UN investigators unable to identity perpetrators of August killings

After almost two months, an interdisciplinary team of UN experts have been unable to identify the killers of 160 Congolese Tutsi refugees on 13 August at the Gatumba transit camp on the Burundi side of the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "The investigation team has been unable to establish who organised, carried out and paid for the atrocity," according to a report the UN Secretary-General sent to the Security Council earlier in October. The report recommended that the Burundian government and the International Criminal Court continue investigations. Officials from the UN peacekeeping missions in the Congo and Burundi produced the report jointly along with UN police and officials from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Earlier, governments in the region along with local and international NGOs publicly disagreed over which armed groups carried out the massacre. The accusations threatened to reignite tensions in the regions. Immediately after the attack occurred, the one remaining rebel group still fighting in Burundi, the Parti pour la liberation du peuple hutu-Forces nationales de liberation (PALIPEHUTU-FNL), claimed responsibility for the attack. But prominent officials in the Rwandan and Burundian governments said the Hutu militants in eastern Congo were responsible. Officials in both governments threatened to retaliate by invading; the Tutsi Congolese vice-president in the DRC, Azarias Ruberwa, temporarily suspended his participation in the country's transitional government. In September, the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch refuted claims that the armed groups in eastern DRC were the main perpetrators. At the time Alision Des Forges, senior adviser to the international NGO’s African Division had said, "The accepted version of events is wrong." Then, other NGOs refuted the Human Rights Watch statement. One of the organisations, the Pole Institute, issued a special preliminary report on its findings. "Several eyewitnesses say that the attack was led by the Congolese Major Ekofo, a former fighter of the militia of Mayi-Mayi General Nyakabaka and the [current] vice-commander of the FARDC in Uvira," the Pole Institute said. FARDC refers to the national army of the Congo. The UN report partially supports the institute's claims. "While the acts uncovered did not permit the UN team to conclusively determine the identity of the assailants beyond the likely participation of FNL," it said, "credible, though not verified, information suggesting the potential involvement of one or more actors in DRC warrants a continuation of the investigation." The report also blames the Burundi government for failing to protect the refugees. "The Burundian authorities failed to move the refugee camp to a safer location prior to the attack and failed to adequately protect the refugees and come to their aid on the evening of the massacre," it said. A public information officer from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), David Short, told IRIN that the agency had been pressuring the Burundi government to relocate the refugees since they arrived at Gatumba in June. The agency had recommended they be moved to a camp at Giharo, in the eastern province of Rutana. The Burundi government agreed to the site after the massacre had occurred. However, the adviser to Burundi's home affairs minister in charge of refugees, Col Didace Nzikoruriho, said even if the site had been agreed to in June, it would have taken one or two months to prepare it. He said space had been found at Gasorwe, in the northern province of Muyinga. "But only about ten [of the refugees] accepted; we could not move the rest by force,” he said. Other reasons were offered for the attack. According to Karenga Ramadhan, a spokesman for the Conseil national pour la défense de la democratie-Forces pour la défense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), formerly the main rebel group in Burundi, before the attack some 4,000 CNDD-FDD combatants had been patrolling in area around Gatumba along with government troops. "We were persuaded to pull out so as to convince the FNL to enter into negotiations," Karenga said. "We warned there would be an attack but no action was taken." The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Burundi, Carolyn McAskie, denied that the killings occurred because the CNDD-FDD troops pulled out and said the UN had not been warned of the attack. She said when the killings were occurring, a nearby army unit had called army headquarters for back up but no help was sent. However, the Burundian army denied its troops stood idly by. "Despite the allegations that the brigade did not defend the refugees, they were the first to be attacked precisely to prevent them from helping," Maj Adolphe Manirakiza, the Burundian military spokesman, told IRIN from Bujumbura in September. He said the soldiers "did not even know that another group was slaughtering" the Banyamulenge. "It was only when they pushed back the assault [on their position] that they realised that other attackers were committing a massacre," he added.