DR Congo demands justice for massacre victims
(AFP) Posted Friday October 1, 2010 - 11:34am
Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday demanded justice for the victims of genocide-style massacres described in a bitterly disputed investigation which has thrown the United Nations into a diplomatic storm.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made no immediate comment on the report, which has caused controversy in Africa among the eight nations implicated in the 1993-2003 carnage. Experts meanwhile highlighted that uncontrolled violence remains rife in DR Congo.
"The victims deserve justice and they deserve that their voices are heard by my government and by the international community," DR Congo's ambassador to the United Nations, Ileka Atoki, said in a statement which backed possible mixed international-Congo courts to try the perpetrators.
Atoki called the accounts of killings of thousands of people "heartbreaking."
He said the Congo government was "appalled at the horrific nature and scope of crimes documented in this report that the people of the Congo have suffered."
"The perpetrators of these crimes are both Congolese and non-Congolese nationals, including those, African or not, who have profited from our mineral resources and helped to drive the war," the ambassador said.
But he added that "in addition to seeking justice for the victims of the terrible crimes, we also seek to improve diplomatic and brotherly relations with all our neighboring countries for a lasting peace."
The UN Human Rights Council report on atrocities carried out in DR Congo between up to 2003 proposes a possible court in DR Congo with national and international judges.
The ambassador said the Congo government would study this and other options.
Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said the UN secretary general has the report but that he would not make an immediate comment. A leaked version of the report forced him to carry out a special mission to Rwanda to assuage the fury of its president who demanded the report be withdrawn.
Rwanda had threatened to withdraw troops from UN peacekeeping missions. Uganda has since made a similar threat. Burundi has also expressed anger at the report. Ban brokered a deal under which all countries named could add their comments to the final version.
With the UN clearly under pressure, Nesirky called it "an awful period of human suffering" but said the intention of the investigation was not about "establishing criminal responsibility."
He said UN legal experts had intensely scrutinized the final report. "It does talk about groups but it does not talk about individuals."
The report "is supposed to be helping the Democratic Republic of Congo overcome the cycle of impunity," Nesirky told a press briefing.
DR Congo is still afflicted by serious ethnic violence with hundreds of women targeted by mass rapes by militias in the mineral-rich east of the country last month.
Reed Brody, who was deputy head of a UN investigation into the killings in the 1990s, said "if ever we are going to break the cycle of violence today, the authors of these past crimes need to be brought to justice."
Brody, who now works for the Human Rights Watch group, said the UN Security Council "buried" the report by his UN team in 1998.
"It was like giving a green light to these armies, militias and rag-tag armed groups to do anything that they wanted in DR Congo."
He added that the rapes last month had been "at least facilitated by the failure to anything about the crimes of yesterday."
John Hirsch, a senior advisor at the International Peace Institute in New York, also said that the report should be used to reinforce efforts to control today's violence in DR Congo.
"I'm not sure how easy it will be to organize now tribunals into these past events," he said.
http://67.59.172.92/article/World_News/World_News/DR_Congo_demands_justice_for_massacre_victims/71743
(AFP) Posted Friday October 1, 2010 - 11:34am
Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday demanded justice for the victims of genocide-style massacres described in a bitterly disputed investigation which has thrown the United Nations into a diplomatic storm.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made no immediate comment on the report, which has caused controversy in Africa among the eight nations implicated in the 1993-2003 carnage. Experts meanwhile highlighted that uncontrolled violence remains rife in DR Congo.
"The victims deserve justice and they deserve that their voices are heard by my government and by the international community," DR Congo's ambassador to the United Nations, Ileka Atoki, said in a statement which backed possible mixed international-Congo courts to try the perpetrators.
Atoki called the accounts of killings of thousands of people "heartbreaking."
He said the Congo government was "appalled at the horrific nature and scope of crimes documented in this report that the people of the Congo have suffered."
"The perpetrators of these crimes are both Congolese and non-Congolese nationals, including those, African or not, who have profited from our mineral resources and helped to drive the war," the ambassador said.
But he added that "in addition to seeking justice for the victims of the terrible crimes, we also seek to improve diplomatic and brotherly relations with all our neighboring countries for a lasting peace."
The UN Human Rights Council report on atrocities carried out in DR Congo between up to 2003 proposes a possible court in DR Congo with national and international judges.
The ambassador said the Congo government would study this and other options.
Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said the UN secretary general has the report but that he would not make an immediate comment. A leaked version of the report forced him to carry out a special mission to Rwanda to assuage the fury of its president who demanded the report be withdrawn.
Rwanda had threatened to withdraw troops from UN peacekeeping missions. Uganda has since made a similar threat. Burundi has also expressed anger at the report. Ban brokered a deal under which all countries named could add their comments to the final version.
With the UN clearly under pressure, Nesirky called it "an awful period of human suffering" but said the intention of the investigation was not about "establishing criminal responsibility."
He said UN legal experts had intensely scrutinized the final report. "It does talk about groups but it does not talk about individuals."
The report "is supposed to be helping the Democratic Republic of Congo overcome the cycle of impunity," Nesirky told a press briefing.
DR Congo is still afflicted by serious ethnic violence with hundreds of women targeted by mass rapes by militias in the mineral-rich east of the country last month.
Reed Brody, who was deputy head of a UN investigation into the killings in the 1990s, said "if ever we are going to break the cycle of violence today, the authors of these past crimes need to be brought to justice."
Brody, who now works for the Human Rights Watch group, said the UN Security Council "buried" the report by his UN team in 1998.
"It was like giving a green light to these armies, militias and rag-tag armed groups to do anything that they wanted in DR Congo."
He added that the rapes last month had been "at least facilitated by the failure to anything about the crimes of yesterday."
John Hirsch, a senior advisor at the International Peace Institute in New York, also said that the report should be used to reinforce efforts to control today's violence in DR Congo.
"I'm not sure how easy it will be to organize now tribunals into these past events," he said.
http://67.59.172.92/article/World_News/World_News/DR_Congo_demands_justice_for_massacre_victims/71743
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