Congo  FDLR   AFDL

On 15 May 1999, elements of the ANC/APR killed 11 civilians in the Kimbanguist church of Musoni in the village of Kabambare. Ten civilians were burned alive and a female priest who had tried to escape was buried alive.

On 4 March 1999, elements of the ANC/APR killed 84 civilians in the village of Lyapenda in the Manda community, in the Moba region. Accused of having collaborated with the FAC who had controlled the village until that point, the victims were locked in two houses and then burned alive. Anyone who tried to escape was shot dead.

elements of the FAC/ALiR raped around 20 women in Mange, one of whom died from injuries sustained during the rape. They also kidnapped an unknown number of women, including one minor, and used them as sex slaves for several months.

The military operations of the AFDL were placed under the command of Colonel James Kabarebe, a Rwandan officer who, by the end of the war, had become the ad interim Chief of Staff of the Congolese armed forces under the new Government.⁸⁸⁸ The information gathered both by the Investigative Team of the Secretary-General and by the Mapping Team indicates that Rwandan officers were de facto commanders, particularly in Shabunda (South Kivu), Kisangani (Orientale Province) and Mbandaka (Équateur), even though Congolese officers from the AFDL were supposed to be senior in rank to them

The active involvement of elements of the Ugandan armed forces (UPDF) was also confirmed in several places, such as Kitale, Kibumba and Mugunga, in North Kivu, Kiliba in South Kivu and in Orientale Province. All of this information serves to confirm the international nature of the armed conflict that took place in the DRC between 1996 and 1998, i.e. during what is commonly known as the first war.

587. In a vicious spiral, whenever they recaptured a territory, the Rwandan Hutu militia as well as the ANC/APR, would engage in reprisals, including rapes, against the population. Always suspected of hiding or supporting one group or the other, the population was subjected to alternating attacks from the different sides, such as for example in 1998 at Chivanga; in Kabara territory (South Kivu);¹¹⁰⁰ in 1999 in Mwitwa, in Walikale territory (North Kivu); and in 2000 near Kilambo, in Masisi territory. In Kilambo, for example, ANC/APR soldiers reportedly tied up the men and raped their wives in front of them before killing them.

887 In an interview with the Washington Post on 9 July 1997, the Rwandan President Paul Kagame (Minister of Defence at the time) acknowledged that Rwandan troops had played a key role in the AFDL campaign. According to President Kagame, the battle plan consisted of three elements: a dismantling the refugee camps, b destroying the organisational straucture of the ex-FAR and Interahamwe based in and around the camps and c overthrowing the Mobutu regime. Rwanda had planned the rebellion and had participated in supplying weapons, munitions and training facilities for the rebel Congolese forces.
    Operations, particularly critical operations, were led, according to Kagame, by mid-level Rwandan commanders. Washington Post, “Rwandans Led Revolt in Congo”, 9 July 1997. See also the interview given by General James Kabarebe, the Rwandan officer who led the military operations of the AFDL, to the Observatoire de l’Afrique centrale: “Kigali, Rwanda. Plus jamais le Congo”, Volume 6, number 10, 3 to 9 March 2003. See also the televised interviews with the President of Uganda, the President of Rwanda and General James Kaberere explaining in detail their respective roles in this first war, in “L’Afrique en morceaux”, a documentary directed by Jihan El Tahri, Peter Chappell and Hervé Chabalier, 100 minutes, produced by Canal Horizon, 2000.

581. For example, in South Kivu, in August 1998, elements of the ANC/APR raped women in the villages of Kilungutwe, Kalama and Kasika, in Mwenga territory. Brutal rapes, disembowelling and rape with sticks of wood were suffered by an unknown number of victims.¹⁰⁸¹ At Bitale, in Kalehe territory, in February 1999, elements of the ANC/APR raped women and young girls whom they accused of supporting the Mayi-Mayi operating in the region.¹⁰⁸² In Mwenga town centre, in November 1999, elements of the ANC/APR buried 15 women alive. Before burying them, the victims were tortured, raped, some with wooden sticks, and subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment consisting particularly of inserting hot pepper into their genitals.

585. From the end of 1999 to mid-2000, acts of sexual violence in the conflict between the RCD-G and the Mayi-Mayi in South Kivu were such that it is estimated that at least 2,500 to 3,000 women were raped – often brutally gang-raped - over this period.

588. In North Kivu, the Ugandan rebels of the ADF/NALU [Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda]1102 attacked and looted several villages in Beni territory, abducting children, young girls and women whom they used as slaves, including sex slaves.¹¹⁰³

589. On returning to their lands in Fizi and Uvira territories in South Kivu in 1999, Banyamulenge soldiers also engaged in abductions and rapes of women as they were on the way to their fields.¹¹⁰⁴

590. In all regions under the control of the RCD-G, opponents were brutally and arbitrarily suppressed. Hundreds of women accused of helping the militia and rebel movements, suspected of providing intelligence to the FAC or who had simply criticised the RCD-G were subjected to sexual violence in their own homes, sometimes in front of their children and husbands, and were frequently arrested. The wives or female relatives of men being sought were sometimes arrested instead of their partner or brother. Held in prisons or in containers, they were systematically raped, beaten and then some of them murdered.¹¹⁰⁵ Whilst this repression affected above all women in North and South Kivu, women in other regions under RCD-G control were also affected, such as in Oriental Province and in Maniema.¹¹⁰⁶ The use of torture in RCD-G detention centres involved sexual elements of the crimes committed during some massacres of civilian populations, such as rape, the insertion of hot pepper into the sexual organs and genital mutilation.1107

591. In zones under the control of the ANC/APR and their allies, the behaviour of armed elements stationed in towns, during transfers or during operations was characterised by a lack of discipline, an abuse of power and brutality. Women and girls who were in or walking to their fields, to market, to fetch water, in the forest collecting wood or walking to school were victims of rape and abduction and frequently forced into sexual slavery. Cases of rapes of young girls, often gang rapes, were widespread in the towns and close to military camps, such as, for example, around the camps of Saïo and Bagira at Bukavu, Kabare and Kitshanga in Masisi.¹¹⁰⁸

594. During this period, the situation in the zones controlled by the RCD-G and its allies was so volatile, with so many and changing armed groups and alliances, that it was in some cases difficult to identify the perpetrators of the rapes. Sexual violence took on unbearable proportions and cruelty and the many abuses seemed merely to increase in number exponentially. The soldiers frequently engaged in gang rapes and some women and young girls were also raped with sticks, stakes and guns. In some cases, the perpetrators of the rapes wrapped the barrel of their gun in cloth and inserted it into their victim's vagina to clean it before passing her onto the next rapist.¹¹¹⁷ Armed men sometimes fired into the genitals of their victims, causing damage to both internal and external sex organs. In 2000, at Ngweshe, in Walungu territory (South Kivu), a pregnant woman was trampled on by soldiers in order to bring about a premature labour.¹¹¹⁸

593. Gang rape was widespread everywhere. It is reported that in Maniema, at Kayuyu in Pangi territory, most of the rapes reported between October 1999 and January 2000 were gang rapes.¹¹¹³ The brutality knew no bounds. In October 1999, in Kasai Oriental, at Musangie, 22 kilometres from Kabinda, 10 women were whipped then raped by a number of soldiers from the ANC/APR.¹¹¹⁴ In 2000 at Tshalu, in the same region, while raping four women, elements of the ANC/APR reportedly subjected their partners, friends and parents to cruel and inhuman treatment. In South Kivu, women were regularly raped by dozens of soldiers.¹¹¹⁵ At Baraka, in Fizi territory, a young 17-year-old girl was apparently raped by some 40 soldiers.¹¹¹⁶

600. The inter-community violence that erupted in Ituri in 1999 affected women in particular, and there was renewed violence caused by the over-armament of the politicomilitary groups that arose out of the Hema and Lendu militias and self-defence groups in 2001 and 2002. During this destructive conflict, sexual violence was a significant component of the attacks waged by these ethnic and political rivals.¹¹²⁷

601. Numerous rapes were thus committed by the Lendu militia, which subsequently became the FNI and the FRPI, and by the Hema of the UPC, over the course of successive battles to capture Bunia. Women and girls were abducted and taken to military quarters or private houses to be raped by elements of the UPC. At Songolo and at Nyakunde, women and girls were systematically raped and hundreds more forced into slavery by the assailants during violent attacks conducted by the UPC and the Ngiti and Lendu militias respectively in these areas. In May 2003, Lendu militia, supported by the APC (the RCD-ML’s army) engaged in mutilation and sexual torture during their offensive against the UPC for control of Bunia. Cases of female mutilation were common during attacks carried out by both camps. At Fataki in March 2000, for example, Hema corpses were found in the streets with their arms tied, a stick inserted into their anus and certain parts of their bodies, such as their ears, cut off. After the attack on the Mambisa community in Nizi by the FNI and the FAPC in June 2003, 22 bodies, mainly women and children, were found in Nizi. The bodies had been mutilated, disembowelled and their organs, including genitalia, removed.¹¹²⁸

603. In the context of the "Erasing the Board" operation that took place from Orientale Province through to North Kivu, ALC/MLC troops committed systematic and widespread rapes and sexual violence, particularly during violent clashes with the APC/RCD-ML. Rapes and sexual mutilation were thus committed by the ALC/MLC in the area around Madesi and Masebu (Rungu territory) in the context of clashes between the MLC and RCD-N armies and those of the RCD-ML in July-August 2004.¹¹³² Pygmy women in the region paid a heavy price during the advance of the MLC, RCD-N and UPC towards Beni and Butembo, and again during their retreat. Some 70 rapes were committed during the capture and occupation of Mambasa town and surrounding villages. Superstition and
abject ritual beliefs led to Pygmy women being raped, murdered, disembowelled, and sometimes even eaten.¹¹³³ Other rapes were committed by soldiers from the ALC/MLC and the APC/RCD-ML during the course of 2002, for example in Watsa territory, in the area around the lines separating the zones controlled by the RCD-N and MLC from those of the APC/RCD-ML and the FAPC,1134 by soldiers from these camps.¹¹³⁵ North Kivu Province