Rebels reject Amnesty report

The rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) on Tuesday denied accusations by Amnesty International of involvement in human rights abuses in areas within its jurisdiction. “Of course this is not true,” RCD head of security and intelligence Dr Bizima Karaha told IRIN. He dismissed claims by Amnesty that the RCD was responsible for the massacre of civilians at Kahungwe market and the killing of 12 women accused of witchcraft in Mwenga, both in South Kivu. “It is unbelievable that it [Amnesty International] can say such things,” he said. “It was the Mayi Mayi [militia] who killed the people and the number of people who died around the market were between 10-12 and not 50 as it reported,” Dr Karaha said. “As for the women, it is the Mayi Mayi who believe in witchcraft and actually believed that they were losing the battle because women were usurping their powers and were causing them the bad omen, so they killed them,” he said. In its latest report, the human rights watchdog Amnesty International accused RCD forces, “backed by government troops from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda and other armed groups opposing them such as the Mayi Mayi and the Interahamwe” of “perpetrating widespread human rights abuses” in areas under their control. It said that during a visit to North and South Kivu in November 1999, its representatives gathered evidence of “widespread, deliberate and arbitrary killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrests and torture”.