the DRC have been published at a critical time to influence public opinion.

According to Anneke Van Woundenberg, “The people of northeastern Congo are in desperate need of more protection, not less.” She added, “The UN Security Council should stop any drawdown of MONUC peacekeeping troops from areas where the LRA threatens to kill and abduct civilians.”

MONUC has been in the DRC since 1999. It is the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world with more than 18,000 peacekeepers. Its annual budget has grown to more than 1 billion U.S. dollars.

Although MONUC’s peacekeepers provide logistical support to the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC), and assist in protecting civilians, they are not engaged in direct combat against the LRA or the rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Alan Doss, the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in the DRC, and head of MONUC, told the Security Council in October 2009 that “operations by the Congolese Army, known as FARDC, in North Kivu, South Kivu and Orientale provinces have significantly eroded the capacities of the Hutu rebel Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).”

The LRA is one of the most brutal rebel groups in Africa. Nobody doubts its ability, even diminished, to commit atrocities against civilians. Thousands of civilians have died at the hands of these terrorists for decades in Uganda, Congo, the Central African Republic and southern Sudan.

Their atrocities against the Congolese people are often reported in the local and international press, and by humanitarian agencies and UN agencies operating in the region.

What is surprising in this case is that Human Rights Watch says that these killings went unreported for months and that its report is ” the first detailed documentation of the Makombo massacre and other atrocities by the LRA in Congo in 2009 and early 2010. ”

The fact that MONUC currently has 1,000 peacekeeping troops in Orientale Province, and apparently did not know about a massacre of such magnitude, while a few researchers from Human Rights Watch were able to document it in a few days, calls into question the effectiveness of MONUC and its ability to perform its primary mandate of protecting civilians.

• Cease immediately all attacks on civilians.

• Take all necessary measures, including making public statements, to ensure that FDLR     forces do not commit human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war.

• Carry out investigations into war crimes committed by FDLR forces and take appropriate disciplinary measures against any member of the FDLR, regardless of rank, found responsible.

• Stop blocking the return of Rwandan refugees to Rwanda. Support the establishment of safe humanitarian corridors to allow refugees to return home.

Maybe, you are asking yourself if this is a joke. No, it’s not. Human Rights Watch has actually called on the FDLR, a terrorist organization known for its atrocities in eastern Congo for more than a decade, to “investigate” its members for war crimes.

Be assured, after the FDLR complies, they will report their findings, arrest those responsible, and make them available to the Congolese authorities, or the Rwandan authorities, or maybe send them to a more neutral venue like the International Criminal Court.

Breaking News: the FDLR respond to Human Rights Watch

Dear Human Rights Watch,

After reading your recommendations, we, the leadership of the FDLR, have decided to cease immediately all attacks on civilians.

We have carried out an investigation into our actions in eastern Congo. We have concluded that we are indeed a terrorist organization, culpable of vicious crimes, and we will turn ourselves to the International Criminal Court.

We will no longer stop Rwandan refugees to return to Rwanda. Of course, if Rwandan refugees returned home, this would cut into our main recruiting base, but be assured, we will comply anyway, because you have kindly asked us to do so.

We will even go further than you have asked us, we will also name all those among us who were involved in the Rwandan genocide and turn them to the Rwandan authorities.

Sincerely,

Ignace Murwanyashiaka, Straton Musoni, FDLR leadership

Back to reality

The FDLR is one of the most brutal rebel force that Africa has ever known. They have been branded as terrorists by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States.

In its report, Human Rights Watch writes, “On November 17, 2009, the FDLR president, Ignace

Murwanashyaka, and his deputy, Straton Musoni, were arrested by authorities in Germany

for their role in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by FDLR forces

under their command in eastern Congo between January 2008 and July 2009. They were also

charged with belonging to a terrorist group.”

Human Rights Watch also writes in the report that, as recently as August 10, the group had a “meeting” with Ignace Murwanashyaka. The group also reveals that it had other “various individual and group meetings with FDLR commanders and low-ranking combatants.”

Yes, Human Rights Watch admits it has held meetings with the leaders of a known terrorist group.

No wonder Human Rights Watch think they can change the FDLR rebels into saints with recommendations. After all, they have looked into their eyes and seen their souls.

It is, of course, pure lunacy to think that the FDLR rebels can investigate themselves, stop attacking civilians, and become model citizens of the Great Lakes region, just because Human Rights Watch says so. This is the most naïve recommendation, and there are many, included in this report. This is like asking Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to investigate Al Qaeda members and punish them for committing terrorist acts.

This time, Human Rights Watch was careful to include in its report a detailed description of the atrocities committed by the FDLR. Its previous reports had focused on the alleged atrocities of the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC), barely mentioning the FDLR.

This approach has led the Congolese Government to issue strong responses to the group’s claims. The Congolese Government has said that Human Rights Watch has an “hidden agenda” in eastern Congo. With the revelations that the group has been meeting with the terrorists of the FDLR, few would blame the government for making such statements.

With the arrest of FDLR leaders by German Authorities, and the report by UN-mandated experts detailing the atrocities of the FDLR and their international support network, Human Rights Watch can simply no longer afford to issue one –sided reports on the situation in eastern Congo without further losing its credibility.

The NGO is now claiming that Congolese soldiers killed “at least 270 civilians between the towns of Nyabiondo and Pinga in a remote part of North Kivu province since March. Many of them had been killed during two massacres in August at Mashango and Ndoruma villages.”

The NGO claims that “Congolese army soldiers had deliberately killed at least 505 civilians from the start of operation Kimia II in March through September.”

The NGO now also claims that “another 198 civilians were deliberately killed by Congolese army soldiers and their Rwandan army allies during an earlier five-week joint operation, known as Umoja Wetu, in late January and February.”

Human Rights Watch has published countless “reports” on the situation in eastern Congo.

Lambert Mende told the BBC’s Network Africa programme yesterday that “there is no day that can pass without Human Rights Watch accusing our government or our army or our police.” And that, “Human Rights Watch is working for Human Rights Watch and not for the Congolese people.”

The Congolese Government, mainly through its spokesman, has claimed it is under “attack” by the NGO. It has accused the NGO of making “unfounded” allegations, and even having an hidden “agenda” in eastern Congo.

In an interview on Top Congo FM on July 2, 2009, responding to another damning “report” from the NGO, Lambert Mende said that if Human Rights Watch “has a score to settle with (President) Joseph Kabila, they shouldn’t try to use the situation in eastern Congo to do it. They are simply trying to weaken and demoralize us in our existential right of resistance against terrorist movements.”

He also accused the NGO of turning a blind eye on the atrocities of the FDLR, most of whom committed the Rwandan genocide in 1994, before fleeing to eastern Congo where they have since been accused by other respectable NGOs and the United Nations of committing numerous crimes against the Congolese population.

Lambert Mende told Top Congo FM that “Human Rights Watch has said almost nothing against the FDLR and LRA (Ugandan militia) that are attacking us. All the attacks from Human Rights Watch are aimed at the Congolese government. Enough is enough.”

He accused the NGO of pursuing a hidden agenda in the Congo. He said he wondered why the NGO has focused its “attacks” on the Congolese Government, which is only trying to protect itself against “terrorist groups.”

On Wednesday, responding to a call made by the NGO for the Congolese army to stop its military operation against the FDLR, Lambert Mende said it is “nonsensical” for the NGO to call for a return to the “status quo.”

He said that some NGOs are more interested by the “effects” of war instead of solving its root cause (FDLR).

More than 5,400,000 people have died in Congo over the last decade, in big part due to the presence of the Rwandan Hutu refugees and militiamen (FDLR) who fled to eastern Congo after the Rwandan genocide.

The current Rwandan authorities used the presence of the FDLR in eastern Congo as a pretext to invade the region during the Second Congo War. After withdrawing their troops in 2002, they supported the Tutsi rebels led by warlord Laurent Nkunda, who also claimed that he was protecting “his people” against attacks from the FDLR.

Laurent Nkunda and his men wreacked havoc in the region before the Congolese and Rwandan governments decided to mount a joint military operation (Umoja Wetu) to attack the FDLR. Umoja Wetu also led to the arrest of Laurent Nkunda by the Rwandan army.

Since then, the FARDC have launched a military operation (Kimia I) against the FDLR in North Kivu province that has led to an improvement in the humanitarian situation of the population. A second phase (Kimia II) is now underway in South Kivu province to finally rid the area of this scourge of the FDLR that has led to so many deaths in the Great Lakes region.

The United Nations News Service reported on October 16, 2009 that:

The top United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today voiced optimism that calm could soon return to the country’s volatile eastern region, while noting that a number of challenges still remain.
“There is now a real prospect that the conflicts that have long blighted the eastern Congo can be ended,” Alan Doss, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for DRC and head of the UN peacekeeping force there, told the Security Council.

Highlighting progress on a number of fronts, he stated that operations by the Congolese Army, known as FARDC, in North Kivu, South Kivu and Orientale provinces have significantly eroded the capacities of the Hutu rebel Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

He also said that it would be a mistake to stop the military operation against the FDLR now. Clearly, Mr. Doss doesn’t agree with Human Rights Watch approach.

By only “attacking” one side of the conflict, the Congolese government, the NGO often gives the impression of protecting the other side, the FDLR. Are human rights violations one-sided?

The NGO has recently been criticized in an op-ed article in the New York Times by its founder, Robert Bernstein, for this kind of approach about the Israeli palestinian conflict.

“As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics,” he wrote.

“Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”

“Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.”

He said in a statement that, in response to these reports, he has written a booklet to put in context the situation in eastern Congo, stressing its history, people, resources, but also its social and security problems which are fueling “the fertile imagination of some humanitarians and members of the media looking for catastrophes and sensational stories to sell”.

Lambert Mende said that, historically, massive violations of human rights in Democratic Republic of Congo began in the early 90s, with the arrival of Rwandan Hutu refugees in the North-East of the country after the Rwandan genocide. This influx heightened insecurity at the DR Congo-Rwanda border.

He said that, after 5.400.000 deaths due to war and its consequences during the last decade, some NGOs are only focused on its immediate effects and not on solving its causes, at the risk of letting the same effects occur over and over again.

“Those who are always telling others what to do, as if they know the Democratic Republic of Congo better than the Congolese themselves”, are suffering from “the illusion of immediate knowledge” that usually affects “amateur ethnologists”, he said.

He said that these NGOs have drastically changed their position since January 2008. First, they called on the government to sign the Goma peace accords with armed groups to stop the fighting and protect the population. Now, he said, they are claiming that these populations are suffering even more than when they were living under the control of these armed groups.

He reminded the NGOs that the Goma peace accords called for all armed groups to disarm and for those who refused to be disarmed by force.

“Today, the Government, with the support of MONUC, is busy restoring State authority throughout the national territory, particularly in the East and North-East”, he said.

He added that the NGOs that are now calling on the government to stop its military operation (Kimia II) against Rwandan Hutu militiamen (FDLR) are the same ones who have documented the numerous atrocities committed by the FDLR against the local population since they crossed the border from Rwanda in the 90s.

It is “nonsensical” for these NGOs to call for a return to the “status quo”, he said.

He also said that several headquarters of the FDLR have been destroyed during Kimia II and the militiamen have been forced to abandon regions rich in mineral resources which they occupied and used to fund their operations.

“The remaining FDLR are now cut off from all their sources of income, tens of thousands of displaced people in North and South Kivu have been able to return home. The military structure of the FDLR has been permanently destabilized. More than 10,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees, who were the FDLR recruitment base, have been repatriated. Relations between Rwanda and the DRC have improved. The CNDP and other armed groups have integrated the FARDC”, he said.

He also said that, “It is legitimate for the Government to question the intentions of NGOs that, regardless of this progress, constantly strive to produce ultra-negative reviews of FARDC operations”.

He said that, even though some members of the FARDC have been involved in acts of violence against civilians, it’s an “exaggeration” to put the FARDC in the same basket as these “armed terrorist groups”.

“The reform of the judiciary initiated in DR Congo is a priority for the ruling majority. Who can say otherwise after the decrees on the Judiciary by the Head of State and the ongoing recruitment of 1,000 new judges by competition?”, he asked.

“Operation Zero Tolerance against corruption and other anti-values continues “, he said.

He also said that, “Just for the year 2008, 3453 police and soldiers were detained in our country, either as convicts or as defendants”. He added that, “It should be noted that these soldiers and police officers were prosecuted or convicted for crimes related mainly to cases of murder, sexual assault, and robbery with violence”.

“Why does Human Rights Watch choose to ignore this data?”, he asked.

“In an army of around 130,000 soldiers, these figures represent around 2% of the FARDC.
Can a government honestly be accused of condoning impunity when it imprisons 2% of its soldiers in time of war?”

“The minimization of the successes of Operation Kimia II, as well as the omission of the cost in lives made by FARDC soldiers killed in this operation (55 until October 14), captured by the FDLR (7) or wounded (20), gives an idea of the true ideological predispositions of the authors of Human Rights Watch report”, he said.

He said at the end that, “it is useful to note that despite all of this; the human rights NGOs are not the enemies of the Congolese Government, which in any event does not consider them as such. The Government continues to believe that the work of these support structures, when properly done, can help the Government to improve services to the population”.

He accused the NGO of pursuing a hidden agenda in the Congo. He said he wondered why the NGO has focused its “attacks” on the Congolese Government, which is only trying to protect itself against “terrorist groups”.

Lambert Mende said that the NGO seems to have found an “easy target” in the Congolese Government. He questioned its “tendency to shoot on ambulances”. He added that it’s “easy for Human Rights Watch to attack a country like ours”. And that, “Human Rights Watch should be applauded for its courage to always shoot at the weak”.

Lambert Mende said that the DRC “no longer needs these kind of groups that come here simply to get something to work on, to increase their budgets, or extend their mandates”.

He also said that it’s not because there are still “terrorist acts being perpetrated” in eastern Congo “that the Government has failed”. He argued that many other countries have had difficulties dealing with terrorist groups without being labeled by the NGO as failed states.

Lambert Mende also said that if Human Rights Watch “has a score to settle with Joseph Kabila, they shouldn’t try to use the situation in eastern Congo to do it. They are simply trying to weaken and demoralize us in our existential right of resistance against terrorist movements”.

He added that “Human Rights Watch has said almost nothing against the FDLR (Rwandan Hutu militia) and LRA (Ugandan militia) that are attacking us. All the attacks from Human Rights Watch are aimed at the Congolese government. Enough is enough!”.

Critics of the report say it is full of allegations for which the rights group provides no proof. Many allegations are simply based on hearsay or other reports from Congolese organisations opposed to the government.

The government has also pointed out Human Rights Watch lead researcher on Congo, Anneke Van Woudenberg, apparent bias against the authorities in Kinshasa.

During a recent interview with the French service of the Voice of America, at the height of the rebels’ advance towards Goma, she wondered if Congolese authorities “had the brains”, in other words the intelligence, to fight warlord Laurent Nkunda.

In another interview with Voice of America in Kinshasa this week, after the release of the report, Van Woudenberg suggested that people should not be so focused on what’s going on in eastern Congo and should also focus on western Congo.

More then 5,400,000 people have died in Congo since 1998, most of them in eastern Congo, because of wars launched by foreign-backed rebels. Eastern Congo is plagued today with an indescribable scale of violence against women and children. Although Congolese troops have recently been implicated in some cases of rapes and looting, most of the violence has for years been perpetrated by the various militia and rebel groups in the region.

For Anneke Van Woudenberg to imply that the world should turn its focus to western Congo, or that the government is implicated in human rights violations comparable to those being perpetrated daily by Laurent Nkunda’s rebels, is irresponsible and further proof of the vicious intentions behind the release of this report and its timing.

The timing for the release of this report is also suspicious because Congolese authorities are now trying to garner international support in their fight against the Rwandan-backed rebels led by Laurent Nkunda.

Apart from trying to undermine the Congolese government, the rights group may also be trying to gain publicity, and boost its year-end fundraising operations, by making these allegations at a time when the international community is focused on finding a solution to the humanitarian catastrophe caused by recent rebel advances in North Kivu.

Although Human Rights Watch called for the arrest of Laurent Nkunda for war crimes in 2006, the rights group is yet to compile any sizable report of the numerous human rights abuses and war crimes the warlord has been accused of committing.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement that “Nkunda’s forces battled pro-government Mai Mai militias on November 4 and 5 in Kiwanja, killing a number of civilians trapped in the zone of conflict. Eyewitnesses in Kiwanja told Human Rights Watch that at least 20 persons were killed and another 33 wounded during a battle for the town and in the cleanup operations by Nkunda’s forces that followed”.

The international community has come to realize that the rebels are on a mission of population and ethnic cleansing in North Kivu province. The population has run away from the rebels during each of their advances. No one can blame them when we see what happens to those who dare to stay in their homes under rebel occupation. Media reports indicate that the rebels went door to door killing those who were unable to flee.

Warlord Laurent Nkunda is infuriated that those he claims he wants to “liberate” have rejected him and his cohorts. He has decided to massacre, once again, innocent civilians, attack and burn refugee camps, and clean entire villages of anyone he thinks might be sympathetic to the legitimate government.

One wonders how long, how many massacres, how many millions of dead innocent civilians it will take before the International Criminal Court and other judicial jurisdictions indict, arrest and bring to justice this blood-thirsty warmonger and his supporters in Rwanda.