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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In May 1997, the Alliance of the Democratic Forces for

the Liberation of Congo, a guerrilla front movement

supported by Uganda and Rwanda, headed by Laurent —

Desiré Kabila, overthrew the Zairian Mobutu regime and

restored the country’s former name — the Democratic

Republic of Congo (DRC). A massive armed rebellion

against the Kabila government was launched one year

64 • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o

DEMOCRATICREPUBLIC OF THE CONGO From April 24 to May 6, 2003, two members

of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology

team, Luis Fondebrider and Anahí Ginarte,

traveled to DRC at the request of the Office

of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

and the Human Rights office of the United

Nations Mission, MONUC. The two forensic

consultants joined a Special Investigative

Team from MONUC in order to provide

physical evidence that could be incorporated

into its report about the incidents that

occurred at the village of Drodro and

its surroundings on April 3, 2003.

The purpose of the trip was to conduct

a forensic assessment of these incidents,

which are part of the country’s

six-year conflict.

later, led largely by two main rebel groups. The Movement

for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), one of the rebel

groups, was backed by Uganda, while different branches of

the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), the second

group, were backed by Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi,

former allies of Kabila.

After a short time the rebels controlled over 50% of the

D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • 65

Goma residents salute Laurent Kabila in Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire), 1996. Photo courtesy of Guy Tillim.

country in the eastern

and northern parts of

Congo. The

governments of

Angola, Zimbabwe

and Namibia

responded to a request

by the Congolese

government to send

troops in its defense.

Government forces and

supporting troops from

these countries

maintained control of

most of the western

and southern parts of

the DRC. In addition,

the Mai Mai, a group of

local people who took

up arms in various

parts of the country,

also have played a role

in defending territory

from the rebels. Since

the rebel takeover, war

has ravaged the

country and numerous

other rebel groups and

alliances have

emerged.1

The war in the DRC has been the “deadliest” war in the

world since World War II, according to a mortality study

released by the International Rescue Committee, which

estimates that between August 1998 and November 2002

at least 3.3 million people died as a direct or indirect result

of the fighting.2 Human Rights Watch reports that all

groups involved in the fighting — including government

and rebel forces- have participated in human rights

violations, including killing, maiming, and raping

hundreds of thousands of civilians.3 Thousands of others

died because of hunger or disease, and an estimated two

million persons were forced to flee their homes.4 Human

rights activists and journalists have suffered harassment,

abduction, physical

assault, and arbitrary

arrest by all sides. All

combatant groups

reportedly abducted

and recruited children

to be trained and

deployed as soldiers, as

members of local

militia or civil defense

forces, or as workers

attached to military

unit.5

After the assassination

of his father, the

accession of Joseph

Kabila as president of

the DRC in 2001,

raised hopes for the

end of the war.6

President Kabila was

chosen by consensus

among leading

domestic and foreign

players rather than

by any constitutional

mechanism.7 Upon

taking power, he

vowed to honor civil

and political rights. However, according

to Human Rights Watch, throughout his two years as

president, he has continued to operate under Decree Law

No. 3 of 19978 established by his father, which granted

him full executive, legislative, and judicial powers.

The public position of Rwanda and Uganda was that their

troops were in Congo to fight armed groups based in DRC

that posed a threat to their countries, according to Human

Rights Watch.9 However, the UN Security Council

concluded in an October 2002 report that the conflict was

being spurred by Rwandan, Ugandan, and Zimbabwean

army officers as well as Congolese authorities acting in

both private and public capacities to exploit Congolese


Mai mai militia in training gear near Beni, eastern DRC, for immediatedeployment with the APC (Armée Populaire du Congo), the army of theRCD-KIS-ML (Congolese Rally for Democracy/Kisangani-LiberationMovement), Dec. 2002. Photo courtesy of Guy Tillim.

natural resources.10 Sales from stolen Congolese resources

such as diamonds, timber, copper, gold, cobalt and coltan,

a mineral used in electronic devices reportedly earned

Uganda and Rwanda multi-million dollar revenues, which

each has used to sustain their respective war efforts in

eastern DRC.11 Amnesty International reported, “foreign

forces…deliberately stoked inter-ethnic conflicts and mass

killings in order to promote their economic interests.”12

According to a United Nations panel of experts,

Zimbabwe has established economic investment in the

DRC by setting up new companies in government

controlled areas and contractual arrangements with an

elite group of Congolese businessmen and politicians.

Revenue from mining ventures of these private companies

bypasses the DRC’s state treasury and rests in the hands of

members of the elite private sector.13

Several attempts to bring peace to the DRC have been

unsuccessful. It was hoped that the Lusaka Accords Peace

Agreement, reached in July 1999, would lead to the

cessation of hostilities. The United Nations Security

Council established the United Nations Organization

Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

(MONUC) on November 30, 1999 to oversee the

implementation of the accords. By 2001, it seemed that

there would be a cessation of hostilities as some of the

accords of the agreement were enacted. However, fighting

resumed within months.

Finally, in December 2002, the Congolese government,

rebels and opposition parties signed a peace accord with

the assistance of the South African government and

MONUC. The agreement established a transitional

government headed by Joseph Kabila until the first

democratic elections. In addition, the agreement called

for the deployment of a national police force drawn

from both government and rebel held areas to maintain

order in the capital, Kinshasa. MONUC was also

expanded from 5,537 to 8,700 international military

personnel.14 The transitional government established in

July 2003 was comprised of President Kabila and four

vice presidents named from the Congolese government,

the two main rebel groups RCD and MLC, and the

political opposition.

Violence in Eastern DRC

Yet the fighting resumed, mostly in the eastern part of

the country bordering Rwanda. Although Rwanda had

withdrawn its troops under international pressure,

according to the International Crisis Group, Rwanda

reorganized the military branch of the RCD-Goma to be

ready for rapid deployment.15 By late December 2002,

according to a UN report, the RCD-National/MCL —

initially linked to Uganda (and still linked according to

some), whose troops were still in the area at the time-

committed serious human rights violations and displaced

tens of thousands of civilians in the district of Ituri, in the

Oriental province.16 Witnesses and victims interviewed

by the UN repeated earlier allegations that the MCL was

responsible for rape, torture, and executions near the town

of Beni in the Ituri district from October through

December 2002.17 The violence in Ituri reportedly

stemmed from armed conflict between the Hema and

Lendu ethnic groups (see below under “case

background”). However, according to Amnesty

International, “the conflict has been manipulated and

exacerbated by leaders of armed political groups fighting

for political and economic control in the region.”18

On March 16, 2003, the Union of Congolese Patriots

(UPC), which had taken Bunia — the capital of Ituri —

with assistance of the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces

(UPDF)19 from the RCD-ML in August 2002, was itself

forced out of Bunia by the UPDF, resulting again in the

extensive loss of civilian life and widespread property

damage.20 Throughout 2003, Amnesty also reported

numerous massacre sites in the Ituri region, citing more

than 300 people killed in Tchomia on May 31; 22

civilians killed on July 7th in Nizi; more than 60

civilians killed in July and August; and more than 65

people, including 40 children, killed in Katshele on

October 6.21

Finally, in 2003, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia

withdrew their troops in compliance with the accords.

However, the International Rescue Committee reported

in April 2003 that while Rwanda reportedly withdrew its

forces in October 2002, militias that were part of the


1994 genocide in Rwanda remained in the forests of

eastern Congo.22

In July 2003, Amnesty reports, “the Security Council

authorized MONUC forces to use ‘all necessary means’ to

protect civilians under imminent threat of physical

violence in Ituri district and the Kivu provinces.” Human

rights violations, including disappearances, mass killings

of civilians, forced recruitment, and rape continued, as

did impunity for those alleged to have committed human

rights violations.23 The UN reported that during a 10

month period in the South Kivu region, there were more

than 40 rapes per day, and many rape victims contracted

HIV/AIDS.24

During 2003, widespread violence also erupted again in

the South-Kivu province, where dozens of unarmed

civilians reportedly were killed and tens of thousands

were displaced in conflicts in the Ruzizi plain, the Hauts-

Plateaux region, Walungu, Bukavu and Uvira.25

Amnesty International reports that by the end of 2003,

approximately 3.4 million people in DRC continued to

be internally displaced, and humanitarian assistance was

not available to many areas.26

In June, 2004, fighting broke out in Bukavu, along the

border with Rwanda, displacing approximately 36,000

people and putting the city in control of a rebel group led

by General Laurent Nkunda, accused by the Congolese

government of being backed by the Rwandan

government.27 While rebel troops reportedly withdrew

from the region, it seems, President Joseph Kabila sent

more than 10,000 troops to the border, according to the

BBC, interpreted by the Rwandans as a hostile move and

bringing the country yet again to the brink of civil war.28

On June 25, President Kabila of Congo and President

Kagame of Rwanda held talks and agreed to follow the

peace agreement of 2002 so that the region would not

return to fighting. Yet at the time of this writing, as the

leaders met in Nigeria to ensure peace, journalists

reported large-scale movement of civilians fleeing the city

of Minova, also on the Rwandan border, after rebel troops

began to move into the area.

CASE BACKGROUND

Bunia, Ituri in the northeast of the Democratic Republic

of Congo (DRC), is a region of small hills appropriate for

agriculture. Two primary ethnic groups, the agricultural

Lendu (with a population of approximately 700,000) and

the pastoral Hema (approximately 150,000), live in the

area, together comprising 40% of the population of the

district.29 While they share a language and inter-marriage

is common, under Belgian colonial rule the Hema were

favored and continued to form the governing and

economic elite even after independence.30 The groups also

have competed for control of the land for some time.

The first conflict occurred in 1999, while the area was

occupied by Ugandan forces.31 Allegedly, a group of

Hema attempted to bribe authorities in Ituri to change

land ownership registers in their favor, and Lendu

believed that they used false papers to evict Lendu from

the land. The Lendu retaliated, resulting in a conflict

between the two groups.32

According to Human Rights Watch, following this land

dispute, in June 1999 Brigadier General James Kazini,

then commander of the Ugandan People’s Defense Force

(UDPF) in Congo, created a separate province of Ituri

(formerly Oriental Province), naming Bunia as the

capital.33 He named a Hema to head the new

administration. The installation of the new governor

coincided with an outbreak of violence between Lendu

and Hema, with the Lendu and others seeing Uganda and

the RCD-ML as increasingly committed to the Hema,

though it reportedly recruited and trained soldiers from

both communities. In the months of violence that

followed, an estimated 7,000 persons of both groups were

slain and 200,000 fled their homes.

The violence in Bunia, as described in the previous section,

increased significantly beginning in August 2002 and

continued to escalate throughout 2003. Human Rights

Watch has emphasized that all parties have committed

serious human rights violations and that external actors

(such as the Ugandan army) have played a major role in the

violence.34


Between 1999-2003, the United Nations estimates that

more than 55,000 people died in Ituri and tens of

thousands have been displaced.

The mass killings in Drodro in April, 2003 took place

against this context. After the attacks, MONUC sent a

special team to investigate led by human rights workers,

including two EAAF members, and also international

military observers. The information gathered is not public

and cannot be released as of the time of this writing.

ENDNOTES1. The Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), the Congolese Rally for Democracy—

National (RCD National), and the Congolese Rally for Democracy Liberation Movement

(RCD-ML) have controlled the north. These groups were initially backed by Uganda,

although it appears as though the MLC and RCD National are now somewhat

independent. Nevertheless, according to the New York Times, RCD-ML may still be

linked to Ugandan business interests. The Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma

(RCDGoma) is the original rebel group who ignited the war in 1998. With the support of

Rwanda, the RCD-Goma has controlled the east. Human Rights Watch believes that some

of the Rwandan insurgents participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Burundi also

played a role in the fighting by supporting the RCD for many years.

2. International Rescue Committee, April 4, 2003.

3. Human Rights Watch: Eastern Congo Ravaged, 2000.

4. Human Rights Watch “Democratic Republic of Congo” World Report 2003.

5. Human Rights Watch “Democratic Republic of Congo” World Report 2002.

6. Joseph Kabila assumed power upon the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, in

January 2001. The assassination was reportedly masterminded by a top aid sentenced to

death by a criminal tribunal in January 2003.(East African Standard, January 9, 2003).

7. Human Rights Watch, “Democratic Republic of Congo,” World Report 2002.

8. International Crisis Group: The Kivus: the Forgotten Crucible of the Congo Conflict, 24

9. Human Rights Watch, “Democratic Republic of Congo” 2002 World Report.

10. Human Rights Watch “Democratic Republic of Congo” 2003 World Report.

11. Montague, Dena,“Stolen Goods: Coltan and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of

Congo”, SAIS Review vol. XXII no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2002).

12. Amnesty International, “Democratic Republic of Congo: Time to Stop the Carnage and

Economic Exploitation,” 28 April 2003.

13. The Final Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other

Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo, United Nations, October 2002.

14. “Congo Peace Deal Signed”, Global Policy Forum December 17, 2002.

15. International Crisis Group, “The Kivus: the Forgotten Crucible of the Congo Conflict,” p. 24.

16. UN Security Council, Press statement on DR Congo by President of Security Council, p. 24.

17. BBC, “DR Congo rebels dismiss ‘cannibalism’”, 16 January 2003.


Economic Exploitatin,” 28 April 2003.

19. Ituri has been under the direct or proxy control of the UPDF since the outset of the current

conflict in the DRC in August 1998. The UPDF is reportedly responsible in Ituri for

unlawful killings and has sold arms to warring ethnic groups and has trained militias,

including child soldiers according to Amnesty International. Bunia, the capital has fallen

under the control of different armed political groups.


Economic Exploitation,” 28 April 2003.

21. Amnesty International 2004 World Report.

22. nternational Rescue Committee, April 8, 2003.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Amnesty International 2004 Report.

27. Walker, Robert, “The Threat to DR Congo’s Peace,” BBC News, June 22, 2004.

28. Ibid.

29. Human Rights Watch, “Ituri: ‘Covered in Blood, Ethnically Targeted Violence in

Northeastern DR Congo July, 2003.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid.


The gold mines at Bunia, Northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, 1997. Photo courtesy of Guy Tillim.

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