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Can
the International Community Avert Genocide in the Democratic Republic
of Congo? “Our evaluation, from what we know, it could be a genocide” said Carla del Ponte, prosecutor for the UN war crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda on May 13, referring to the latest outbreak of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prosecutor Del Ponte’s statement comes at a time when the fragile peace process in Congo is threatened by massacres reported to have taken place in Bunia, the capital of Ituri in the eastern part of the country. The Ituri region has been the site of much of the fiercest fighting during the sprawling war that has been raging in Congo for the last five years. As part of the peace process, Ugandan forces that had taken control of the area withdrew from Bunia on May 7. But the power vacuum that was created by their departure has led to renewed clashes between the militias of rival ethnic groups, especially the Lendu and the Hema. Thousands of residents have fled Bunia and according to the UN mission in Congo, at least 280 people have been killed since May 4, including women and children. Some bodies had been decapitated, and others had their hearts, livers and lungs missing. Witnesses described the death and mutilation that occurred as Lendu tribal fighters killed civilians and combatants and then ripped out their hearts, which they ate while still warm. “The sight of a corpse with a missing liver and heart is horrific, especially when you know that those parts were eaten by fellow human beings,” Acquitte Kisembo, a 28 year old medical student, told the Associated Press. The
UN mission in Congo said it would investigate these allegations
of cannibalism, but it is not the first time such accusations have
arisen in Ituri. On January 15, UN investigators confirmed that
rebels had committed cannibalism, rape, torture, and killing. “The
perpetrators of these atrocities will be placed under the spotlight
and will be obliged to answer for their actions. They may eventually
be the target of prosecution before the International Criminal Court,”
warned Sergio Vieira de Mello, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
in a statement on April 8. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a
party to the International Criminal Court, so the court has jurisdiction
over war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide committed
on its territory. In a meeting at the United Nations on Monday May 12, 2003, Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of the UN peacekeeping operations warned that without decisive action there would be “a bloodbath” in the DR Congo’s Ituri province between the Lendu majority and Hema minority. The Lendu, predominately farmers, and the Hemas, traditionally cattle-raisers have been in conflict for centuries over the Ituri province's rich mineral deposits, vast timber forests and fertile land. These rivalries were exacerbated as war broke out in 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo to overthrow President Laurent Kabila. Rwanda and Uganda entered the war as allies but ended up supporting rival rebel groups. When Ugandan troops withdrew on May 7, it is suspected that they distributed arms to the Hema militia, which was preparing itself to take over Bunia once the Ugandan force of 6,000 left the area, setting the stage for the violence that erupted. According to a study released in April by the International Rescue Committee at least 3.3 million people have died as a result of the war in the Congo since August 1998, when the war erupted, through November 2002 when the survey was completed. “This is a humanitarian catastrophe of horrid and shocking proportions,” says George Rupp, president of the IRC. “The worst mortality projections in the event of a lengthy war in Iraq, and the death toll from all the recent wars in the Balkans don’t even come close. Yet, the crisis has received scant attention from international donors and the media.” Last week, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote to all 15 Security Council members asking them to consider sending peacekeeping troops to Eastern Congo. France has indicated that it is prepared to send peacekeeping troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo, provided there is a clear mandate and that other governments join. “France is willing to contribute to the stabilization of Ituri and right now we are studying ways of taking part in an international force,” according to foreign ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau. The
United Kingdom has announced that it is also considering Mr. Annan’s
request for 1,000 peacekeeping troops to be sent to Ituri. Lady
Amos, the new international development secretary, told the BBC’s
Breakfast with Frost program: “The UK has made its priorities
absolutely clear, which is to work on conflict resolution in Africa,
particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo…” Genocide Warning The United Nations has a force of about 700 soldiers in the region, but it neither has the mandate nor the equipment to stop the fighting. UN officials have warned of a humanitarian disaster is the international community does not stop the fighting. According to the BBC, some officials have likened recent killings and racial tensions in the area to the start of the Rwanda genocide in 1994. Sergio Vieira de Mello, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that, "Although the situation has stabilized in the last few days as warring groups engaged in talks, further egregious human rights violations, and perhaps even a genocidal conflict, may not be averted unless an adequate deterrence capacity is put in place, pending the establishment of central Government authority." If the violence in the Congo amounts to genocide, international humanitarian law requires international actors to prevent continued violence and prosecute war crimes in the region. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crimes of Genocide defines genocide, whether committed during a time of war or peace, as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The Genocide Convention imposes a general duty on States parties “to prevent and to punish” genocide. Parties to the convention can bring a case before the International Court of Justice alleging that another State party is responsible for genocide. The first case of this sort was brought against Yugoslavia by Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1993 and is still pending. Although the treaties themselves are binding only on States that are parties to the treaties, in a 1951 advisory opinion the International Court of Justice observed that the principles underlying the Genocide Convention are part of customary international law, which binds all states. Related chapters from Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know: Genocide Related Links: Britain
considers UN call for Congo help
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