Amnesty calls for regional approach to Great Lakes

The human rights group, Amnesty International, has urged the newly convened UN Comission on Human Rights to “make human rights and not politics the yardstick of its work”. AI’s secretary-general Pierre Sane told a news conference yesterday that victims in places such as the Great Lakes region had been let down by “governments’ failure to match human rights rhetoric with adequate support for action”. “The Commission has a duty to ensure such action is taken,” he stressed.

“The Great Lakes region of Africa is treated by the Commission as three separate situations,” Sane said. “However the cycle of conflict and gross human rights abuses - and the resulting mass displacements - have become so internationalised that only a regional approach could have any impact”. He said human rights field presences should be strengthened in Burundi and DRC, and re-established in Rwanda.