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By�Filip Reyntjens*

The report on serious violations of international humanitarian law in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1993 and 2003, compiled by the UN High Commission on Human Rights, was published on October 1st. A leak of the report in the French daily Le Monde on August 27th led to great controversy. Rwanda, accused of the most serious crimes, called the report �malicious, offensive and ridiculous�, and threatened to withdraw its peacekeeping force from Sudan.

Rwanda�s reaction was actually the cause, rather than a consequence of the leak. The draft report was communicated to the parties involved in July, and Rwanda did everything in its power to avoid publication. On August 8th, Rwanda�s foreign affairs minister wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon that �attempts to take action on this report – either through its release or leaks to the media – will force us to withdraw from Rwanda�s various commitments to the United Nations, especially in the area of peacekeeping.�

‘Genocide credit’

It seems, then, that the leak was organised in order to counter Rwanda�s attempts to smother the report. For Kigali this was a crucial issue: the government was now officially accused of genocide against Hutu refugees in Congo, while for the past 15 years that same government gained legitimacy from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis. The so called �genocide credit� was exploited by Kigali as a trading tool and has gained the government sympathy, aid and impunity.

Kigali�s blackmail failed: the published report is not substantially different from the leaked version. It confirmed what was already widely known: during the ten year period studied by the report, wide scale war crimes, crimes against humanity and �probably� genocide have taken place in Congo. The report must be praised for compiling information scattered over dozens of sources into a coherent entity, and for documenting a number of previously unknown episodes.

‘G-word’

The most serious and systematic crimes are placed on the doorstep of Paul Kagame�s Rwanda. The report not only mentions dozens of occurrences of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but also points at �circumstances and facts from which a court could infer the intention to destroy the Hutu ethnic group in the DRC in part�, a reference to the genocide convention. A UN investigative team already came to a similar conclusion in 1998: �The systematic massacre of those (Hutu refugees) remaining in Zaire was an abhorrent crime against humanity, but the underlying rationale for the decision is material to whether these killings constituted genocide, that is, a decision to eliminate, in part, the Hutu ethnic group�. The psychologically charged discussion on the �g word� is not that relevant: the other documented crimes are serious enough to warrant the prosecution of suspects. The report does not even address the tens of thousands of civilians killed by the RPF in Rwanda in 1994 and between 1997 and 1998.

Besides Rwanda, many other regional players were responsible for serious human rights violations: the armed forces of Za�re/Congo, Angola, Burundi and Uganda are mentioned, but also unofficial armed groups ranging from ethnic militias to rebel movements from Congo and neighbouring countries. Apart from a few militia leaders from Ituri and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, no one has ever been prosecuted.

Prosecutions

What needs to be done, now that it has been convincingly shown that violations of international humanitarian law have taken place on a massive scale�crimes for which no limitation applies? In the past, the answer has been impunity, which led to new and ever more serious crimes. For example, it is likely that if the Rwanda Tribunal (ICTR) were to have given the signal that perpetrators of crimes committed by the RPF in Rwanda in 1994 would be indicted, the Kigali regime would have acted with more restraint in Za�re/Congo in 1996 and 1997.

The report points out that prosecutions are not just a necessity, but an international legal duty. It also explores a number of scenarios. Although the Congolese judiciary has, in principle, the authority over crimes committed on Congolese soil, it is too weak and has too little independence to take on such an immense task. The report calls for a mixed judicial mechanism consisting of national and international members. It also urges that national judicial authorities act in a similar way, applying the principles of universal jurisdiction. In the past, a few countries have already judged Hutus suspected to be involved in the 1994 genocide. However the victor, the RPF, has been left untouched so far, including by the Rwanda Tribunal, with the known consequences.

Legally and philosophically the situation is clear and simple: hundreds of suspects must be prosecuted. But there is such a thing as Realpolitik.
? Will President Kagame, his defence minister General James Kabarebe, who was very �active� in Congo, and dozens of other high Rwandan officers be arrested, indicted and sentenced to many years in jail?
? Are some political leaders, such as those in Washington DC and London who have systematically supported the Rwandan regime and rolled out the red carpet for Kagame, willing to accept such a prospect?
? Would the African Union, the syndicate of heads of state who have resisted handing over Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court, let that happen?
? Would the European Commission, which likes to lecture Kabila on human rights, insist on prosecutions?

I fear the answer to these questions is �no�. My bet is that Rwanda and other states and players in the region will suffer some political damage, but that the perpetrators will again escape prosecution and punishment. We will all be guilty of the fact that millions of vulnerable civilians in Central Africa continue to be threatened by strategies of violence unleashed by leaders who enjoy total immunity.

*Filip Reyntjens is Professor of Law and Politics,�Institute of Development Policy and�Management (IOB), University of Antwerp.

[Radio Netherlands]

by Jean-Roger Kaseki.

Following�the UN report on Rwanda’s possible involvement in genocide in DRC, the international community must strengthen human rights mechanisms through the creation of an International Criminal Court on DR Congo.

The United Nations has accused Rwanda of wholesale war crimes, including possibly genocide, during years of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An unprecedented 600-page investigation by the UN high commissioner for human rights catalogues years of murder, rape and looting in a conflict in which hundreds of thousands were slaughtered. This UN report published on 1 October by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights confirms a draft version of the report leaked earlier. The report says gross human rights violations and abuses over a period of 10 years (from 1993 to 2003) and two invasions by Rwanda, amount to �crimes against humanity, war crimes, or even genocide’ because the principal targets of the violence were Hutus, who were killed in their tens of thousands.

Among the accusations is that Rwandan forces and local allies rounded up hundreds of men, women and children at a time and butchered them with hoes and axes. On other occasions Hutu refugees were bayoneted, burned alive or killed with hammer blows in large numbers. It is the first time the UN has published such forthright allegations against Rwanda, a close ally of Britain and the US. The Rwandan government reacted angrily to the report, dismissing it as �amateurish’ and �outrageous’ after reportedly attempting to pressure the UN not to publish it by threatening to pull out of international peacekeeping missions. Rwanda’s Tutsi leaders will be particularly discomfited by the accusation of genocide when they have long claimed the moral high ground for bringing to an end the 1994 genocide in their own country. But the report was welcomed by human rights groups, who called for the prosecution of those responsible for war crimes.

The report covers two periods: Rwanda’s 1996 invasion of Congo, then called Zaire, in pursuit of Hutu soldiers and others who fled there after carrying out the 1994 genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, and a second invasion two years later that broadened into a regional war involving eight countries, and more than six million innocent Congolese were killed during this disastrous war dubbed �Africa’s first world war. Rwanda’s attack on Zaire in 1996 was initially aimed at clearing the vast UN refugee camps around Goma and Bukavu, which were being used as cover by Hutu armed forces to continue the war against the new Tutsi-led government in Kigali. Hundreds of thousands of the more than one million Hutus in eastern Zaire were forced back to Rwanda. Many more, including men who carried out the genocide but also large numbers of women and children, fled deeper into Zaire. They were pursued and attacked by the Rwandan army and a Zairean rebel group sponsored by Kigali, the AFDL. The two Rwandan invasions led to a complete collapse of state institutions in Congo then called Zaire. There was power and political vacuum and therefore human rights became a key issue.

While focusing on human rights protection, international human rights instruments can be classified into two categories: declarations, adopted by bodies such as the United Nations General Assembly, which are not legally binding although they may be politically so; and conventions, which are legally binding instruments concluded under international law. International treaties and even declarations can, over time, obtain the status of customary international law.

International human rights instruments can be divided further into global instruments, to which any state in the world can be part of, and regional instruments, which are restricted to states in a particular region of the world.

Most conventions establish mechanisms to oversee their implementation. In some cases these mechanisms have relatively little power, and are often ignored by member states; in other cases these mechanisms have great political and legal authority, and their decisions are almost always implemented. Examples of the first case include the UN treaty committees, while the best example of the second case is the European Court of Human Rights.

Mechanisms also vary as to the degree of individual access to them. Under some conventions – eg the European Convention on Human Rights (as it currently exists) – individuals or states are permitted, subject to certain conditions, to take individual cases to the enforcement mechanisms; under most, however (eg the UN conventions), individual access is contingent on the acceptance of that right by the relevant state party, either by a declaration at the time of ratification or accession, or through ratification of or accession to an optional protocol to the convention. This is part of the evolution of international law over the last several decades. It has moved from a body of laws governing states to recognising the importance of individuals and their rights within the international legal framework.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are sometimes referred to as the international bill of rights.

The following are human rights mechanisms regarding the Africa region:

� African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples’ Rights

� African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the child

� Maputo protocol

� International Criminal Court on Rwanda established in Arusha ( Tanzania ) following the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

This historic UN report tackling impunity in Congo describes �the systematic, methodical and premeditated nature of the attacks on the Hutus, which took place in all areas where the refugees had been tracked down’. The pursuit lasted months and, occasionally, humanitarian aid intended for them was deliberately blocked, notably in the eastern province, thus depriving them of things essential to their survival, the report said. The extent of the crimes and the large number of victims, probably in the several tens of thousands, are demonstrated by the numerous incidents detailed in the report. The extensive use of non-firearms, particularly hammers, and the systematic massacres of survivors after camps were taken prove that the number of deaths cannot be put down to the margins of war. Among the victims were mostly children, women, old and ill people. The report goes on to say that �the systematic and widespread attacks have a number of damning elements which, if proven before a competent court, could be described as crimes of genocide’.

The UN also adds that while Kigali has permitted Hutus to return to Rwanda in large numbers, which did not �rule out the intention of destroying part of an ethnic group as such and thus committing a crime of genocide’, the Zairean army collapsed in the face of the invasion and Rwanda seized the opportunity to march across the country and overthrow the longstanding dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Laurent Kabila was installed as president. He promptly changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Rwanda invaded again in 1998 after accusing the new regime of continuing to support Hutu rebels. The following five years of war drew in armies from eight nations (Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Chad on the side of the then Congolese government and Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi on the rebels’ side) as well as 21 rebel groups in a conflict that quickly descended into mass plunder of the DRC’s minerals as well as a new wave of war crimes.

The UN report accuses Angolan forces of using the cover of the war to attack refugees from Angola’s conflict-plagued Cabinda province who had fled to the DRC. Angola is accused of executing all those they suspected of colluding with their enemies. Angolan soldiers also raped and looted, the UN investigation said. The same accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity are made by this UN report against Uganda, Burundi, Angola and Chad.

That is why it is imperative for the international community, especially the current British coalition government (ConDem government between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats) to ensure that these serious and shocking allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola and Chad committed in the DRC are investigated through an International Criminal Court on DR Congo to be set up and supported by the world community for justice to be done. We need to tackle the culture of impunity worldwide as no one is above the law, thus no one is above international law. A case for the creation of an International Criminal Court on DR Congo to investigate, arrest suspects and bring the perpetrators of these horrible and horrendous crimes to justice is compelling. That is the way forward and I appeal to the international community to support this recommendation from the UN report as there is no peace without justice.

Jean-Roger Kaseki is Labour councillor for Tollington ward in the London Borough of Islington, works at the Human Rights�and Social Justice Research Institute Associate/London Metropolitan University and�Congolese for Labour Chair.

Contact: Tel: 07903 610 138, email: [email protected]

[Progress Online]

by Alan Wallis.

No good reason to protect Rwandan fugitive

SPAIN wants him. Rwanda wants him. Given his questionable asylum status, SA seems to want him too.

SPAIN wants him. Rwanda wants him. Given his questionable asylum status, SA seems to want him too. And let�s not forget there is also someone who wants him dead. Rwandan former general Kayumbe Nyamwasa is proving to be quite popular, and not in a good way.

In 2008, Spanish authorities issued an arrest warrant for Nyamwasa, and 39 other high-ranking Rwandan army officials, after a Spanish court found that a prima facie case exists against him for the murder of four Spanish aid workers and a host of other atrocities committed under his command in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda . Rwanda claims Nyamwasa was responsible for a fatal grenade attack in Kigali early this year .

His arrival in SA came after his close relationship with Rwandan President Paul Kagame soured while he served as Rwanda�s representative in India. Following his recall, he fled to SA and has been granted asylum. It is only in the aftermath of an attempted assassination that questions were raised about his eligibility for asylum.

South African immigration and refugee law expressly forbids individuals implicated in serious crimes from obtaining asylum, yet SA�s authorities swiftly granted him asylum. A number of questions spring to mind and warrant informed speculation.

Nyamwasa�s presence in SA has been well documented. Why then has Spain only now made an extradition request? It could be because the Rwandan army has been implicated in war crimes in the recently leaked draft United Nations (UN) report documenting gross violations of human rights in the Congo. Nyamwasa�s known presence and high rank in the region at the time corresponds with a number of the horrific events highlighted in the draft report.

Rwanda�s motive seems more suspect. Nyamwasa�s alleged involvement in the grenade attacks may be a convenient cover to secure Nyamwasa�s custody in Rwanda. Nyamwasa and Kagame shared a close relationship and it may simply be that he knows too much about what happened in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and that silence will be easier to maintain on Rwandan soil. If Nyamwasa is forced to stand trial, he may take Kagame down with him.

This brings us to SA. SA was all too willing to grant Nyamwasa asylum. Whatever reasons the government has, it now has to decide whether to accede to the extradition requests. This decision is not one that can be made behind closed doors as a number of legal and international obligations come in to play.

SA could refuse both requests. It is not party to extradition agreements with either Rwanda or Spain. The Extradition Act, however, stipulates that individuals are liable to be extradited, even absent an agreement, if the president consents in writing. SA could, in terms of national and international law, argue that it is bound by the principle of non-refoulement not to extradite a requested individual if there is a reasonable belief that his fundamental rights will not be respected by the country requesting extradition. Given the suspicion that Nyamwasa will face persecution if surrendered to Rwanda, SA may be justified in refusing Rwanda�s request. But similar justification does not exist in respect of Spain�s request.

Still, even if SA refuses the requests, it may have to explain why it granted Nyamwasa asylum despite his unlikely eligibility. The decision could be subject to judicial review and set aside. If this transpires, his continued presence in SA would be unlawful.

The reality is that the context in which these decisions are to be made has changed since the draft UN report was leaked. Nyamwasa is a potential source of some very valuable information. It is probable that he was involved in the Rwandan army�s conduct documented in the leaked report. He could play a pivotal role in shedding light on Rwanda�s role in crimes committed in the Congo and the identity of the perpetrators, and this must be part of the decision-making process.

In this changed context, SA may have found itself up against a wall and, unless it is keeping Nyamwasa here for strategic reasons, Spain must be the preferred destination.

- Wallis is the International Justice Project lawyer at the Southern Africa Litigation Centre.

[Business Day]

by Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.

DRC MAPPING REPORT: THE VICTIMS CRY FOR JUSTICE.

At long last, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has released its final report into horrendous crimes that were committed among others by Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), against Hutu refugees in DRC from 1996 to 2003. Although justice delayed is justice denied, we salute the bravery of the UNHCHR, for refusing to bow down to intense pressure from the government of President Kagame and its lobbies, in order to water down the tone of the report.

By publishing the report, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has honoured the mandate bestowed on it by the General Assembly as an independent UN body to cater for the promotion and protection of human rights, and for implementing the human rights programme within the UN. The legal qualification is clear and the facts are so chilling that something has to be done.

It is quite shocking to see negative forces struggling to belittle the crimes that engulfed, according to NGOs, millions of DRC citizens and more than 300,000 Hutu refugees, by battling over the word “genocide”.

Whatever the legal framing, the crimes listed are so chilling that their authors ought to be prosecuted.

1. The July 1995 Srebrenica killings landed Milosevic, Karadzic and other Serbs leaders into jail. Yet, the victims were, according to UN records, between 6,000 and 8,000.
2. The UPC leader, Thomas Lubanga was arrested, and charged in ICC with minor crimes of enlisting and using child soldiers. This was done under the pressure of some of the very powers which are today reluctant to prosecute Rwandan leaders.
3. The killing of Rafik Hariri in Lebanon prompted the United Nations to set up a special tribunal.

Why should the Rwandan Patriotic Army misdeeds not be exposed and prosecuted?

As the report eloquently shows, the killings were systematic, selective, methodical and carried out over a long period of time that they cannot be termed as collateral damage. Nothing can justify the massacres of children, women and elderly people and reducing to ashes their bodies. Alleging that there were elements from former Rwandan government forces among refugees does not at all give to RPA a license for wanton and massive killings.

The Rwandan government reaction filed in Geneva on the eve of the release of this report is sadistic and misleading:

- The Rwandan government does not as such deny the mass and large-scale killings. Instead, it considers them as “self-defence against the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide” (item 14). Some of the killings took place as far as Mbandaka, over 3,000 km in the West. It is hard to believe that those victims were posing a security threat to Rwanda.

- The Rwandan government also links the invasion to “cross�border attacks”. The attacks on refugees started the very day RPA troops entered Gisenyi town on 18th July 1994. Indeed, mortar shells landed in the middle of crowds of refugees that were gathered in the vicinity of Goma airport. The airport had to be closed. So was the incursion of RPA in Birava in South Kivu in 1995.The assumption of self-defence betrays rather a well planned and premeditated crime.

- The claim by the Rwandan current regime of invading the DRC for “rescuing its own citizen and facilitating their return and reintegration (item 14) is another scapegoat illustration. There are reliable reports on killings targeting some returnees in different areas of the country. This is the case with the late catholic bishop Phocas Nikwigize of Ruhengeri who went missing at the crossing border of Gisenyi. Furthermore, the only military assault on refugees� camps is a serious crime.

Leaving unprosecuted the masterminders and perpetrators of these crimes, even for the selfish sake of not disturbing the UN peacekeeping forces in Darfur (Sudan), or for the sake of a false analysis of regional stability will give licence to militarism and violence as means of achieving political goals.

The embers of hate and mistrust will not be put out as long as there will be a double standard justice in Rwanda.

When the Security Council set up the two ad hoc international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, it considered truth-seeking and criminal punishment essential prerequisites for reconciliation and for maintaining or restoring peace (item 1010 of the UNHCHR report). The FDU-INKINGI fully agrees with this stance and expects the United Nations to bear this in mind. There will be no peace and sustainable development in the African Great Lakes Region in general and in Rwanda in particular, until there is fair justice and a fair road map to uproot the impunity. All the victims cry for justice and rehabilitation.

The FDU-INKINGI urges the UN Security Council in particular, to fulfill its international obligations to punish genocide and crimes against humanity including the establishment of an appropriate international tribunal to punish the culprits within the current Rwandan regime and rehabilitate the victims of these absolute crimes. A regime accused of such atrocities has no longer any moral legitimacy to run a country, leave alone the fact that it has totally closed down the political space to opponents and through unfair elections that were marred by political killings of opposition leaders and independent journalists.

Therefore, we call upon the UN to act on the report as a matter of urgency and ensure that a judicial mechanism is put in place. Otherwise, the UN will be betraying its mandate.

Kigali 01 October 2010.
Victoire INGABIRE UMUHOZA
Chairperson
FDU-INKINGI

Months before the UN report was published, she was the first Rwandan to publicly defy Kagame�s regime, on Rwandan soil, by mentioning war crimes committed to Hutu people during RPF military campaigns. Arriving in Rwanda since 16 years, besides acknowledging the Genocide against Tutsi, she equally mentioned crimes against humanity committed to Hutu people in history of Rwanda. �

Call for Accountability

� The report raises serious allegations of brutal and horrific mass killings, rape and other abuses during the period in question,� said �the US Government through the Assistant Secretary in charge of the Bureau of Public Affairs,� Philip J. Crowley, who has called� for accountability for crimes committed against Congolese and Rwandan ethnic Hutus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the last decades

January 2010, similar to conclusion of the U.S. political scientists Dr. Alan Stam of the University of Michigan and Dr. Christian Davenport of Notre Dame who have analyzed data from all reported crimes in Rwanda during 1994 and have concluded that more Hutu were killed or brutalized than Tutsi before and after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) seized power in July 1994, Victoire Ingabire issued a statement:

�We totally agree and are conscious that there has been genocide against Tutsis and we seriously and continuously advocate that all those who were responsible be brought before the courts of justice. We also agree that there have been other serious crimes against humanity and war crimes committed [against Hutus]; those who committed them have to bear the legal consequences. We must all the time remember those tragedies; make sure they don�t get ever repeated. We also need to ensure that people�s lives are effectively and strongly protected by laws�

She refused to submit to the only one-sided orthodoxy permitted by Kagame�s regime. This is something that is still taboo in the country today. Mentioning that RPF leadership commandeered atrocities is a crime that could get you sentenced to more than 25 years of imprisonment under the country�s �genocide ideology� laws. For this, many compare Victoire Ingabire to the American activist, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks whose act of defiance to segregation laws became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and an international icon of resistance to racial segregation.

Smear campaign

Soon after she finished her speech, Kagame�s propaganda machine started her character assassination through the media. New Times accused her of being a genocide denier, �a munyarwanda of hate and divisionism�, a double genocide theorist, a revisionist and so on. A few weeks later, the National Police mirroring threats from President Kagame started the grilling of the new opposition leader in the country.

Endless interrogations in police corridors were designed to deter her determination, to dig anything that would help the government reject the registration of her political party, to freeze her freedom and finally to throw her in jail. Since then she is placed under permanent surveillance, her communications are monitored and many hacking attempts to her computers have been recorded. Later on, new charges were brought against her. Terrorism accusations for her alleged working with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) were later added to the list.

Before the UN report, she used to be the only one speaking loudly what many were saying secretly. She accused the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) of killing people and being a small group that manages the assets of the country.

The challenges and danger she faces still leaves me wondering how Victoire Ingabire could decide to come back home and stand as an opposition leader against Kagame. When many highest-ranking military officers, prominent politicians, senators, ambassadors and ordinary citizens who don�t agree with Kagame are heading for exile to save their lives, that is the time Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza is heading to Rwanda to do politics.

In Rwanda, people like General Kayumba Nyamwasa, a founding member of the ruling party RPF who narrowly escaped an assassination in exile in South Africa, are not safe home or abroad. Mr. Safari Stanley, Senator, the author of the RPF notorious vague law on � genocide ideology� and on genocide denial, has been charged of the same genocide ideology before going in exile. Mr. Joseph Sebarenzi, a speaker of the house of parliament and a genocide survivor has had to resign and ended up in exile for disagreeing with the government.

January 2010, Victoire Ingabire resigned from her job in the Netherlands, left her family behind and travelled to Rwanda to represent a party she knew had less chance of being registered. At Amsterdam Airport, she spent a few minutes with the press, she hugged goodbye to her children and husband, she waved to her supporters and she headed to the boarding gate on her way back to her homeland.

To those who know her, this came as no surprise because this lady�s political career didn�t start from there. Since she took the leadership of RDR, a political party that started as a refugees� advocate movement for their return way back in 1995, Victoire has engineered alliances and coalitions with other opposition parties, which culminated in the formation of her current exile-based FDU party.

Victoire Ingabire�s return to Rwanda was felt by many to be a significant and impactful initiative from Rwandan opposition. She strategically joined forces with two other embattled opposition leaders in the country, Mr Frank Habineza, President of the Democratic Green party and Mr. Bernard Ntaganda, President of Socialist Party to form a �Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties�.

She is now kept under house arrest and Kagame wants her to be forgotten before he jails her for the next 20 years or more.
[The Proxy Lake]