““A long-standing code of silence inside the U.N. is coming to an end regarding what is probably the largest genocide ever since the U.N. founding: the genocide committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front since 1990””
by Juan Carrero
What is this report about?
The UN mapping report has been prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and describes the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between March 1993 and June 2003. It is a solid, detailed document, based on extensive and credible research by a team of about 20 international and Congolese human rights professionals over the course of 12 months. The report focuses on 617 of the most serious incidents across Congo during the 10-year period and provides details of grave cases of mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on children, and other abuses by a range of armed actors, including foreign armies, rebel groups, and Congolese government forces.
The report says that women and children were the main victims of much of the violence the team documented. To “appropriately reflect the scale of the violence practised by all armed groups” against the most vulnerable, the report devotes specific chapters to crimes of sexual violence against women and girls and violence against children. It also devotes a chapter to the role played by natural resource exploitation in relation to the crimes committed in Congo.
Is there any difference between the version that was leaked to the press in August and the official version published by the UN on October 1?There is no substantive difference.
The report has not been significantly altered. The official version published on October 1 includes additional clarification on the legal definition of the crime of genocide and arguments for and against qualifying some of the events of 1996 and 1997 as crimes of genocide. It sets out some of the factors that could lead a court to characterize some of these crimes as crimes of genocide, as well as countervailing factors that could lead a court to find that the requisite intent to commit genocide was lacking and that the crime of genocide may not have been committed. It concludes that “a full judicial investigation into the events that occurred in Zaire in 1996 to 1997 will be necessary, in order to permit a competent court to decide on the matter.”
The official version incorporates comments from the Congolese government. Other governments have been given an opportunity to publish their responses on the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
More to read on Why is this report significant?
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DR Congo: UN Report Exposes Grave Crimes
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a “time”, yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
