War is international, not just local, says rights group

Fighting in Ituri District of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been misdescribed as a local ethnic rivalry when in fact it represents an ongoing struggle for power at the national and international levels, international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on Tuesday. The 57-page report, "'Covered in Blood': Ethnically Targeted Violence in Northern DR Congo", provides evidence that combatants in Ituri had slaughtered at least 5,000 civilians in the past year because of their ethnic affiliation. But the combatants were armed and often directed by the governments of the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, HRW said. "Agreements between governments don't do much good when the government armies are just passing their guns on to local militias," Alison Des Forges, senior adviser to the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said. "The crisis in Congo won't be resolved without addressing all levels of this conflict." "The majority of the population in Ituri are neither Hema nor Lendu, the ethnic groups whose militias are responsible for much of the current violence," HRW said. "But all inhabitants of Ituri have been forced to choose sides, and are subject to attack because they are thought to be associated with either Hema or Lendu groups." In recent months, human rights workers have not had access to rural Ituri or been able to provide information about specific massacres of civilians. But HRW said its report presents evidence of, among others, a civilian massacre at Nyakunde in early September 2002, where Lendu combatants slaughtered some 1,200 people of the Hema and related groups. "Over a 10-day period, the killers dragged victims from their homes and murdered patients found in beds at a missionary hospital," HRW said. "The Nyakunde massacre claimed significantly more victims than has previously been known." "Violent death is now an everyday occurrence in Ituri," Des Forges added. "Killers have resorted to cannibalism to terrorise people they want to control." The report charges that all groups recruit children, some as young as seven years old, for military service. Militias have driven some half a million people from their homes, and looted and burned the dwellings. To weaken their enemies, various militias have impeded deliveries of food or other forms of humanitarian aid to displaced people and others in need, increasing the number of civilians dead because of the war, the report indicated, adding that in some 30 cases in recent months, humanitarian workers have been threatened, beaten and expelled. In September, the UN Observer Mission to the DRC, due to be strengthened by several thousand more soldiers, will be the only international force present in the country. The UN Security Council will soon consider the size and mandate for the force. "The Security Council must ensure that civilians in Bunia and elsewhere will be protected after the interim force leaves," Des Forges said. "They must provide the peacekeepers and the mandate necessary to prevent further ethnic killing." [For the complete report, go to http://hrw.org/]