Attack on refugees did not involve Congolese forces, rights body says

Blame for the death of 152 civilians on 13 August at the Gatumba refugee camp in western Burundi should mostly go to the country's rebel Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a briefing paper published on Tuesday. It refutes widespread claims that armed groups based in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were the main perpetrators. "The accepted version of events is wrong," Alision Des Forges, senior adviser to HRW's African Division, said. Investigations by HRW found only, "small numbers of combatants from other armed groups". "About 100 combatants of the FNL swept down on some 800 sleeping refugees, singing religious songs, drumming, and blowing on whistles," HRW said in its 33-page briefing paper titled, "Gatumba Massacre: War Crimes and Political Agendas." It said, "They raked the refugees' tents with gunfire and threw incendiary grenades that burned dozens to death." The attackers also wounded 106 refugees. The victims were Tutsi refugees from the DRC. The FNL immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, and regional leaders at a summit a few days later branded them "terrorists". But various leaders in the region, particularly Tutsis, claim that armed Hutus based in the DRC, known as the Interahamwe, as well as Congolese Mayi-Mayi militiamen, played a key role in the attack. The claims have been widely disseminated in the local and international media. The claims even featured in a recent UN Secretary-General's report to the UN Security Council. The claims have heightened tensions in the already volatile region. A Tutsi leader of one of the former DRC rebel groups, who became one of the country's four vice-presidents, briefly suspended his participation in the transitional coalition government. HRW said the Gatumba killings were designed to upset the peace processes in the DRC and Burundi. "Various contenders for power within these two countries as well as parties to conflicts across national boundaries immediately tried to appropriate the massacre for their own political ends. In so doing, they increased the likelihood of armed conflict and the slaughter of still more civilians," HRW said. It accused Burundian soldiers and police of failing to help the refugees even though "they were fully aware of the slaughter, which took place within a few hundred yards of their camps." HRW also said local authorities failed to inform UN peacekeepers of the massacre that "knew nothing of the attack until it was over". HRW said the FNL justified the attack on the camp on the grounds that Tutsi combatants there were preparing for a new war in the DRC. But the rights group said the attack clearly was "in violation of international humanitarian law (the laws of war)" and that "any persons accused of this crime" should be brought to trial. [HRW briefing paper on http://hrw.org/]