Background and mandate

Mapping Report > Executive Summary > Background and mandate

The discovery by the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) in late 2005 of three mass graves in North Kivu was a painful reminder that past gross human rights violations committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had remained largely un-investigated and that those responsible had not been held accountable. Following a number of consultations within the UN Secretariat, an initial idea to “reactivate” the Secretary-General’s 1997–1998 investigative Team1 was abandoned in favour of a project with a broader mandate. Consultations between the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), MONUC, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) and the Office of the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide led to an agreement aimed at providing the Congolese authorities with tools needed to break the cycle of impunity. It was recommended that a mapping exercise of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the DRC2 between March 1993 and June 20033 be conducted and, on the basis of the findings of the exercise, that an assessment be carried out of the existing capacities of the Congolese national justice system to address these violations and a series of options formulated for appropriate transitional justice mechanisms that would assist in combating the prevailing impunity in the DRC. In his report of 13 June 2006 to the Security Council on the situation in the DRC, the Secretary-General indicated his intention to “dispatch a human rights team to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to conduct a mapping of the serious violations committed between 1993 and 2003”.4 This intention was reaffirmed in the two following reports of the Secretary-General of 21 September 2006 and 20 March 2007.5 On 8 May 2007, the Secretary-General approved the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Mapping Exercise, setting out the following three objectives:
  • Conduct a mapping exercise of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003.
  • Assess the existing capacities within the national justice system to deal appropriately with such human rights violations that may be uncovered.
  • Formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the Government of the DRC in identifying appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations, in terms of truth, justice, reparation and reform, taking into account ongoing efforts by the DRC authorities, as well as the support of the international community.6
The Mapping Exercise was presented to President Joseph Kabila during the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the DRC in May 2007, and was well received. In its Resolution 1794 (2007) of December 2007, the UN Security Council requested the full support of the Congolese authorities for the OHCHR-initiated Mapping Exercise. On 30 June 2008, a letter was sent by High Commissioner Louise Arbour to President Kabila announcing the imminent arrival of the Mapping Team. The Mapping Exercise began officially on 17 July 2008 with the arrival of the Chief of the Mapping Team in Kinshasa. More than twenty human rights officers were deployed across the DRC between October 2008 and May 2009 to gather documents and information from witnesses to meet the three objectives defined in the ToR. The Congolese Government has expressed its support for the Mapping Exercise on a number of occasions, notably in the statement delivered by the Minister for Human Rights at the Special session of the Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in the East of the DRC in November 2008 and in various meetings between the Chief of the Mapping Exercise and the Justice and Human Rights Ministers.
1 Report of the Secretary-General’s Investigative Team on serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in the DRC (S/1998/581).
2 As the DRC was formerly known as “Zaire”, this name may appear in this report for the period ending May 1997.
3 March 1993 was chosen as the start date for the mapping exercise’s remit because of the Ntoto market massacre in North Kivu, which triggered wider ethnic conflict in the province. June 2003 corresponds to the establishment of a transitional government of “national unity”, made up of a Presidency and four Vice-Presidents representing the various political groupings, following the inter-Congolese talks at Sun City (South Africa) between the government, rebel groups, civil society and the different political parties.
4 Twenty-first report of the Secretary-General on MONUC (S/2006/390), para. 54.
5 Twenty-second and twenty-third reports of the Secretary-General on MONUC (S/2006/759 and S/2007/156 and Corr.1).
6 Article 1, ToR.