Rights body denounces human rights violations, calls for accountability

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has denounced continued human rights violations in the Republic of Congo, and called for those responsible to be held accountable for their crimes. "Repeated civil wars [in the country] are the origin of all kinds of human rights violations," Sidiki Kaba, the FIDH president, said at a news conference on Thursday in the capital, Brazzaville. "All those alleged to be involved in such crimes must be brought before justice," he added. Kaba also criticised what he termed "selective amnesty" accorded by Congolese authorities to former Ninja fighters responsible for exactions carried out during civil wars in the department of Pool, southeastern Congo. For its part, the Observatoire congolais des droits de l'Homme, a national partner of FIDH, had issued a similar condemnation of the amnesty in October, saying such a law would impede the process of national reconciliation because of its exclusion of certain opposition leaders currently living in exile. Kaba said he hoped that the trial that began in 2002 in Meaux, France, against four Congolese authorities suspected of involvement in the disappearance of some 350 Congolese refugees returning from neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1999 would "be brought to a conclusion so that all guilty parties were held accountable for the crimes they had committed". The four officials targeted in the Meaux complaint, filed by relatives of the disappeared, include President Denis Sassou-Nguesso; Security Minister Pierre Oba; former Republican Guard commander Gen Blaise Adoua; and army Inspector-General Norbert Dabira. A Brazzaville court has, meanwhile, begun its own investigation into the matter, although no one has yet been indicted. Kaba called on Congolese authorities to allow the return of former Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas, who has been living in exile since 1997. Kolelas was sentenced in absentia to death for human rights violations alleged to have been committed during his tenure in government. "Kolelas should return to Congo to be heard before a Congolese court," Kaba said. Kaba also criticised mismanagement of the country's petroleum and timber resources, and called for greater freedom of the press.