Numerous massacres of Rwandan refugees were committed in 1996 and 1997 by the forces of General Laurent Kabila, who is now president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a UN report published yesterday. The report stops short of stating that President Kabila's troops, acting with the support of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan army, sought to "eliminate" members of the Hutu ethnic group. But it said that if such intent were proved, "this would constitute genocide."
Mr Andre Mwanba Kapanga, ambassador to the UN of the Democratic Republic of Congo, dismissed the report, saying it "is based on allegations and does not contain any proof" of massacres. The report says troops loyal to President Kabila systematically killed Rwandan Hutu refugees, sometimes with Rwanda's support, in the campaign that brought him to power a year ago. But The long-awaited report was presented to the Security Council yesterday. It supports analyses by human rights groups that the Rwandan refugees were massacred, even though many of them were not armed Hutu extremists.
The Hutu militants had fled Rwanda in 1994, fearing revenge from the country's new Tutsi government for their part in the 1994 genocide in which up to a million Tutsis were killed. The report, drawn up by a special UN team, implicates the Rwandan military as well as the Alliance for Democratic Force for the Liberation of the Congo (ADFL), a collection of forces fighting for Mr Kabila in his successful 1996-19'97 campaign to oust dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in what was then Zaire.
The report recommends that an international tribunal be set up. The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, established the inquiry after Mr Kabila's government refused to allow a UN Human Rights Commission investigator, Mr Roberto Garreton of Chile, into the country.
Specifically, the report concluded that Mr Kabila's ADFL attacked refugee camps in November 1996 around Kivu in eastern Zaire. In the Mugunga camp, near Goma, where armed Hutus were concentrated, hundreds of unarmed people, including women and children, were captured, executed and hunted down.