UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the DRC Roberto Garreton told IRIN today (Wednesday) he had “every intention” of accepting an invitation by the Kinshasa government to probe alleged rights violations. “Absolutely, after all it was me who asked for it in the first place,” he noted. The government of President Laurent-Desire Kabila on Monday invited the special rapporteur to return to the county in February. But Garreton said the exact date was now a matter of negotiation. He stressed his mandate was to investigate the human rights situation in the whole of the country during 1998, and not just probe alleged massacres in the east of the country in the run up to Kabila’s take-over in 1996. “I don’t exclude it, but as of today that is not my mandate,” he said.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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