Dissident rebel group sues RCD-Goma for Kisangani massacre

A newly created Congolese rebel group headed by the former spokesman for the Rwandan-backed rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) has begun legal proceedings in Belgium against RCD-Goma for its role in massacres committed in May in the northeastern city of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The RCD-Congo and its president, Tryphon Kin-kiey Mulumba, said in declaration from Brussels on 9 August that the organisation had "begun legal proceedings in Belgium [...] against the leaders of the current RCD-Goma, following the perpetration by the group of heinous acts in violation of basic rules of international humanitarian law". The statement added that RCD-Congo sought to collaborate with any other organisations or individuals wishing to pursue legal action against RCD-Goma.

A 1993 Belgian law allows war crimes and crimes against humanity to be heard on Belgian territory regardless of where the alleged offences took place or the plaintiff's country of residence. Many such cases have been lodged in Belgium, including against several world leaders such as the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, Iraqi President Saddam Husayn, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, and the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat.

However, due to recent defeats, many human rights defenders fear that all these cases could be dropped. The only successful trial so far under that law took place last year, when four Rwandans were sentenced by a Brussels court for their role in the 1994 genocide. The Rwandans were on Belgian soil at the time the charges were filed.

[The RCD-Congo statement can be found on the front page of his online journal, Le Soft, located at http://www.lesoftonline.net]

MONUC, the UN mission in the DRC, has accused RCD-Goma of "grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law" in Kisangani, where the RCD-Goma is the de facto administrative authority. "In light of overwhelming evidence, and even though a mutiny appears to be at the origin of the reprisals committed by the RCD, MONUC considers the exactions to have been unjustifiable and unacceptable," the UN mission said on 23 May in a preliminary report on a mutiny within RCD-Goma in Kisangani from 14 to 21 May.

In a 22 May interview with Voice of America radio, Mulumba, the then RCD-Goma spokesman, said his organisation was calling for the establishment of an international independent commission of inquiry. "Killing a man, whether he is a Tutsi or Hutu or Muntu, is an atrocity. We must condemn these atrocities wherever they come from. Now RCD is accused, but I wonder, in what interest would our movement engage in a diabolic operation that would eventually mar its image? And who would profit by these sombre events?" he said.

Soon thereafter, he left RCD-Goma.

Explaining the reasons for RCD-Congo's creation at a news conference in Brussels on 26 July, Mulumba said RCD-Goma had "become mired in serious internal contradictions that each day moved it farther away from its objectives. The contradictions of the RCD have recently reached exponential levels. The RCD was not created to kill nor oppress the Congolese people."