Opening the Secret Files on Lumumba's Murder

Opening the Secret Files on Lumumba's Murder

By Stephen R. Weissman


In his latest film, "Minority Report," director Steven Spielberg portrays a policy of "preemptive action" gone wild in the year 2054. But we don't have to peer into the future to see what harm faulty intelligence and the loss of our moral compass can do. U.S. policies during the Cold War furnish many tragic examples. One was U.S. complicity in the overthrow and murder of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

Forty-one years ago, Lumumba, the only leader ever democratically elected in Congo, was delivered to his enemies, tortured and summarily executed. Since then, his country has been looted by the U.S.-supported regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and wracked by regional and civil war.

The conventional explanation of Lumumba's death has been that he was murdered by Congolese rivals after earlier U.S. attempts to kill him, including a plot to inject toxins into his food or toothpaste, failed. In 1975, the U.S. Senate's "Church Committee" probed CIA assassination plots and concluded there was "no evidence of CIA involvement in bringing about the death of Lumumba."

Not so. I have obtained classified U.S. government documents, including a chronology of covert actions approved by a National Security Council (NSC) subgroup, that reveal U.S. involvement in -- and significant responsibility for -- the death of Lumumba, who was mistakenly seen by the Eisenhower administration as an African Fidel Castro. The documents show that the key Congolese leaders who brought about Lumumba's downfall were players in "Project Wizard," a CIA covert action program. Hundreds of thousands of dollars and military equipment were channeled to these officials, who informed their CIA paymasters three days in advance of their plan to send Lumumba into the clutches of his worst enemies. Other new details: The U.S. authorized payments to then-President Joseph Kasavubu four days before he ousted Lumumba, furnished Army strongman Mobutu with money and arms to fight pro-Lumumba forces, helped select and finance an anti-Lumumba government, and barely three weeks after his death authorized new funds for the people who arranged Lumumba's murder.

Moreover, these documents show that the plans and payments were approved by the highest levels of the Eisenhower administration, either the NSC or its "Special Group," consisting of the national security adviser, CIA director, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and deputy defense secretary.

These facts are four decades old, but are worth unearthing for two reasons. First, Congo (known for years as Zaire) is still struggling to establish democracy and stability. By facing up to its past role in undermining Congo's fledgling democracy, the United States might yet contribute to Congo's future. Second, the U.S. performance in Congo is relevant to our struggle against terrorism. It shows what can happen when, in the quest for national security, we abandon the democratic principles and rule of law we are fighting to defend.

In February, Belgium, the former colonial power in Congo, issued a thousand-page report that acknowledged "an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba." Unlike Belgium, the United States has admitted no such moral responsibility. Over the years, scholars (including myself) and journalists have written that American policy played a major role in the ouster and assassination of Lumumba. But the full story remained hidden in U.S. documents, which, like those I have examined, are still classified despite the end of the Cold War, the end of the Mobutu regime and Belgium's confession.

Here's what they tell us that, until now, we didn't know, or didn't know for certain:ï In August 1960, the CIA established Project Wizard. Congo had been independent only a month, and Lumumba, a passionate nationalist, had become prime minister, with a plurality of seats in the parliament. But U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was vowing to meet "the communist challenge" and Eisenhower's NSC was worried that Lumumba would tilt toward the Soviets.

The U.S. documents show that over the next few months, the CIA worked with and made payments to eight top Congolese -- including President Kasavubu, Mobutu (then army chief of staff), Foreign Minister Justin Bomboko, top finance aide Albert Ndele, Senate President Joseph Ileo and labor leader Cyrille Adoula -- who all played roles in Lumumba's downfall.

The CIA joined Belgium in a plan, detailed in the Belgian report, for Ileo and Adoula to engineer a no-confidence vote in Lumumba's government, which would be followed by union-led demonstrations, the resignations of cabinet ministers (organized by Ndele) and Kasavubu's dismissal of Lumumba.

ï On Sept. 1, the NSC's Special Group authorized CIA payments to Kasavubu, the U.S. documents say. On Sept. 5, Kasavubu fired Lumumba in a decree of dubious legality. However, Kasavubu and his new prime minister, Ileo, proved lethargic over the following week as Lumumba rallied supporters. So Mobutu seized power on Sept. 14. He kept Kasavubu as president and established a temporary "College of Commissioners" to replace the disbanded government.

ï The CIA financed the College and influenced the selection of commissioners. The College was dominated by two Project Wizard participants: Bomboko, its president, and Ndele, its vice-president. Another CIA ally, Lumumba party dissident Victor Nendaka, was appointed chief of the security police.

ï On Oct. 27, the NSC Special Group approved $250,000 for the CIA to win parliamentary support for a Mobutu government. However, when legislators balked at approving any prime minister other than Lumumba, the parliament remained closed. The CIA money went to Mobutu personally and the commissioners.

ï On Nov. 20, the Special Group authorized the CIA to provide arms, ammunition, sabotage materials and training to Mobutu's military in the event it had to resist pro-Lumumba forces.

The full extent of what one U.S. document calls the "intimate" relationship between the CIA and Congolese leaders was absent from the Church Committee report. The only covert action (apart from the assassination plots) the committee discussed was the August 1960 effort to promote labor opposition and a no-confidence vote in the Senate.How did Lumumba die? After being ousted Sept. 5, Lumumba rallied support in parliament and the international community. When Mobutu took over, U.N. troops protected Lumumba, but soon confined him to his residence. Lumumba escaped on Nov. 27. Days later he was captured by Mobutu's troops, beaten and arrested.

What happened next is clearer thanks to the Belgian report and the classified U.S. documents. As early as Christmas Eve 1960, College of Commissioners' president Bomboko offered to hand Lumumba over to two secessionist leaders who had vowed to kill him. One declined and nothing happened until mid-January 1961, when the central government's political and military position deteriorated and troops guarding Lumumba (then jailed on a military base near the capital) mutinied. CIA and other Western officials feared a Lumumba comeback.

On Jan. 14, the commissioners asked Kasavubu to move Lumumba to a "surer place." There was "no doubt," the Belgian inquiry concluded, that Mobutu agreed. Kasavubu told security chief Nendaka to transfer Lumumba to one of the secessionist strongholds. On Jan. 17, Nendaka sent Lumumba to the Katanga region. That night, Lumumba and two colleagues were tortured and executed in the presence of members of the Katangan government. No official announcement was made for four weeks.

What did the U.S. government tell its Congolese clients during the last three days of Lumumba's life? The Church Committee reported that a Congolese "government leader" advised the CIA's Congo station chief, Larry Devlin, on Jan. 14 that Lumumba was to be sent to "the home territory" of his "sworn enemy." Yet, according to the Church Committee and declassified documents, neither the CIA nor the U.S. embassy tried to save the former prime minister.

The CIA may not have exercised robotic control over its covert political action agents, but the failure of Devlin or the U.S. embassy to question the plans for Lumumba could only be seen by the Congolese as consent. After all, secret CIA programs had enabled this group to achieve political power, and the CIA had worked from August through November 1960 to assassinate or abduct Lumumba.

Here, the classified U.S. chronology provides an important postscript. On Feb. 11, 1961, with U.S. reports from Congo strongly indicating Lumumba was dead, the Special Group authorized $500,000 for political action, troop payments and military equipment, largely to the people who had arranged Lumumba's murder.

Devlin has sought to distance himself from Lumumba's death. While the CIA was in close contact with the Congolese officials involved, Devlin told the Church Committee that those officials "were not acting under CIA instructions if and when they did this." In a recent phone conversation with Devlin, I posed the issue of U.S. responsibility for Lumumba's death. He acknowledged that, "It was important to [these] cooperating leaders what the U.S. government thought." But he said he did "not recall" receiving advance word of Lumumba's transfer. Devlin added that even if he had objected, "That would not have stopped them from doing it."

By evading its share of moral responsibility for Lumumba's fate, the United States blurs African and American history and sidesteps the need to make reparation for yesterday's misdeeds through today's policy. In 1997, after the Mobutu regime fell, the Congolese democratic opposition pleaded in vain for American and international support. Since then, as many as 3 million lives have been lost as a result of civil and regional war. The United States has not supported a strong U.N. peacekeeping force or fostered a democratic transition. The collapse in late April 2002 of negotiations between Congolese factions threatens to reignite the smoldering conflict or ratify the partition of the country.

Our government's actions four decades ago in Congo also have special meaning after the tragedy of Sept. 11. They warn that even as we justly defend our land and our people against terrorists, we must avoid the excessive fear and zeal that lead to destructive intervention betraying our most fundamental principles.

Stephen Weissman is author of "A Culture of Deference; Congress's Failure of Leadership in Foreign Policy" (Basic Books). He was staff director of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on Africa from 1986 to 1991.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Erlinder released as Kagame cracks down on his own

Erlinder released as Kagame cracks down on his own
June 27, 2010
[Translate]

by Ann Garrison
American law professor Peter Erlinder returns

Peter Erlinder’s Kenyan lawyer Otachi Gershom, who, like Erlinder, is a defense lawyer at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda and opposition politician Victoire Ingabire left a Kigali courtroom relieved after a Rwandan judge agreed to release Erlinder on medical grounds.
U.S. law professor Peter Erlinder returned from three weeks imprisonment, from May 28 to June 17, in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, where he had traveled to act as defense counsel for embattled presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Ingabire remains under house arrest, unable to leave the country, and faces a possible 20-year prison sentence. Both she and Erlinder are still accused of violating Rwanda’s unique “genocide ideology” speech crime, which means disagreeing with the official history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

A Rwandan judge agreed to release Erlinder but only on medical grounds, not in response to the argument that his free speech rights and thus, by extension, the free speech rights of Victoire Ingabire and other Rwandans are guaranteed by the international human rights covenants that Rwanda has signed or by Rwanda’s membership in the British Commonwealth.

In his press conference at William and Mitchell College of Law in Minneapolis-St. Paul on Wednesday, June 23, following his return, Professor Erlinder thanked all the people around the world who had called for his release, and said that he owed his life to them and to the Internet. He called it a triumph for people power, but he also said that it would not have occurred if he had not been a white American lawyer with friends, family and allies capable of organizing and lobbying relentlessly for his release.

In Kigali, Ingabire said that Professor Erlinder’s arrest demonstrated the nature of the Rwandan regime. She called on all those who supported him to support Rwandans now.

She said, as Sen. Russ Feingold, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Africa, has in the Feingold Statement on the Fragility of Democracy in Africa, that the U.S should insist on democracy in Rwanda as a condition of its donor nation support.

However, with Rwanda’s 2010 election now only seven weeks away, and neither the FDU-Inkingi nor the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda allowed to contest the election, more and more Rwandans are losing hope and some have even concluded that only military invasion could unseat the Kagame regime, a possibility that President Kagame has attempted to circumvent by force repatriating refugees who might join a rebel army.
Assassins go after Rwandan exile Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa

On Saturday, June 25, an unidentified gunman attempted to assassinate Rwandan exile Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, an outspoken critic of President Kagame and a potential leader of a rebel army invading to overthrow him. The gunman opened fire on Kayumba as he returned home from a grocery store in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Rwandan police arrested P.S. Imberakuri presidential candidate Bernard Ntaganda in his home on the morning of Thursday, June 24, to prevent him from leaving for a protest he had called at the National Electoral Commission. Meanwhile, Rwandan President Paul Kagame was registering his “candidacy” in the faux election that Ntaganda and the other viable candidates have been excluded from.
Ingabire condemned the assassination attempt as another example of Kagame’s favored method of eliminating exiled dissidents and called once again for nonviolent political, not military, solutions.

Rwandan exile and Ingabire supporter Jean Manirarora, now a microbiological research scientist in Louisville, Kentucky, also called for political solutions but said that Gen. Kayumba has become the greatest threat to President Kagame because he is a Tutsi general popular with both Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis and could thus lead a Hutu and Tutsi army into Rwanda, with credible claim to being a national liberation army, not an army of genocidaires.

“There is no sign of an army organizing to invade Rwanda,” Manirarora said, but if there were and if Kayumba were to lead it, no one could say that he had come to finish off the Tutsi because he himself is a Tutsi.

On Thursday, June 24, hundreds of Rwandan opposition leaders and members, including P.S. Imberakuri Party leader and presidential candidate Bernard Ntaganda, were assaulted and arrested because of a protest planned at Rwanda’s National Electoral Commission that morning, as President Paul Kagame registered his candidacy and all the viable opposition was excluded. On the same day, the deputy editor of Rwanda’s Umuvugizi newspaper, Jean Leonard Rugambage, was shot dead on the way into his home in Kigali.

Shocked and grief stricken, Umuvugizi editor Jean Bosco Gasasiras, now in exile in Uganda, accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of ordering his security operatives to assassinate Rugambage. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa’s wife Rosette continues to accuse Kagame of sending operatives to assassinate her husband, and Rwandan journalist Godwin Agaba, also in exile in Uganda, said that Rugambage had just written a story revealing a plot to poison Kayumba in his sickbed in South Africa, where he is recovering from last week’s attempt on his life.
In the shadow of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command

Africa’s oil rich Gulf of Guinea
These arrests and intrigue in Rwanda create urgencies that distract from an AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command) conference that concluded in Kigali at the same time Professor Erlinder was being released. The conference was called to plan an August military “exercise” in Accra, Ghana, on the Gulf of Guinea, which is critical to the control of West African oil and gas and oil and gas transport corridors in the Gulf of Guinea and the rivers flowing into it.

On May 16, 2001, the Office of Vice President Richard Cheney produced a document titled “West African Oil: a Priority for U.S. National Security and African Development,” a “National Energy Policy Report.” For whatever reason, the policy report’s Web URL is http://www.israeleconomy.org/strategic/africawhitepaper/pdf.

The Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on the conclusion of the AFRICOM conference in a story with the headline “U.S. military not intending to control Africa” – says Army chief.” The RNA report quoted a senior Rwandan military chief saying, “A new U.S. military program training African armies including Rwanda is not a U.S. move to dominate the African continent.”

Many Africans, not only Rwandan and Congolese, and Americans, especially African Americans, seemed to believe that this statement reduced the credibility of the Kagame government, which also insists that it had nothing to do with the latest round of assassinations and assassination attempts in Rwanda and surrounding nations.

San Francisco writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Digital Journal, Examiner.com, OpEdNews, Global Research, Colored Opinions and her blog, Plutocracy Now. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com.
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S.Africa arrests 6 in attempt on exiled Rwandan

SAfrica arrests 6 in attempt on exiled Rwandan

By LESEGO MOTSHEGWA (AP) – 1 hour ago

JOHANNESBURG — Police have arrested six suspects after an exiled Rwandan general accused of grenade attacks in his homeland was shot in South Africa over the weekend, authorities said Monday.

Lt. General Kayumba Nyamwasa and his wife were returning to the upscale gated community where they live in northern Johannesburg when a lone gunman fired on him Saturday. Rosette Nyamwasa said her husband was shot in the stomach and would recover.

Police spokesman Govindsamy Mariemuthoo would not say whether the suspects arrested were Rwandan, nor would he discuss possible motives in what he described as a murder attempt.

Nyamwasa's wife has accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of being behind the shooting, a charge the Rwandan government denies.

"The Government of Rwanda does not condone violence, and we wish the family strength and serenity," said government spokeswoman Louise Mushikiwabo. "We trust in the ability of South African authorities to investigate the incident thoroughly."

Nyamwasa and Kagame were once allied but have fallen out, reportedly because Kagame sees his former military chief as a political rival. Nyamwasa came to South Africa earlier this year.

Rwandan officials have accused Nyamwasa of trying to destabilize their government. The Rwandan government says it has linked Nyamwasa to three grenade attacks in Rwanda's capital Feb. 19 that killed one person and wounded 30 others.

South African police said earlier this year they had not arrested Nyamwasa because they do not have an extradition treaty with Rwanda.

Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, who wants to challenge Kagame in the Aug. 9 presidential election, said Saturday's shooting was a "planned assassination attempt."

"This incident is a nefarious conspiracy for disruption of peace in Rwanda, a country sinking deeply into a political and military crisis," Ingabire said in a statement. "The lack of political space, the arrest of opposition leaders, lawyers and senior military officers, the use of violence and all kind of intimidation of dissenting voices are obvious signs of a country on the brink of chaos."

Ingabire was arrested in April and charged with promoting a genocidal ideology. She was freed on bail but her passport was seized and she cannot leave Kigali. Critics of Kagame's government argue the ruling party has used the concept of genocide ideology to discredit detractors and defeat political opponents.

Hutu militias killed more than 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Rwanda's current president, Paul Kagame, ended the killing when he led a Tutsi-dominated force into the country. Critics say his rule since then has been authoritarian but Kagame argues strict measures are necessary to prevent a repeat of the violence.

The U.S. State Department said in a March report on Rwanda that citizens' rights to change their government are "effectively restricted" and cited limits on freedoms of speech, press and judicial independence.

Nyamwasa's shooting is not the first time Rwanda has been accused of attempting to kill or killing a prominent Rwandan exile.

Former Rwandan Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga was killed in May 1998 in Nairobi, Kenya. His widow later testified that she believed Rwanda was behind her husband's killing. She claimed he had been set to testify before the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is trying the suspected masterminds of the genocide.

A Kenyan judge acquitted the three suspects in Sendashonga's killing, saying the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they committed the crime. The judge went further to say that the Rwandan government's refusal to waive diplomatic immunity for some of its embassy officials suggested that there was a political motive behind the killing.

Associated Press Writer Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Lawsuit Alleges Rwandan President Triggered Rwanda Genocide

Oklahoma City - On Thursday, 04.29.2010, three attorneys filed a wrongful death lawsuit, in an Oklahoma City federal court, alleging that Rwandan President Paul Kagame ordered the political assassinations that triggered the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

The three attorneys are representing MadameAgatha Habyarimana, widow of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, and Madame Sylvana Ntaryamira, widow of Burundian President, Cyprien Ntaryamira. Both their husbands died when assassins shot their plane out of the sky, on April 6, 1994.

The two presidents were flying home from a conference between east and central African leaders in Tanzania, held to discuss ways to end violence between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis from Burundi and Rwanda, when their plane was shot out of the sky, with a surface-to-air missile, over Rwanda’s capitol, Kigali, on the evening of 04.06.1994.

That evening the BBC reported:

The deaths of the presidents, both Hutus, look likely to make the situation in both states [Rwanda and Burundi] worse. Heavy fighting has already been reported around the presidential palace in Rwanda after news of the deaths spread. News agencies in Kigali said explosions have been rocking the city but it was not immediately clear who was involved in the fighting.

Between 800,000 and 1,200,000 Rwandans died before the fighting ended, largely in civilian massacres. At its end, current Rwandan President seized power in Kigali, as the victorious general in the 1990-1994 Rwandan Civil War.

Madames Habyarimana and Ntaryamira allege, in their wrongful death lawsuit, that Kagame, then leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ordered their husbands assassination, and, that his and his army's actions brought about the mass civilian massacre known as the Rwanda Genocide.

Earlier this week, French media reported that a Paris judge investigating the crash, Marc Trevidic, was planning to send experts to Rwanda. His predecessor, Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, had accused the RPF of shooting down the plane and called for his arrest of President Kagame.

The widows do not live in the United States, but argue that a federal court in Oklahoma City has jurisdiction over their claims because of Kagame's substantial contacts withOklahoma Christian University.

President Kagame appeared at the university in Edmond, Oklahoma on Friday, 04.30.2010, the day after the lawsuit was filed, to deliver the commencement address, but left the ceremony early, surrounded by bodyguards, avoiding process service.

Media outlets around the world report that Kagame avoided process service, but it's not yet clear that he has, because a defendant may be considered served if it can be demonstrated that he has intentionally avoided process service.

Professor Peter Erlinder, Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, and one of the attorneys on the wrongful death case, said:

"The U.S. Secret Service and University staff informed Kagame that we had a valid summons and complaint that we wished to serve upon him. We were instructed we could not approach Kagame for security reasons, with which we agreed, but Secret Service informed us that security requirements permitted service on any authorized person on his staff."

"Rather than accept service, members of his staff refused to accept documents and the University ordered process servers, and lawyers, to leave campus....which is 'interference with service of process,' a misdemeanor under Oklahoma law. Also, because the University has now involved itself in the conspiracy to cover-up Kagame's crimes, they have exposed themselves to liability. The president of the University has been served with a copy of the complaint and summons for Mr. Kagame."

A university spokesman said, “President Kagame is at Oklahoma Christian as the head of Rwanda to honor the 10 outstanding Rwandan Presidential Scholars who are graduating today.

"We do not want to distract from their remarkable accomplishments by getting involved in the politics of Rwanda and surrounding countries. We cannot comment on pending lawsuits.

Attorneys in the lawsuit stated that, "There is no independent functioning judiciary in Rwanda and any suit against defendants there would have been and would still be futile and would result in serious reprisals."

Carla del Ponte, Lead Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and Yugoslavia, in her book “Madame Prosecutor; Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity,” tells the story of how she was fired by the UN after announcing her intent to prosecute sitting Rwandan President Paul Kagame for the assassination of Presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira that triggered the genocide.

Global Research Articles by Ann Garrison

DRC:Exclusif : le Palais se demande si Albert II doit aller au Congo

Exclusif : le Palais se demande si Albert II doit aller au Congo

L’assassinat de Floribert Chebeya, le plus célèbre défenseur des droits de l’homme en RDC, tracasse le Palais. A trois semaines du voyage d’Albert II à Kinshasa, le chef de cabinet du roi prend conseil sur l’opportunité de ce déplacement.
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L’Europe veut une enquête sur la mort de l’un des plus respectés défenseurs des droits de l'Homme en RDC

Malaise dans les hautes sphères du pouvoir congolais. L’assassinat de Floribert Chebeya, le plus célèbre défenseur des droits de l’homme en RDC, pourrait être lourd de conséquences à moins d’un mois des célébrations du cinquantenaire de l’indépendance du Congo, prévues le 30 juin prochain. Albert II est l’invité d’honneur de la fête, mais au Palais, le chef de cabinet du roi s’interroge, apprend Le Vif.be de bonne source : le souverain doit-il entreprendre ce déplacement, alors que médias et chancelleries se posent bien des questions sur la responsabilité du pouvoir congolais et de ses services de police dans la mort du président de « La Voix des sans-voix » (VSV) ?

L’homme irritait beaucoup les autorités et faisait l’objet de menaces. A-t-il été victime d’actes d’intimidation qui ont mal tourné ? Sa disparition fait en tout cas grand bruit dans la communauté internationale : l’ONU et l’Union européenne réclament une enquête « transparente », le ministre belge des Affaires étrangères Steven Vanackere se déclare « choqué » et a demandé à l’ambassadeur de Belgique à Kinshasa de suivre de près ce dossier…

Sur la sellette : le général John Numbi, 48 ans, chef de la police et homme de confiance du président Kabila. Chebeya avait rendez-vous avec Numbi dans les bureaux de l’Inspection générale de la police le soir de son assassinat. Pour l’heure, le Palais prend conseil auprès des sources les mieux informées de l’affaire.

Olivier Rogeau

You Will Be Punished:Attacks on Civilians in Eastern Congo

Human Rights, Freedom Of Expression,Democracy,Reconciliation

I. Background
Conflict in Eastern Congo

When the Democratic Republic of Congo held its first multiparty elections in over 40 years in June 2006, there was widespread optimism that the country would emerge out of years of brutal war. Congolese citizens in the densely populated provinces of North and South Kivu in eastern Congo on the border with Rwanda, an area deeply affected by two consecutive wars from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2003, were desperate for peace. They voted overwhelmingly for presidential candidate Joseph Kabila, who promised to end conflict in this troublesome region. Yet in the three years following the elections, eastern Congo has remained locked in brutal conflict. In 2009 alone, botched peace attempts combined with badly organized and abusive military operations have led to nearly a million people fleeing their homes, hundreds massacred, and thousands more women and girls raped. As one resident of eastern Congo told Human Rights Watch, “We voted for peace, but all we got was more war. When are they going to stop killing us?”[2]

The ongoing conflict in eastern Congo has been marked by a constant shift in alliances between a confusing array of belligerents. One-time enemies turn into allies and back into enemies again in swift succession, confusing Congolese citizens and political analysts alike. In the three years since the elections, the Congolese government has failed to address the underlying causes of the conflict and to effectively extend state control to areas once occupied by the Rwandan army and its proxy forces. Instead the government has sought secret deals with various rebel groups and, when unsuccessful, used military force. To date, neither course of action has brought peace or security to the area.

Two armed rebel groups have dominated recent events in eastern Congo: a Rwandan Hutu militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Les Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR), and the Congolese Tutsi-led National Congress for the Defense of the People (Congrès national pour la défense du peuple, CNDP). At different times, both groups have been either allies or enemies of the Congolese government depending on its relationship with Rwanda. The difficulty in finding lasting solutions to the crisis is exacerbated by the struggle for control of one of the richest regions in Congo.

The ongoing conflict in eastern Congo is also linked to the after-effects of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and can only be understood by looking at political dynamics in both Congo and Rwanda. In Rwanda, growing restrictions on political space have promoted views among some Hutu, including those in the FDLR, that they have little or no say in Rwandan political life and that the Hutu population are being collectively punished for the genocide. Political parties that oppose President Paul Kagame are blocked from operating freely and the media faces severe restrictions on political reporting.

The Rwandan government often accuses its critics of “divisionism” or “genocide ideology,” vaguely defined offenses to punish the spreading of ideas that encourage ethnic animosity between the country's Tutsi and Hutu populations and the expression of any ideas that could lead to genocide.[3] Largely aimed at the Hutu population, such offenses permit, among other measures, the government to send away children of any age to rehabilitation centers for up to one year—including for the teasing of classmates—and for parents and teachers to face sentences of 15 to 25 years for the child’s conduct. The government has repeatedly accused the Voice of America, the British Broadcasting Corporation and other media outlets, as well as Human Rights Watch, of promoting genocide ideology; accusations these organizations deny.[4]

The tight control over political space, civil society and the media has forced a number of moderate Hutu and some Tutsi to leave Rwanda. Critics of the Rwandan government, including many Congolese civil society groups and the Congolese government, repeatedly call for an inter-Rwandan dialogue to ease the tension between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda. Congolese civil society groups claim that the failure to open political space in Rwanda is one of the underlying reasons for the continued suffering in eastern Congo. A European diplomat who agreed with this analysis said to Human Rights Watch, “The FDLR problem will not be solved if there is no political space for Hutu in Rwanda.”[5]
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)

The FDLR are a predominately Rwandan Hutu armed group that uses military force to seek political change and greater representation for Hutu in Rwanda.[6] Some of the FDLR leaders are believed to have participated in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the group has important ideological links to the former Hutu Power movement.[7] In the years since the genocide, the Rwandan Hutu militia reorganized politically and militarily, going through various name and leadership changes.[8] In 2000 the current configuration, the FDLR, was created. As of January 2009, the group was estimated to have some 6,000 combatants in eastern Congo.[9] The vast majority of these combatants did not participate in the genocide since they were too young at the time to have played a role.[10]

The Congolese government has repeatedly turned to the FDLR (and its predecessor movements) for support in its fight against Congolese rebel groups backed by Rwanda and against the Rwandan army. In the 1998-2003 war, the well-trained Rwandan Hutu militias soon became some of the most important frontline troops for the then Congolese national government of Laurent Désiré Kabila, fighting alongside the Congolese army and its other allies throughout the war.[11]

Following the signing of a peace agreement ending the war, a transitional government was launched in Kinshasa in June 2003, led by Laurent Kabila’s son, Joseph. As part of the agreement, the Congolese government was nominally committed to disbanding the FDLR and facilitating its members’ return to Rwanda. Some minimal attempts were made to do so, but the effort was half-hearted and unsuccessful. With no outright war to fight and support from Kinshasa less frequent than before, the FDLR sought other sources of revenue. It turned to the illegal trade in mineral resources and control over other economic activities. In December 2008, the UN Group of Experts investigating arms trafficking estimated the FDLR’s economic activities brought them millions of dollars a year, including from the trade in minerals.[12]

In 2006, the Kinshasa government again turned to the FDLR for military support when a new Tutsi-led rebel group, the CNDP, emerged in North Kivu (see below). From late 2007 through 2008, the Congolese government continued to support, arm, and collaborate extensively with the FDLR.[13] In December 2008, the UN Group of Experts provided detailed evidence of this collaboration and support, including specific examples in which the FDLR cohabited with the Congolese army and supported the Congolese army in operations against the CNDP.[14]
National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP)

To deal with the continued threat of Rwandan Hutu militias across its border and to exercise influence in the fertile and mineral-rich North and South Kivu provinces, the Rwandan government has repeatedly backed Congolese rebel groups willing to fight the Hutu militias. Since 1996, Rwanda has backed three different Congolese rebel groups (and sometimes other splinter factions) who agreed to fight the Rwandan Hutu militias, but who also all sought to overthrow the government in Kinshasa.[15] The most recent Rwandan-backed rebel group is the CNDP, which until January 2009 was led by a former Congolese Tutsi general, Laurent Nkunda.

While the degree of military and political support for each of these groups has varied, Rwanda’s policy of continued support and influence over Congolese proxy groups willing to fight the Rwandan Hutu militias and enhance its influence in eastern Congo has been unmistakable.

Nkunda’s CNDP emerged during Congo’s historic national elections in 2006, when it became clear that Tutsi political clout was about to rapidly diminish. In the aftermath of the dramatic electoral defeat of RCD-Goma, the former Rwandan-backed rebel group that had become a political party, Nkunda presented himself as spokesman for and protector of Congolese Tutsi. His program, he said, was to eliminate the FDLR, prevent the exclusion of Tutsi from national political life, assure the security of Tutsi soldiers in the national army, and bring about the return of some 45,000 Congolese Tutsi refugees living in camps in Rwanda.[16] Some Tutsi leaders, fearful of losing economic gains made during the war years and an ethnic backlash against them, insisted that Nkunda’s troops constituted their last bulwark of protection.[17]

From 2006 through 2008, Nkunda’s CNDP cemented and expanded their area of control in Masisi and Rutshuru territories (North Kivu), where they created what one of Nkunda’s officers called “our little state” with their own local administrators and an extensive taxation system that brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars.[18] Nkunda’s CNDP also collected significant sums of money through voluntary donations from the Congolese Tutsi diaspora and businessmen in Goma, sent to bank accounts controlled by CNDP agents in Rwanda.[19]
Support and recruitment in Rwanda

Nkunda was joined by hundreds of former RCD-Goma troops and new recruits, including Hutu, Tutsi, and other ethnic groups, although the vast majority of the senior military officers were Tutsi. Nkunda also actively recruited combatants in Rwanda. Between 2006 and 2008, hundreds joined the CNDP’s ranks, including from the refugee camps in Rwanda, former demobilized Rwandan soldiers, and active Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) soldiers, some of whom were on “temporary” leave from their army.[20] Many joined voluntarily, but others were forcibly recruited or joined after false promises of jobs; some were children. By late 2008, the CNDP were estimated to have between 4,000 and 7,000 troops.[21]

The number of Rwandan citizens recruited into the CNDP remains unknown, but an indication of the scale can be deduced from the UN’s Disarmament, Demobilization, Repatriation, Reintegration, and Resettlement (DDRRR) program, which is tasked with facilitating the return of foreign combatants. Between January and October 2009, DDRRR staff had repatriated 448 former CNDP combatants to Rwanda, including 83 children (see below).[22]

The full extent of Rwanda’s support for Nkunda’s CNDP was evident in the December 2008 report of the UN Group of Experts monitoring arms trafficking in Congo. The report provided detailed evidence of Rwanda’s ongoing support for the CNDP, including evidence that Rwandan authorities “had been complicit in the recruitment of soldiers, including children, facilitated the supply of military equipment, and sent officers and units from the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in support of the CNDP.”[23] The report also provided specific evidence of Rwandan army support to a CNDP offensive against the Congolese army on October 26-30,[24] and showed how Rwanda has served as a rear base for the CNDP’s financial and communications networks.[25]
Clashes and the Failure of Mixage

Nkunda’s CNDP posed a significant problem for Kabila’s new government. Kabila’s election success had largely come from eastern Congo, where the population voted overwhelmingly for him on the basis that he promised to bring peace. In August and November 2006, Nkunda’s forces fought against the Congolese national army, producing substantial losses for both sides but no clear victor. In an effort to avoid further military operations, President Kabila in December 2006 dispatched Gen. John Numbi, the then head of the air force, to secretly negotiate a deal with Nkunda. The two sides met in Rwanda in January 2007 in talks facilitated by the chief of staff of the Rwandan army, Gen. James Kabarebe, where an agreement was reached. Nkunda accepted a limited form of integration of his CNDP troops into the ranks of the Congolese army, called mixage. In return the government agreed to deploy these troops in the Kivu provinces to conduct military operations against the FDLR. Nkunda gave a vague commitment to leave Congo temporarily for South Africa, a point that was later much disputed by both sides.

The deal failed. The integration did not work, and instead of bringing much needed security to North Kivu, the deployment of the mixed brigades led to a further deterioration of the security and human rights situation. Nkunda-affiliated units killed, raped, and otherwise attacked Congolese civilians to punish them for supposedly collaborating with the FDLR. For their part, the Congolese army units of the mixedbrigades loyal to Kinshasa showed little willingness to fight the FDLR. By August 2007 the two sides were once again on opposite sides of the frontline and fighting resumed.

In October and November 2007, diplomatic efforts led by the United States and the European Union to broker a ceasefire between the government and Nkunda’s CNDP rebels failed, with both sides blaming the other for the failure of mixage. In December 2007, the Congolese army launched a major offensive against the CNDP in Masisi, with logistical support from MONUC peacekeepers. The offensive failed. Government forces were defeated and soldiers deserted the battlefield in the thousands. Holding a strong military position, Nkunda again called for peace talks.
More Peace Talks Fail Again

In late 2007 and early 2008 two important agreements were struck, which diplomats hoped would end the conflict in eastern Congo. The first was signed on November 9, 2007, in Nairobi, Kenya, and was known as the “Nairobi Communiqué.” The agreement between the Congolese and Rwandan governments stipulated that the Congolese government would stop all support to the FDLR and would undertake military operations against the group if its members refused to return voluntarily to Rwanda. The Rwandan government agreed to block any support for armed groups in eastern Congo coming from its territory, including to the CNDP.[26]

The second agreement, known in English as the “Goma Agreement” (Acte d’Engagement in French), was signed on January 23, 2008, following three weeks of intense peace discussions in Goma, North Kivu, between the Congolese government and 22 armed groups, the most important of which was the CNDP. It committed all parties to an immediate ceasefire, disengagement of forces from frontline positions and integration of troops into the Congolese army. The agreement also established a separate commission[27] to provide a forum for negotiations of the armed groups’ political demands, particularly those of the CNDP, to be facilitated by foreign diplomats.

Following these talks, the government launched a peace program for eastern Congo, known as the Amani Program, or “Peace Program” in Swahili. It quickly became clear that the Amani Program sought to minimize the role of the new commission established by the Goma Agreement, which Nkunda’s CNDP rebels saw as a crucial forum to negotiate their political demands. Despite efforts by international representatives to move the process forward, by July 2008 the Goma Agreement had collapsed.
Applicable Legal Standards

International humanitarian law (the laws of war) is binding on all parties to an armed conflict, including non-state armed groups such as the FDLR. Applicable international humanitarian law in Congo includes article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Second Additional Protocol of 1977 (Protocol II) to the Geneva Conventions, and customary international humanitarian law.

International humanitarian law requires the humane treatment of civilians and captured combatants, prohibits violence to life and person, including murder, torture and other mistreatment, the taking of hostages, collective punishment, and outrages upon personal dignity. It prohibits rape and other forms of sexual violence.

International humanitarian law also regulates the methods and means of armed conflict. A fundamental principle is that all parties to a conflict must distinguish between combatants and civilians, and may not deliberately attack civilians or civilian objects. Acts or threats of violence whose primary purpose is to spread terror among the civilian population is prohibited.

Individuals who willfully commit serious violations of the laws of war, that is deliberately or recklessly, are responsible for war crimes. This includes those who participate in or order war crimes, or are culpable as a matter of command responsibility. States have an obligation to investigate alleged war crimes committed on their territory.

Serious offenses, including murder, torture and rape, deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population are crimes against humanity.

Congo is party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which may exercise jurisdiction for “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole,”[28] specifically genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. In March 2004, the Congolese government referred the situation in the country to the ICC,[29] inviting the ICC prosecutor to investigate crimes within the jurisdiction of the Rome Statute on its territory. In June 2004 the ICC prosecutor announced the opening of an investigation in the Congo,[30]initially focused on Ituri, northeastern Congo, and in November 2008 announced the investigations were being expanded to include the Kivu provinces of eastern Congo.[31] The crimes committed by FDLR forces, the Congolese army and its allies, documented in this report, are subject to ICC jurisdiction.
Individual responsibility

Under international law, individuals are criminally liable for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This includes attempting to commit such a crime, as well as assisting in, facilitating, and aiding and abetting an offense. Commanders and other superiors are criminally responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed or attempted pursuant to their orders.Finally, commanders and other superiors may be criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility for crimes committed by their subordinates if they knew, or had reason to know, of such crimes and failed to prevent the crimes or to punish those responsible.

Command responsibility as a basis of liability for crimes in violation of international law is well-established. The doctrine is provided in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,[32] ad hoc international courts,[33] and customary international law.[34] It applies both to military commanders and to civilians in leadership roles, and during internal as well as international armed conflicts.[35]

Under article 28 of the Rome Statute, a superior shall be criminally responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the court, committed by subordinates under the superior’s effective authority and control, as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such subordinates, where:

(i) The superior either knew, or consciously disregarded information which clearly indicated, that the subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes;

(ii) The crimes concerned activities that were within the effective responsibility and control of the superior; and

(iii) The superior failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.

The concept of crimes against humanity has been incorporated into a number of international treaties and the statutes of international criminal tribunals, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.The definition of crimes against humanity has been defined as a range of serious human rights abuses committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack by a government or organization against a civilian population.[36]Murder, rape, and other inhumane acts intentionally causing great suffering all fall within the range of acts that can qualify as crimes against humanity.[37]

Crimes against humanity include only abuses that take place as part of an attack against a civilian population. So long as the targeted population is of a predominantly civilian nature, the presence of some combatants does not alter its classification as a “civilian population” as a matter of law.[38]Rather, it is necessary only that the civilian population be the primary object of the attack.[39]

The attack against a civilian population underlying the commission of crimes against humanity must be widespread or systematic. It need not be both.[40]“Widespread” refers to the scale of the acts or number of victims.[41] A “systematic” attack indicates “a pattern or methodical plan.”[42]International courts have considered to what extent a systematic attack requires a policy or plan. For instance, such a plan need not be adopted formally as a policy of the state.[43]

Lastly, for individuals to be found culpable for crimes against humanity requires their having the relevant knowledge of the crime.[44]That is, perpetrators must be aware that their actions formed part of the widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population.[45]While perpetrators need not be identified with a policy or plan underlying crimes against humanity, they must at least have knowingly taken the risk of participating in the policy or plan.[46] Individuals accused of crimes against humanity cannot avail themselves of the defense of following superior orders nor benefit from statutes of limitation. Because crimes against humanity are considered crimes of universal jurisdiction, all states are responsible for bringing to justice those who commit crimes against humanity. There is an emerging trend in international jurisprudence and standard setting that persons responsible for crimes against humanity, as well as other serious violations of human rights, should not be granted amnesty.

[2] Human Rights Watch interview with displaced person, Minova, February 6, 2009.

[3] Rwanda adopted a law on genocide ideology in July 2008. Law N° 18/2008 of 23/07/2008 Relating to the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology, Official Gazette of the Republic of Rwanda.

[4] Human Rights Watch, World Report 2009 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2009), Rwanda chapter, http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2009/rwanda; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2008, Rwanda chapter; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2007, Rwanda chapter.

[5] Human Rights Watch interview with European diplomat, November 12, 2009.

[6] Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), “Who are the FDLR and Why the FDLR?” http://www.fdlr.org (accessed September 24, 2009).

[7] Hutu Power is a movement which cut across party lines and embodied ethnic solidarity among Hutu against Tutsi who were seen as outsiders, invaders or suppressors. Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines was a radio station closely associated with the Hutu Power movement. It broadcast hate media and played an important role in the genocide. Alison Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Human Rights Watch and International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) 1999), http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1999/03/01/leave-none-tell-story.

[8] These included the Armed People for the Liberation of Rwanda (PALIR), the Liberation Army of Rwanda (ALIR), the Committee of Coordination for the Resistance (CCR), among others. See African Rights, “A Welcome Expression of Intent: The Nairobi Communiqué and the Ex-FAR/Interahamwe,” December 2007.

[9] Human Rights Watch electronic communication with UN DDRRR official, Goma, November 2, 2009.

[10] Labeling the FDLR as “genocidaires” or “interahamwe” (participants in the 1994 genocide), as is frequently done by commentators and diplomats alike, is incorrect. In a region where ethnic tensions remain high and where the use of such labels is often misused for political purposes, it can also be dangerous.

[11] During the 1998-2003 war, Kabila’s allies included troops from Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Angola. The opposing Rwandan forces were supported by troops from Uganda and Burundi. For further details, see Gerard Prunier, Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe(New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2008).

[12] UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, November 21, 2008, published in Letter dated 10 December 2008 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2008/773, paras. 72-73. See also Global Witness, “Faced with a Gun, What Can You Do?”: War and the Militarisation of Mining in Eastern Congo (London: Global Witness, 2009).

[13] UN Group of Experts, Final Report, November 21, 2008, para. 102.

[14] Ibid, para. 110.

[15] In 1996 Rwanda first backed Laurent Kabila’s AFDL rebellion which overthrew Mobutu’s government and included many prominent Tutsi in its ranks. In 1998 Rwanda backed a second rebel group, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD, later referred to as RCD-Goma), intent on overthrowing Kabila who had turned against Rwanda, and sent its own troops to occupy large swathes of eastern Congo until 2002.

[16] Human Rights Watch interview with Laurent Nkunda, Kilolirwe, August 26, 2006; National Congress for the Defense of the People, “Seven Points Program,” http://www.cndp-congo.org/minimumprog.php (accessed November 16, 2009).

[17] Human Rights Watch interviews with businessman, Goma, August 26, 2006, and MONUC official, Goma, February 21, 2007; see Human Rights Watch, Democratic Republic of Congo – Renewed Crisis in North Kivu, October 23, 2007, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/10/22/renewed-crisis-north-kivu, p. 13.

[18] UN Group of Experts, Final Report, November 21, 2008, paras. 33 and 35.

[19] Ibid., para. 30.

[20]Ibid., para. 63.

[21] Ibid., para. 20.

[22] Official statistics from UN DDRRR program, November 4 2009, on file with Human Rights Watch. The UN DDRRR program also repatriated 15 former CNDP combatants to Uganda and 12 to Burundi during the same time period.

[23] UN Group of Experts, Final Report, November 21, 2008, para.61.

[24] Ibid., para.66.

[25] Ibid., para.68.

[26] “Joint Communiqué of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Government of the Republic of Rwanda on a common approach to the threat posed to peace and security in both countries and the Great Lakes Region,” Nairobi, Kenya, November 9, 2007.

[27] It was known as the Mixed Technical Commission on Peace and Security.

[28] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.183/9, July 17, 1998, entered into force July 1, 2002, ratified by the Democratic Republic of Congo on September 8, 2000, art. 5.

[29]“Prosecutor receives referral of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” ICC press release, April 19, 2004, http://www.icc-cpi.int/pressrelease_details&id=19&l=en.html (accessed October 26, 2009).

[30]“The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court opens its first investigation,” ICC press release, June 23, 2004, http://www.icc-cpi.int/pressrelease_details&id=26&l=en.html (accessed October 26, 2009).

[31] Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Address to the Assembly of State Parties, The Hague, November 14, 2008 at http://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/rdonlyres/50F9D0FA-33A0-48B3-942E-4CFF88CA3A27/0/ICCASPASP7StatementProsecutor.pdf (accessed October 26, 2009).

[32]Rome Statute, art. 28.

[33]Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, SC Res. 827, UN Doc. S/RES/827 (1993), as amended, www.un.org/icty/legaldoc-e/basic/statut/statute-feb06-e.pdf (accessed July 10, 2008), art. 7(3); Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, SC Res. 955, UN Doc. S/RES/955 (1994), as amended, http://69.94.11.53/ENGLISH/basicdocs/statute.html (accessed July 10, 2008), art. 6(3).

[34] See International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 558-63.

[35] See Prosecutor v. Fatmir Limaj et al, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Case No. IT-03-66-T, Judgement (Trial Chamber II), November 30, 2005, para. 519: “The principle of individual criminal responsibility of superiors for failure to prevent or to punish crimes committed by subordinates is… applicable to both international and internal armed conflicts.”

[36]See Rodney Dixon, “Crimes against humanity,” in Otto Triffterer, ed., Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1999), p. 122. This is the standard applied by article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

[37] Murder and torture are among the core offenses that have been included within the definition of crimes against humanity at least since the adoption of the charter establishing the Nuremberg tribunal after World War II. Deportation (to another country) was listed but not (internal) forced transfer. Rape was not explicitly included in the charter’s definition of crimes against humanity in article 6(c), although it could be derived from that definition’s general prohibition against “other inhumane acts.” This ambiguity has been resolved in recent years; the statutes of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, as well as the Rome Statute, all explicitly include rape in the list of enumerated offenses that can constitute crimes against humanity. The Rome Statute also lists: extermination, enslavement, deportation, and forcible transfer of population, imprisonment, persecution, enforced disappearance, apartheid, and “other inhumane acts.” Rome

Statute, article 7(1).

[38]See, for example, Prosecutor v. Naletilic and Martinovic, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Case No. IT-98-34, Judgement (Trial Chamber I), March 31 2003, para. 235 (“The population against whom the attack is directed is considered civilian if it is predominantly civilian”); Prosecutor v. Akayesu, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Judgement (Trial Chamber I), September 2, 1998, para. 582 (“Where there are certain individuals within the civilian population who do not come within the definition of civilians, this does not deprive the population of its civilian character”); Prosecutor v. Jelisic et al, ICTY, Case No. IT-95-10, Judgement (Trial Chamber I), December 14, 1999, para. 54 (“The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.”).

[39] See Prosecutor v. Naletilic and Martinovic, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Case No. IT-98-34, Judgement (Trial Chamber I), March 31 2003, para. 235.

[40]See Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, ICTY, Case No. IT-94-1-T, Opinion and Judgment (Trial Chamber), May 7, 1997, para. 646 (“it is now well established that…the acts…can…occur on either a widespread basis or in a systematic manner. Either one of these is sufficient to exclude isolated or random acts.”).

[41]Akayesu defined widespread as “massive, frequent, large scale action, carried out collectively with considerable seriousness and directed against a multiplicity of victims,” Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Judgement (Trial Chamber I), September 2, 1998, para. 579; see also Prosecutor v. Kordic and Cerkez, ICTY, Case No. IT-92-14/2, Judgement (Trial Chamber III), February 26, 2001, para. 179; Prosecutor v. Kayishema and Ruzindana, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-95-1-T, Judgement (Trial Chamber II), May 21, 1999, para. 123.

[42]Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, ICTY, Case No. IT-94-1-T, Opinion and Judgment (Trial Chamber), May 7, 1997, para. . 648. In Prosecutor v. Kunarac, Kovac and Vokovic the Appeals Chamber stated that “patterns of crimes—

that is the non-accidental repetition of similar criminal conduct on a regular basis—are a common expression of [a] systematic occurrence.” Prosecutor v. Kunarac, Kovac and Vokovic, ICTY, Case No. IT-96-23 and IT-96-23-1A, Judgement (Appeals Chamber), June 12, 2002, para. 94.

[43]Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Judgement (Trial Chamber I), September 2, 1998, para. 580.

[44]See Prosecutor v. Kupreskic et al., ICTY, Case No. IT-95-16, Judgement (Trial Chamber), January 14, 2000, para. 556.

[45] See Prosecutor v. Kupreskic et al., ICTY, Case No. IT-95-16, Judgement (Trial Chamber), January 14, 2000, para. 556: “[T]he requisite mens rea for crimes against humanity appears to be comprised by (1) the intent to commit the underlying offence, combined with (2) knowledge of the broader context in which that offence occurs.” See also Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, ICTY, Case No. IT-94-1, Judgement (Appeals Chamber), July 15, 1999, para. 271; Prosecutor v. Kayishema and Ruzindana, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-95-1-T, Judgement (Trial Chamber II), May 21, 1999, paras. 133-134.

[46] See Prosecutor v. Blaskic, ICTY, Case No. IT-95-14-T, Judgement (Trial Chamber), March 3, 2000, para. 257. Blaskic (paras. 258-259) listed factors from which could be inferred knowledge of the context: (a) the historical and political circumstances in which the acts of violence occurred; (b) the functions of the accused when the crimes were committed; (c) his responsibilities within the political or military hierarchy; (d) the direct and indirect relationship between the political and military hierarchy; (e) the scope and gravity of the acts perpetrated; and (f) the nature of the crimes committed and the degree to which they are common knowledge.
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Will the Fight to Save Congo Forest Succeed Amid USA Rwando-British Economic Thirst?

At the heart of central Africa's great rainforests lies Kisangani, a small city in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) some 1,300 miles from the mouth of the Congo River. The town began as a Belgian trading post, Stanleyville, and was Conrad's model for Kurtz's inner station in Heart of Darkness. No roads connect Kisangani to the rest of the world; over the past two decades they have all collapsed and been retaken by the jungle. Even river navigation is blocked beyond here, as a massive course of falls stretches for sixty miles upstream.

If the vast and isolated forests of the Congo Basin--the second-largest tropical woodlands on the planet--had a capital, it would be this sleepy city of crumbling colonial-era Art Deco buildings and empty boulevards. Down by the river women sell caterpillars to eat, but no one buys them. The sky is low and gray, but it never seems to rain. In the government buildings, yellow-eyed malarial old men sit in empty offices next to moldering stacks of handwritten files. There are no computers, electricity or, in many offices, even glass in the dark wooden window frames.

In a strange twist, this general dilapidation--the result of Congo's traumatic history--has inadvertently preserved Congo's massive tropical forests. First, Mobutu Sese Seko's thirty-two-year kleptocracy destroyed what infrastructure the Belgians had built. Then years of civil war and invasion by Uganda and Rwanda took an estimated 4 million lives, through violence and the attendant ravages of disease. All this chaos warded off the great timber interests. As a result the Congo Basin's massive forests--most of which lie within the DRC--are the world's healthiest and most intact.

An estimated 40 million people depend on these woodlands, surviving on traditional livelihoods. At a global level, Congo's forests act as the planet's second lung, counterpart to the rapidly dwindling Amazon. They are a huge "carbon sink," trapping carbon that could otherwise become carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. The Congo Basin holds roughly 8 percent of the world's forest-based carbon. These jungles also affect rainfall across the North Atlantic. In other words, these distant forests are crucial to the future of climate stability, a bulwark against runaway climate change.

But the isolation of the DRC's woodlands is ending. Since 2003 a massive United Nations mission has helped create relative stability, though several vicious and overlapping wars continue to gnaw at the country's eastern regions. Now most of the DRC is safe for logging. Over the past four years timber firms have set upon the forest in search of high-priced hardwoods. They control about one-quarter of Congo's forests, an area the size of California.

Blessed by the World Bank as catalysts of development, the companies operate largely unsupervised because the DRC lacks a functioning system of forest control. The government has written a new forestry code that requires companies to invest in local development and follow a supposedly sustainable, twenty-five-year cycle of rotational logging. But many companies ignore these stipulations; some have used intimidation and bribery; others log in blatantly illegal ways with no regard for the long-term damage they are causing.

And now the massive mahogany, afromosia, teak and wenge trees of Congo are making their way downriver, past the lower falls and over the sea to re-emerge as parquet flooring and lawn furniture in the homes of French, Italian and Chinese yuppies.

If these woodlands are deforested, the carbon they trap will be released into the atmosphere. Environmentalists say that if deforestation continues unabated, by 2050 the DRC could release as much carbon dioxide as Britain has in the past sixty years. On the ground, this would likely mean desertification, mass migration, hunger, banditry and war.

But an effort is afoot to halt Congo's plunder. "This is a make or break period," says Filip Verbelen, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace. "Logging is not helping the DRC's economy, and it is destroying the environment. The damage has to be contained now before it is too late."



Among the major timber firms in the DRC is an American company called Safbois, owned by a secretive family firm called the Blattner Group. The Blattners' other Congo-based businesses include construction, road building, telecommunications, aviation, trucking, port services and agriculture. The managing director, Daniel Blattner, splits his time between a Philadelphia suburb and the DRC, where his family has run businesses since just after independence.

The Blattners have operated in Congo for forty-six years. They purchased some of their best assets after the despotic Mobutu seized them from their Belgian owners. Environmentalists charge that Safbois is logging in violation of local agreements and national laws and with no regard for the well-being of people or the environment.

To investigate all this, I set out to visit Safbois's main timber concession, a 667,000-acre expanse of public land the firm gets to log. It lies near the town of Isangi, where the Lomami River meets the Congo. It is an area of tremendous biodiversity, home to 32,000 people, mostly subsistence farmers.

The first leg of the trip is a flight to Kisangani. I am carrying five forms of official documentation, yet the authorities insist I need more. The underpaid civil servants here toy officiously with the components of a defunct colonial police state, not for the sake of law and order but to demand survival-level bribes. When the authorization is finally ready, it is handwritten on old brown paper, but stamped and signed. On the verso is a typed document concerning veterinary medicine. It reads: "Congo Belge, District de Stanleyville, Secrétariat... 7 février 1957."

To reach the Safbois concession, a local guide and I ride motorcycles west from Kisangani along the Congo on trails that only twenty years earlier had been blacktop roads. The bridges are mostly washed away or blown up, so we cross each tributary by loading our motorcycles into dugout canoes. A continual string of villages unfolds, each composed of thatched-roof mud huts. At times the path is filled with a sweet floral fragrance and clouded with white and purple butterflies. Forests give way to patches of grassland, then clumps of bamboo and then more forest.

After a day of riding, a modern multistory brick building emerges from the wall of jungle greenery: we have arrived at the Institut Facultaire des Sciences Agronomiques de Yangambi. Built in the late 1960s with Belgian aid, the old forestry university at Yangambi is now closed; only a skeleton crew maintains the buildings. But the university still houses a huge biological archive: stuffed birds, pressed leaves, wood samples, 150,000 species in all. There's a dusty old lab, abandoned offices and, according to the watchman, "a cave where King Leopold liked to hide." But the Belgian King Leopold, who owned Congo as a personal fiefdom between 1885 and 1909, never actually set foot in Congo. The university starts to feel like a Surrealist's jungle amusement park, or a monument designed to mock Congo's pathetic lack of a real forest policy. It is the embodiment of everything that should be, but is not.

The next day we cross the Congo and ride deep into the Safbois concession to Baluolambila village. Along a flat stretch of road we stop to talk with a village chief. "This company came here just to cut trees, and from the beginning it has been nothing but lies, lies, lies," says the chief, Frédéric Makofi, as several men gathered around nod their approval. Chief Makofi wants clinics and schools and building materials and transportation. He says much of this was promised but not delivered.

The new Congolese forest code requires that logging companies draw up social responsibility contracts with the communities in their concessions--essentially the law asks the firms to set up company towns. Greenpeace, among others, has attacked this corporate-centered model because it undermines the state's responsibility to create a functioning system of social services. But in the Isangi concession, people say the Blattners won't even create a company town. They claim Safbois used intimidation to force through an agreement and then failed to deliver the promised schools and clinics.

"According to Section 89 of the forestry code, the company must build schools and clinics while they cut the trees. But they are only cutting," says Chief Makofi. He says the company gave the people some gifts and started construction on one school. "At first the people were happy that the company had arrived because they thought logging would equal development." But, Makofi says, it hasn't.

"We don't have any norms or restrictions to impose on the company. This is our first time dealing with anything like this. There are places that are sacred and the company has gone in to those places and cut trees there. Those trees they are cutting were helping us," explains Chief Makofi. "We want development in exchange." Like many people, Makofi thinks that a well-managed forestry policy could ensure that trees are replanted and allowed to grow while still providing enough timber and income to help raise the standard of living here--balancing environmental protection and development.

His complaints are echoed throughout the Safbois concession. In another village, a mile or two away, we meet a farmer named François Likungo. "There is nothing for our benefit," says Likungo. "And the forest has changed--all the animals have gone. We used to catch antelope and porcupine and possums in snares. But now the animals flee the noise of the machines. Before Safbois came we ate meat five times a month. But now it is just vegetables and cassava."

Two women standing nearby explain that childbirth is risky because the closest clinic has no medicine. School and medicine cost money, but this is an almost cashless society. Among the mob of kids clustered around are several with ringworm sores on their scalps and faces.



We ride farther in and soon the jungle opens onto huge smoldering clearings. Here another Blattner company, Busira Lomami, is clearing land for palm oil groves. It's a dramatic example of the chain of exploitation created by logging: first come the roads, and the companies take a few hardwoods; then on those roads come poachers, settlers and agricultural companies, and the deforestation starts to pick up speed.

At the Safbois compound--a cluster of trailers and mud huts surrounded by a stockade wall--I meet Kanzi, the company's chief engineer. Several months ago, when a Safbois official tried to sink a boat full of activists, a Greenpeace researcher and an Italian journalist were on board and filmed the event. The company came off looking thuggish, so now Safbois is on its best behavior. Kanzi stiffly but politely explains the situation from the company's point of view.

He says that there have been big misunderstandings. The company stopped building the one school after conflicts emerged between villages. The company is waiting for agreement from all the people in the concession before beginning to build schools and clinics in earnest. And he says that far from being exploiters, the company is harassed by environmentalists, who force it to tiptoe around the elephants, okapi and other exotic forest-dwelling animals.

According to Kanzi, tax collectors besiege the company. He offers a rather unimpressive example. "We had to pay $10 just to bring in 20,000 liters of gasoline here at our port. That is very expensive." He says, "The local people are happy to see us. But their friends and brothers, who have gone off to be educated, the intellectuals, they come back and excite the people to do bad things. They stir up trouble." When I ask how much they have logged, Kanzi snaps that it is none of my business.

After our interview I tour the logging camp with another foreman. A stoned police officer with a pet monkey on his shoulder wanders around, and in the distance one can hear chain saws. A harsh sun breaks through the clouds. The foreman explains that the workers are all from distant parts of the country. At the Safbois camp they and their families live in dirt-floored huts. The foreman tells me (and my little video camera) that the Blattners have not paid the eighty or so loggers here since April--five months ago.

To understand the local government's strange relationship of dependence on Safbois, I interview Crispin Kakwaka, the Administrateur de Territoire, at his office back in Isangi. Kakwaka describes the local government's appalling lack of resources. "We have nothing for forest control," he says. "The company gave us a few motorcycles for transportation, that is all. But we can't even inspect the amount of timber the company is sending downriver. We have to rely on whatever statistics they supply."

Coordinating opposition to Safbois is a small NGO called CAPDH. It survives on little grants, mostly from the Belgian government and UN civic education contracts it received during recent elections. Not quite a social movement or a social service organization, CAPDH is a network of about two dozen local intellectuals--part-time teachers, clerks, literate river pilots. Most, though not all, are men, and many of them studied for a few years at the provincial university in Kisangani.

"They [the police and provincial officials] forced the chiefs to sign the social agreement," says Delphin Ningo Likula, CAPDH's leader. "They surrounded the meeting and sent police after the chiefs who would not come to the meeting." Another CAPDH activist, Emmanuel Bofia, tells me, "The company hides logs in the forest, so the true amount they are cutting is not known. They cut trees in graveyards, trees in village meeting areas. They take the caterpillar trees. They are even cutting in the nature preserves deep in the jungle."

How does Safbois respond to these charges? Reached on his cellphone in Philadelphia, owner Daniel Blattner is irate. He denies that his firm is running amok in Isangi and explains away the villagers' frustration as follows: "We have a twenty-five-year concession, and we are building infrastructure as we go. We cannot--it is impossible--to build it all at once! We gave out plenty of support--over sixty bicycles, farming implements. They want 450 kilometers of road. By the time we leave, they'll have 1,000!"

About ten days after I left the Safbois concession, villagers, angry about broken promises and environmental damage, marched on the Safbois compound, pelting it with rocks. Police were called in and fired their guns into the air. Two protesters were reported injured. Days later, a survey party from a different timber firm was attacked near Isangi. The situation in the forest is tense. But to understand the forces driving these events, one must venture beyond the realm of villages, loggers, rough-edged timber camp managers and even comfortable Philadelphia-based capitalists like Daniel Blattner.



The real power behind the throne in Congo is the World Bank. It is the single largest lender to this hugely indebted government--$4 billion so far. In 2002 the government of Joseph Kabila signed a moratorium on new timber contracts. But the edict was contradicted by other new laws. Now the Bank is funding a complicated, painfully slow process of timber contract review. The government of the DRC will determine the legality and environmental impact of all 156 industrial timber concessions; tax cheats and despoilers will (in theory) have their contracts revoked. But so far the process is badly behind schedule. Meanwhile, the logging goes on.

In Kinshasa, I meet Kankonde Mukadi, the Bank's forest specialist. Why doesn't the Bank move forcefully to save Congo's forests? His response is high-minded flimflam: "This is a sovereign country. We can only make recommendations based on research."

Environmentalists laugh at this. Lionel Diss of Rainforest Foundation, Norway, was in Congo on a research trip and summed up the Bank's power thus: "If the Bank cut off funds to the DRC government and started imposing green criteria on new loans, and two or three of the most powerful embassies placed phone calls of concern to ministers, and European governments were ready with forest-conservation subsidies, things could be very different."

But in Congo, the Bank's hypocrisy knows no bounds: Despite its stated concern for the rule of law and sustainable forestry, its International Finance Corporation (IFC) is directly invested in some of the worst Congolese logging.

In mid-August the environment minister in Bandundu province impounded two barges of timber belonging to Olam, a $5 billion-a-year Singapore-based transnational corporation that the DRC accused of lying about the amount of timber it shipped, underpaying its taxes and using special "individual concessions" intended for small Congolese operators. The local government forced Olam to pay $34,000 in back taxes, plus some fines. Then in late August, Olam--still under pressure for what DRC officials say were numerous forms of environmentally destructive fraud--abruptly relinquished its two main timber concessions.

The World Bank, it turns out, had invested $15 million in Olam stock and in August still owned $11 million worth. IFC's spokesperson, Corrie Shanahan, was remarkably unfazed by the scandal. "Olam is a client of ours in several countries. We consider them to be a responsible company," said Shanahan. Asked if the DRC's legal actions against Olam were not grounds to reconsider the IFC's investment, Shanahan said, "We believe that Olam has good intentions, and I can't comment on the opinions of the DRC government."

To follow up on all these matters, I meet the DRC's minister of environment, Didace Pembe Bokiaga, in his mahogany-lined office. Behind his desk is a mounted water buffalo head and rising from the floor, two massive ivory elephant tusks. It's not the greenest image, but Pembe says the right things. "President Kabila is working very hard to root out corruption.... We have already recuperated 18 million hectares [of forest] for the state." This last is true, but most of it was land deemed unworthy of logging by timber firms.

"If these are the lungs of the planet, then the donor countries should subsidize us not to log most of it. But we need employment and we will have a sustainable forestry," says Pembe.

My faith in the minister is later shaken when an important timber executive tells how Pembe doubled the "area tax" on logging concessions, only to offer to undo the increase for a contribution of $300,000. The minister denies this charge.

Whatever the truth in this instance, Congo is still a kleptocracy; its massive civil service preys on every productive aspect of the economy. Transparency International rates it as one of the eight most corrupt nations on earth.

Corruption is a common complaint from the companies operating in the DRC, which also excoriate the government for its incompetence. The former general director of Safbois, Françoise Van de Ven, is secretary general of the DRC's main timber syndicate, the Fédération des Industriels du Bois. In her taut Flemish-accented English, she tells the familiar story of an industry under siege.

"This country is totally broken down. So we have to do everything. We build our own roads, run our own port facilities. You can't even get the normal large ships in the port at Matadi because the government has left it in ruins, undredged, no proper cranes. Everything is on the companies. And it is very expensive. At least 20 percent of operating costs goes to taxes. And what do we get? Nothing. And if we build the schools, which we do, will the government send teachers?" She pauses to take a drag on her cigarette and sip her latte.

Congo's culture of corruption extends even to many village chiefs. In one notorious case, a logging company called Safo provided cement, tin roofing, machetes, nets and other basic wares as part of its social contract. The materials went to village chiefs, but instead of hauling the goods to their communities, a merchant offered the chiefs cash for the supplies and resold the goods in nearby towns. Infuriated, the villagers blockaded roads, made threats of black magic against officials and clashed with police; several activists were detained, and one was beaten to death by cops.



The most cogent critic I met in Congo was Arthur Kepel.Born in Kinshasa, he was recruited into Mobutu's secret police, was later the chief of intelligence for the UN mission here and is now with the International Crisis Group. His summation of the Congolese political class--a group he knows well--is painfully blunt: "They worship money. You should ask them, What are they doing for Congo? You can't blame it all on the Belgians. What are these Congolese doing for their country now?" Not that Kepel spares the Belgians. "They owe a moral debt to this country. They plundered it."

When I ask him about the international community, he again counters with a question. "What international community? Do the Americans and French coordinate against corruption here? Or does each ambassador try to get the best position for their own national interest, build relations that help the companies from their country get better deals? What do you think?"

Are there any politicians in Parliament who are genuinely trying to protect the environment and create development? Kepel pauses, scrolls through his phone, gives me a number. "But I warn you. He doesn't shake hands."

The next day I meet the man in question, Ne Muanda Nsemi, Member of Parliament and spiritual leader of a sect called Bund dia Kongo. Last May 134 of his followers were massacred by Kabila's troops as they protested against dirty dealing in local elections. Nsemi wears yellow and white vestments and receives me at his simple compound in a hillside neighborhood of Kinshasa. He explains that around a distant star circles a planet called Kongo and that the inhabitants of the old Bakongo kingdom, which once ruled parts of western Congo, were descended from extraterrestrials and Ethiopians. The whole story involves a tsunami, sunken continents, migration from Australia and many other surprising details.

I wonder if this is Kepel's idea of a joke. Then I get in a question about forest policy. Suddenly the millenarian discourse gives way to nuts-and-bolts politics. "The international community should pay for conferences that can be broadcast to educate people about the value of the forest and about the law. In Parliament we need to cooperate across party lines." He says the DRC needs sustainable forest industries, scientific management of the resources and subsidies from industrialized economies to preserve the forest for the sake of climate stability. "This planet is getting warmer--everyone needs these forests."

The main Congolese environmental organization working to save the forests is a small NGO called OCEAN, which serves as the link between international outfits like Greenpeace and local community groups in the concessions. This nascent green movement is calling for an immediate halt to illegal logging, by which they mean most logging in the DRC. But they also say that the DRC needs to develop the rule of law if a logging moratorium is to work--a long-term project, to say the least.

If the forests are to be saved, there will have to be north-to-south subsidies--call them conservation concessions or climate reparations. Paying the DRC not to log is hardly without problems, such as the boundless corruption of local officialdom--but even despite this, subsidies could help to keep chain saws and bulldozers out of the forests.

The communities desperately trying to leverage funds from logging firms will need something else in order to survive. And if massive subsidies are good enough for the tidy gingerbread farmsteads of Germany, the pretty backdrops of France and for US agribusiness, then surely the richest economies can spend to save the wilds of Congo, upon which we all depend. If Congo is deforested, the impact will be grim--and global.
Christian Parenti

Obama Asked to Hold Uganda and Rwanda accountable for DRC atrocities

United States President Barack Obama has been urged to hold Uganda and
Rwanda accountable for their actions in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC) in which at least 45,000 people are said to be dying every
month due to the conflict in which both countries are involved.

In a letter to US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the US
city of Berkeley in California says for the last 13 years, nearly six million men, women and children have died in the DRC and hundreds of thousands more have been victims of the conflict in which the armies of Uganda and Rwanda have taken part.

The Berkeley City letter said the conflict has resulted in unimaginable
atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity and threaten
the peace, security and well-being of Congo and its people.

It added: "Those responsible for such crimes have largely gone unpunished."

The letter which was also copied to United Nations Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon went on to say that it was gravely concerned for the
people of the DRC. It urged the US administration not to use US
military forces in the DRC and that it should make it a priority to
support local Congolese institutions with a proven record of
delivering services to the people.

It also urged the United States to
play a key role in the DRC and the African Great Lakes region by
relieving the tremendous suffering of the region's men, women and
children.

Berkeley City also wants the Obama Administration to hold US
corporations accountable for their actions in the DRC.

Several US companies are involved in the buying of various kinds of DRC precious stones mostly sold by warring military factions who in turn use the
hard currency gained from the sale of such stones to buy military
equipment such as guns, ammunition, grenades and bombs that prolongs
the DRC conflict.

It therefore directed Berkeley City Clerk to send the letter to Mrs Clinton, US Senator Barbara Boxer and Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Berkeley also called for an end to the wrongful exploitation of the Congolese people's resources, saying that these should not be a curse but rather a blessing to the Congolese people.

In what has become known as a landmark ruling in 2005, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), seating at its Peace Palace
headquarters in the Hague, ruled that there was ‘credible evidence'
sufficient to conclude that the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF),
in the course of their military intervention into the DRC, committed
acts of killing, torture and other forms of inhumane treatment of the
civilian population.

The Court concluded that Uganda had violated the sovereignty and also the territorial integrity of the DRC and that its actions constituted interference in the internal affairs of the DRC and in the civil war raging there. "The unlawful military intervention by Uganda was of such magnitude and duration that the Court considers it to be a grave violation of the prohibition on the use of force expressed in Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter," ICJ ruled.

The ICJ also held Uganda as being ‘internationally responsible' for
acts of looting, plundering and exploitation of the DRC's natural
resources committed by members of the UPDF in the territory of the
DRC, for violating its obligation of vigilance in regard to these acts
and for failing to comply with its obligations under Article 43 of the
Hague Regulations of 1907.

During ICJ's hearings, Uganda had claimed that the DRC had allowed opponents of the Ugandan regime to operate
freely in the country and mount attacks on Uganda. But the court ruled
that during its deliberations, Uganda had failed to produce any
evidence to support these claims.

"The Court notes that during this period, the DRC was in fact acting together with Uganda against the rebels, not in support of them,2 ICJ ruled. While Uganda had argued that its attacks on the DRC was in self-defence, the ICJ ruled it considered that any military action taken by the DRC against Uganda during that period could not be deemed wrongful since it would have been justified as action taken in self-defence.

The Court also pointed out that, while it had pronounced on the violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed by Ugandan military forces on the territory of the DRC, it nonetheless observed that the actions of the various parties in the complex
conflict in the DRC had contributed to the immense suffering faced by
the Congolese population. It said it was painfully aware that many
atrocities had been committed in the course of the conflict.

There’s an African country run like North Korea, that is Rwanda of Kagame

There’s an African country run like North Korea.

It’s not Zimbabwe with its tropical version of Jim Jong-il: Robert Mugabe, the old geezer who refuses to die; a convenient boogey man to showcase what’s wrong with Africa. Robert Mugabe, a ready-made “replacement killer” for Idi Amin.

Well, here’s a headline: Zim is on the right path, with the ever-resilient Morgan Tsvangirai who is fighting toe-to-toe with Mugabe, slowly but surely reversing the economic demise of a once wealthy country. Until the final demise of the walking-dead who is masquerading for the moment as the unbreakable “iron man.”

The African North Korea I’m referring to is Rwanda. In point of fact, and just due north to it, there’s another tropical North Korea: Uganda…

Rwanda and Uganda were once hailed as countries of the “African Renaissance.” Renaissance. Rebirth...
And, Rwanda in particular, is literally being reborn.

The analogy is false, the real North Korea stands out as Mao Zedong’s paper tiger—Rwandans aren’t starving for example. And Kagame—God be with him!—may pass on today but the Rwandan regime will prove to be sustainable and will live on.

There are precedents of stifling dictatorships in Africa. One could argue that Yoweri Museveni is midway on his path to rejoin the lineage of other African strongmen who have lasted or are still lasting a lifetime in power—to name a few, Congo’s Mobutu Sese-Seko (32 years), Gabon’s Omar Bongo (42 years) and Cameroon’s Paul Biya (28 years with the meter running)… Museveni has been the president of Uganda since 1986 (24 years) and shows no sign of relinquishing power.

But these Big Men didn’t have the un je ne sais quoi real stuff. Like the managerial, engineering skills and motivation to devise a biopolitical machine built to last. I should stop right there before I get ensnared into an extended metaphor...

The events unfolding in Kigali prior and after the return of a woman who could have been an Obama for both Rwanda and Congo are mesmerizing. Frightening.

There won’t be an Obama this year in Rwanda called Victoire Ingabire. And tough luck for the Congolese. A breath of fresh air, though, to hear out of the blue a Rwandan politician say the following in a radio interview:

“military expansionism: you know perfectly well that General Kagame’s military had attacked the Congo. Because of that war, Congo's death toll rose to more than 5 million of human lives.”


Moving on... Kagame has been in power since 1994, that is, 16 years. Some could claim he was only vice-president during the 6 years when Pasteur Bizimungu was the president of the country. But any serious observer knows that Bizimungu was a figurehead who was thrown in jail at the first inkling of insubordination. My estimate of the time span Kagame has been in power does stand indeed.

Truth be told: Museveni is but a child compared to Kagame.

We could easily overlook the dictatorial drifts as venial sins and point to economic miracles and good governance. We could likewise turn a blind eye to what F. Reyntjens calls the “privatization and criminalization of public space” in both countries. To put things bluntly, the governments in these two countries operate as criminal enterprises run by the military. They share those attributes with other countries in the region, including the DRC next door.

We could even laud today in hindsight the Pinochet regime as having been a good “free-market fascism” that had positive lasting impact on Chilean economy…

As a semblance of democracy is the “universal” acceptable norm today by donor countries, Rwanda and Uganda subject themselves to the travesty of the cycles of democratic elections.
You could look at Museveni and Kagame as clever players. They’ve both devised backstopping mechanisms to prevent the democratic sham from sliding out of bounds…
Kagame is not Museveni.

Museveni at times devises superficial backstops.

Breaking with the mold, Kagame is taking a stand and drawing a line in the sand. He sneezes and France catches a cold. He gets into the Commonwealth of Nations right under the nose of Nicholas Sarkozy in Trinidad, sending Bernard Kouchner begging for a handshake in Kigali. He could also quit any time he wants to.

In Uganda, credible opposition candidates are just arrested and charged with, say, rape—based on accusations made by government-paid rape victims—and, for good measure, charge them with “terrorism” too. This is what happened to retired Colonel and medical doctor Warren Kizza Besigye Kifefe of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) before the 2006 elections. While the opposition candidate is entangled in unending court proceedings, the irremovable Museveni sails to electoral triumph.

In Rwanda, Kagame has 5 more sophisticated backstops. In fact, they are not even backstops. They are something more permanent, the biopolitics of a social formation.
First, ban all reference to tribe and ethnicity while “barely concealed by the ban on ethnic labels, ethnic discrimination has since emerged as the hallmark of the Kagame regime, to an extent unprecedented in the history of Rwanda” (René Lemarchand).

Second, cripple all dissent preemptively with the threat of “revisionism” or “genocide denial.”

Third, line up the opposition with stooges with ridiculous political platform like “full employment, regional security, and progressive taxation”—complete with choreographed pre- and post-electoral accusations by said stooges of attempts by the incumbent to “silence [their] views.” During the 2003 presidential elections, there were two such candidates opposing Kagame that allowed him to get—without any rigging—95.1% of the votes.

And Fourth—and this is Kagame’s masterstroke—let anyone form their political parties but—hold and behold!—according to Ann Garrison, in order to “register and get a ballot line in Rwanda, a party must first convene, and the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda has now tried to convene five times, only to be met with bureaucratic obfuscation and on October 30 [2009], violence.”

The violence meted out against the members of the Democratic Green Party described by Ann Garrison with photographs taken with cellphones was reminiscent of the technique uncovered by Gérard Prunier in his book Africa’s World War:

“songamana: From the [Swahili] verb kusonga, to ‘press together’ [I’d instead translate the verb as to ‘knead’]. A form of crowd control using humiliation practiced by the RPA [Rwandan Patriotic Army] where many people are made to squat tightly together on the ground while being hectored by an officer.”

Nowadays the “hectoring” is preceded by police agents provocateurs masquerading as disgruntled party members resorting to blows to get their points across—prompting the police, lurking by as if by miracle, to suddenly materialize, beat everyone to submission... then “kneading” and “hectoring” them.

No glitches in the perfect setup. Glitches happen on the other side of the border, in the DRC. Not on this side of the border. We are dealing with professionals here.

Kagame’s first 7-year term comes to an end this year. There are presidential elections in August. And the RPF machine suddenly realized that this electoral cycle there are young, determined passionate and iconoclastic opposition candidates who won’t be bullied to play the 2003 script.

So another script has to be written. The script called the final act of the “outing” from the closet. No more playing the clown for “two constituencies” (domestic and foreign). Time to unify the constituencies. To lay these things in the open. To scare Victoire Ingabire into submission while throwing into the dustbin the narrative of “universality” and telling the producers of this discredited narrative—that is, so-called Western “experts” and NGOs—that things have changed once and for all. We're tired of playing the fools. Go ask leaders on the other side of the border, in the DRC, to continue playing this silly game!

And Kagame isn't some mercurial statesman like Museveni who, like a good Congolese politician, at times says things he doesn’t mean. In fact, Kagame has a keen sense of verbal economy. He’s a strategist. He’s got plenty of big guns around: technocrats and intellectuals to do the talking and the doing. And these guys happen to be academic heavy weights.

Way before Victoire Ingabire’s return, the RPF brought out the heavy artillery. In the person of the crafty litterateur, professor, writer, contentious pamphleteer, communication director and spokesperson Servilien M. Sebasoni.

The man was born a wordsmith extraordinaire. A prolific analyst.

He tagged Victoire Ingabire as the “présidente virtuelle du Rwanda” [Rwanda’s virtual president]—a scornful moniker that instantly went viral on Rwandan blogosphere.
By late November, Sebasoni didn’t even think Ingabire would dare to show up at Kigali International Airport.

In the concluding paragraph of the scathing statement he unleashed in Kigali on November 26 with all the flourish of his trademark high-brow French style, Sebasoni scoffs at the pretentions of Ingabire while painting a chilling scenario of the aftermath of elections fraught with controversies:

“the Rwandan presidential election might take place in 2010, if the virtual president, who never ends coming home, decided not to come in Rwanda. On the one end, she has sufficiently prepared her constituents for this eventuality, by tapping into the anthology that her diaspora has made up against Kagame; on the other hand, the alternative that her partisans imagine in the event isn’t enticing for a candidate who is loath to violence. Who would have a stake, in effect, in seeing the upcoming elections lead into a “Kenya” or a “Zimbabwe,” if the results were to be contested by the opposition?”

The pamphlet is even more portentous as it strips the electoral process of any previous pretenses by the regime to appear playing by the rule of a universal canon of democracy—a despicable “IMITATION” (capital in the original) of western standards.
There’s a need to invent the African future of political play, Sebasoni asserts (triggering by association in my mind Mobutu’s maxims of Authenticity: “The African authentic political system isn’t a system of opposition but a system of cohesive juxtaposition”):

“This incapacity to think by oneself, to say something else instead of systematically plundering all the clichés and commonplaces and other acknowledged ‘experts,’ this psittacism is frightening for a generation forced to invent a future, at the moment when Western universalism is leaking at the seams and starts to be contested and put into question as well in Asia as in Africa, even right down on its own turf, in Europe and America in the wake of resounding fiascos. There is in fact a big chunk of books that are coming out to denounce the claims of the Western model to universality. Just read. Jean Ziegler, Hatred of the West (2008); Amin Maalouf, A World Adrift (2009); Immanuel Wallerstein, European Universalism (2008); George Corm, L’Europe et le Mythe de l’Occident [Europe and the Western Myth] (2009). And several more other books. You will discover that the famous ‘international standards’ about which they go on and on are only Western standards to boot. It will soon be permitted to be an honest person without being a Westerner. To take advantage, however, of the insufficiencies of the new Rwanda and to go along with its detractors could be a strategy chosen wisely. The fact remains nonetheless that a political project that would discard individual creativity of the nation is by no means meant to last, even though it is true that the poor have to account to two ‘constituencies,’ the aid donors and the people. Such an anomaly could only be transitory and couldn’t serve as a lasting pact between the politician and the people.”

This guy is brilliant and his prose dense with meaning, let alone this impressive library. I've to give it to him: no one reads anymore in the DRC... The part of "plunder," of "psittacism" ("parotting"): this is heavy stuff lifted from developmental and clinical psychology and applied to cultural theory: that is, "alienation" (again, I stumble upon Mobutu). This is a systematic and chilling exercise in deconstruction. Chilling because this guy might as well tear to pieces “Western standards” of DIPLOMACY and read the riot act to the bickering politicians in Kinshasa as follows: "Hey, guys, this is the 'new normal' in diplomacy in the Great Lakes; our way or the highway!"... Maybe they've done it already!

“Pact between the politician and the people.” Uncanny sentence…

Once again, I’m reminded of Mobutu who kept repeating: “Mobutuism is the complicity between the Guide and his people.” (The man had "bloated" himself to fill up a whole country!) But I know that Mobutu was a “virtual” moron—to borrow a qualifier dear to Sebasoni. Did Mobutu come up independently with all this stuff? I don't think so... And still, I see a a common thread linking Sebasoni and Mobutu as if they tapped into the same well. There’s a genealogy… I also remember the persistent rumor circulating in Zaire at the time that claimed that the ideas of Authenticity were implanted into Mobutu’s mind by Barthélémy Bisengamina Rwema, a Rwandan engineer and intellectual, who served for a long time as Mobutu’s Chief of Staff. And the rumor went on to say that Bisengimana got those ideas from the books authored by Rwandan polymath ALEXIS Kagame… speculation no doubt.

How are the donors going to react to this riot act of new non-Western democracy that doesn't care about "universal standards"? For despite the riot act, Rwanda still needs foreign dollars to bridge the electoral budget deficit:

“The mountainous country faces a huge hike in the cost of holding the election.
The 2010 vote will cost 11 million dollars (7.7 million euros) compared to some 4 million dollars in 2003, according to state radio, which quoted the country's electoral commission.

'The price of voting materials has gone up since 2003 and the number of voters has also risen,' the executive secretary of the electoral commission, Charles Munyaneza, told AFP.

The Rwandan government will bear more than half of the cost of the election, with the rest contributed by donors such as Britain, the European Union and the Netherlands, the radio said.”

We know that Rwandan leadership never backs down… August is just round the corner, let’s wait and see.

Saturday, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza—“who piles up beautiful names (Victoire, Don, Consolation)” (dixit Sebasoni) — returned to New Rwanda after 16 years of absence and caused an uproar for what she said and angered the powers that be.
New Rwanda may not be the place for her. What a waste with such a beautiful campaign logo: Victore2010… And, BTW, we need brilliant women like her in the Congo.

Madame Victoire, Don:

Please, move to Kinshasa and get Congolese nationality. It’s easy, believe me. It will be your Consolation prize for returning to Africa… Time isn't ripe in New Rwanda for your kind of discourse...Maybe never!... To speak in tongue like Servilien Sebasoni, there's a massive semiotic fraud taking place in New Rwanda, just like under Mobutu's Authenticity in Zaire... It's a waste of time... You belong in the DRC, where no one would ever dare get us back to that sham... Even in the darkest moments when Kisangani was under the boot of Rwandan and Ugandan occupational forces... There's a direct flight from Kigali to Kinshasa, I believe or via Nairobi... Think about it... That’s where you stand the chance of fulfilling your destiny of another kind of Obama of the African Great Lakes region.