Mapping Report > Section I. Most serious violations > CHAPTER II. First Congo War > C. Attacks against other civilian populations > South Kivu
During their capture of South Kivu, “Tutsi/Banyamulenge armed units” and forces from the AFDL (Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo), APR (Rwandan Patriotic Army) and the FAB (Burundian Armed Forces)381 committed serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law against Zairian civilians viewed as hostile to local Tutsi and Banyamulenge communities or friends of their enemies (the FAZ, the ex-FAR/Interahamwe, Burundian Hutu armed groups, “Bembe armed units” and the Mayi-Mayi groups in general). Many tribal chiefs were also killed during this time on political and ethnic grounds, or simply in order to loot their property afterwards. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:
- On 12 September 1996, “Tutsi/Banyamulenge armed units” killed nine civilians at Kanyura and Makutano in the Itombwe sector of the Mwenga territory. Among the victims were the chef de poste d’encadrement (from the Rega tribe) and his collaborators, and the chief of the Basymuniaka II groupement, a Bembe from the Fizi territory, along with two members of his family. Many Bembe viewed this massacre as the start of the “total war” against the 382
- On 6 October 1996, “Tutsi/Banyamulenge armed units” killed over fifty people in the village of Kidoti, two kilometres from Lemera, in the Uvira territory. The victims were mainly civilians. Some of the victims were killed by shrapnel; others were executed after being forced to dig mass graves, into which their bodies were then thrown.383
- On 6 October 1996, in the village of Lemera, eighty kilometres north-west of Uvira, “Tutsi/Banyamulenge armed units” killed 37 people in a hospital, including two members of the medical staff, civilians and FAZ soldiers undergoing treatment at the hospital. Before they left Lemera, the “Tutsi/Banyamulenge armed units” ransacked the hospital.384
- On 18 October 1996, AFDL/APR units killed at least 88 civilians in the village of Kiliba, thirteen kilometres north of Uvira city. The victims were civilians who were unable to escape in time after the departure of the town’s eight gendarmes. Before they left Kiliba, the soldiers also pillaged the village. Of the 88 victims identified by the Red Cross, 15 were buried at Uvira.385
- On 18 October 1996, in Uvira territory, AFDL/APR units killed at least 51 civilians in the village of Bwegera in the Kakamba groupement in the RuziziPlain chiefdom. After the FAZ had left the village, the victims tried to escape into the mountains towards Kiringye but were caught by the soldiers. The Red Cross buried the bodies in mass graves.386
- On 25 October 1996, during the capture of Uvira, AFDL/APR/FAB units indiscriminately killed several hundred people, including refugees and Zairian civilians accused of belonging to Mayi-Mayi groups.387
When they left Uvira, the AFDL/APR/FAB soldiers advanced towards the interior of Fizi territory. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:
- In late October 1996, AFDL/APR units killed 27 civilians, most of them women and children, in the village of Mboko, fifty-two kilometres south of Uvira, in the Fizi territory. The victims were trying to cross Lake Tanganyika in canoes to reach Tanzania. Some were shot dead; others drowned in the lake.388
- On 28 October 1996, AFDL/APR units killed 101 Zairian civilians in the village of Abala-Ngulube, at the junction between the Moyen Plateau and the Haut Plateau near Minembwe, in the Fizi territory. The victims were Bembe, and were members of the third Malikia wa Ubembe Church. They had refused to leave the village and were in the church when the soldiers arrived. Some of the victims were burned alive in the church. A few days before the attack, “Bembe armed units” had killed two AFDL/APR soldiers in an ambush in the area around Abala-Ngulube. Since this massacre, the members of the third Malikia wa Ubembe Church have held a ceremony to remember the victims each 28 October.389
- In the second half of October 1996, AFDL/APR units killed 130 civilians in the Kaziba locality, fifty-three kilometres south-west of Bukavu, in the Walungu territory. On 16 October in particular, they killed 36 civilians in the Kaziba commercial centre. The bodies of the victims were buried in Kaziba town centre in a mass grave located near the Mennonite church. A short while later, the soldiers killed many civilians with spears and machetes in the Namushuaga/Lukube district. Subsequently, they killed at least 11 civilians in the Cihumba district, where a large number of inhabitants had found refuge. In addition to these massacres, the soldiers also looted the hospital, stores and many dwellings and ransacked the small local hydroelectric plant.390
- During the struggle for the control of Bukavu, on 29 October and 30 October 1996, AFDL/APR units killed over 450 civilians. On 29 October, they fired on the city with heavy weapons, indiscriminately killing civilians and soldiers. After the departure of the FAZ, they opened fire on the people who were trying to escape. They killed many civilians at point-blank range, including Catholic Archbishop Monsignor Munzihirwa, killed in his vehicle with his driver and bodyguard. From 30 October, the soldiers began to systematically search the houses, indiscriminately killing and torturing dozens of people, both civilians and military personnel.391
- From October 1996, the AFDL/APR soldiers recruited children in the territories of Uvira and Fizi and in the city of Bukavu. In Bukavu, recruiting was carried out in particular at the AFDL headquarters (Lolango Building) on the Avenue Maniema. Child recruits underwent basic military training in the village of Kidoti, in the Uvira territory, and were then sent to the front line.392
- On 6 February 1997, retreating ex-FAR/Interahamwe units and members of the FAZ killed four civilians and injured another two in the village of Matili, fifty-one kilometres from Shabunda town centre, in the Bakisi chiefdom in the Banguma groupement. The victims were accused of spying on behalf of AFDL/APR Their bodies were buried in the cemetery at Matili.393
- On 14 March 1997, AFDL/APR units killed nine civilians, including one child, with knives and machetes at the VIPAM project394 concession at Lwana, 101 kilometres north-west of Bukavu, in the Kalehe territory. The victims came from the territories of Shabunda and Kabare and were working for the VIPAM project. They were accused of assisting the Hutu refugees in their flight.395
- On 26 May 1997, at Uvira, AFDL/APR units killed 126 civilians during a demonstration staged in protest of the murder of eight people by armed men suspected of belonging to the new security forces of the AFDL regime. After the massacre, the soldiers sealed off the zone and threw most of the bodies in two mass graves in the “Biens mal-acquis” (“ill-gotten goods”) district, where they had set up their headquarters. Eight bodies were collected by the people and buried over the course of the following days.396
- In July 1997, FAC/APR soldiers397 massacred between 500 and 800 people in the villages of Kazumba, Talama, Mukungu and Kabanga, on the border between the provinces of Katanga and South Kivu. These villages were used as bases by the small-scale “Jeshi la Jua” or “Sun army” militia, which was in open war with the new regime. The massacre was carried out in retaliation for an attack by Jeshi la Jua units, which resulted in one casualty on the FAC/APR side. The killings were spread out over several days and were indiscriminately targeted at combatants and civilians.398
- In the night of 22 December to 23 December 1997, FAC/APR soldiers killed 22 civilians at the Bulambika commercial centre, at Bunyakiri, in the Kalehe territory. The victims were accused of supporting the Mayi-Mayi who had occupied the village until then.399
381 As mentioned before, given the high numbers of APR soldiers among AFDL troops and at AFDL headquarters – a fact later acknowledged by the Rwandan authorities – and the great difficulty experienced by witnesses questioned by the Mapping Team distinguishing between AFDL and APR members in the field, this report will refer to AFDL armed units and APR soldiers engaged in operations in Zaire between October 1996 and June 1997 under the acronym AFDL/APR. In cases where, in certain regions, several sources have confirmed high numbers of Ugandan soldiers (in some districts of Orientale Province, for example) or the Forces armées burundaises (as in some territories in South Kivu) under the cover of the AFDL, the acronyms AFDL/APR/UPDF and AFDL/APR/FAB or AFDL/UPDF and AFDL/FAB may also be used.
382 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, April 2009; CADDHOM (collective action for human rights development), “Les atrocités commises en province du Kivu au Congo Kinshasa (ex-Zaïre) de 1996 à 1998”, 1998, p.5; Palermo-Bukavu Solidarity Committee, “Les morts de la rebellion”, 1997, p.2.
383 Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative Team in the DRC in 1997/1998; Report of the Secretary-General’s investigative team (S/1998/581), Annex, p.45; Palermo-Bukavu Solidarity Committee, “Les morts de la rébellion”, 1997, p.2; AI, “Loin des regards de la communauté internationale: Violations des droits de l’homme dans l’est du Zaïre”, 1996, p.3.
384 Interview with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, February 2009; Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998; Report of the Secretary-General’s investigative team (S/1998/581), Annex, p.45; Report on the situation of human rights in Zaire (E/CN.4/1997/6), para. 198; Palermo-Bukavu Solidarity Committee, “Les morts de la rébellion”, 1997, p.1; AI, “Loin des regards de la communauté internationale: Violations des droits de l’homme dans l’est du Zaïre”, 1996, pp.3 and 4.
385 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, November 2008 and March 2009; Confidential document submitted to the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998; Report on the situation of human rights in Zaire (E/CN.4/1997/6), para. 198; AI, “Loin des regards de la communauté internationale: Violations des droits de l’homme dans l’est du Zaïre”, 1996, p.4.
386 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, April 2009; Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998.
387 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, November 2008 and February 2009; Report of the Secretary-General’s investigative team (S/1998/581), Annex, p.37; AI, “Loin des regards de la communauté internationale: Violations des droits de l’homme dans l’est du Zaïre”, 1996, pp.5 and 6.
388 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, April 2009.
389 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, February 2009.
390 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, February and March 2009.
391 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, February and March 2009; Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998; ICHRDD (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development) and ASADHO, “International Non-Governmental Commission of Inquiry into the Massive Violations of Human Rights Committed in the DRC – Former Zaïre – 1996-1997”, 1998, p.12; CADDHOM, “Les atrocités commises en province du Kivu, 1996-1998”, 1998, pp.9 and 10; Lutheran Church, “Rapport d’enquête sur les violations des droits de l’homme à l’est du Congo”, May 1997, p.7.
392 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, December 2008 and March 2009.
393 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, January and February 2009.
394 Pilot village for modern farming.
395 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, March 2009; Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998; AI, “Deadly alliances in Congolese forests”, 1997, p.8.
396 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, November 2008 and February/March 2009; Report of the joint mission charged with investigating allegations of massacres and other human rights violations occurring in eastern Zaire (now DRC) since September 1996 (A/51/942), p.14; CADDHOM, “Les atrocités commises en province du Sud-Kivu”, 1998, pp.11 and 12; AI, “Deadly alliances in Congolese forests”, 1997, p.9; ICHRDD and ASADHO, International Non-Governmental Commission of Inquiry into the Massive Violations of Human Rights Committed in the DRC – Former Zaïre – 1996-1997, 1998.
397 From June 1997, the national army of the DRC was known as the Forces armées congolaises (FAC). Until the start of the Second Congo War, in addition to AFDL soldiers and ex-FAZ, the FAC included many Rwandan and, to a lesser extent, Ugandan soldiers. On account of the difficulty distinguishing accurately between Congolese soldiers and Rwandan soldiers at this time, the acronym FAC/APR is used for the period from June 1997 to August 1998.
398 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, February and April 2009; Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998; CADDHOM, “Enquête sur les massacres de réfugiés”, 1998.
399 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, March and April 2009; AI, DRC: A Year of Dashed Hopes, 1998, p.3.
400 Following the death in January 1997 in mysterious circumstances of the first AFDL president, Kisase Ngandu, the party’s spokesperson Laurent Désiré Kabila became president of the Alliance.
401 Children involved with armed forces and armed groups.
402 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Ituri, March and May 2009.
403 A practice known as botikake.
404 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, January and February 2009; Mgr Banga Bana, “La situation de violence à Buta”, in Zaïre-Afrique-CEPAS (Centre of Study for Social Action), February 1997; La Tempête des tropiques, “Buta, Lodja et Katako-Kombe pillés”, 6 and 7 March 1997; Le Soft international, “Des soldats en déroute pillent Isangi”, no.630, March 1997; La Référence Plus, “Le pillage du Haut-Zaïre se poursuit en toute impunité”, 5 March 1997; AI, “Zaire: Rape, killings and other human rights violations by security forces”, 1997.
405 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, January-February 2009; AI, “Zaire: Rape, killings and other human rights violations by security forces”, 1997.
406 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, January 2009.
407 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, December 2008; La Référence Plus, “Massacre des habitants de tout un village à 314 km de Kisangani”, 17 February 1997; N. Kristof, “Along a Jungle Road in Zaire, Three Wars Mesh”, New York Times, 26 April 1996.
408 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, February 2009.
409 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, February 2009; La Voix des opprimés, “Rapport sur les événements du Haut-Zaïre entre 1993 et 2003”, 2008.
410 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, February 2009; Witness account gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998; Friends of Nelson Mandela for the Defence of Human Rights (ANMDH), “La précarité de la situation des droits de l’homme avant la chute de la ville de Kisangani entre les mains de l’AFDL”, March 1997; ICHRDD and ASADHO, “International Non-Governmental Commission of Inquiry into the Massive Violations of Human Rights Committed in the DRC – Former Zaïre – 1996-1997”, June 1998, AI, “Deadly alliances in Congolese forests”, 1997; AI, “Zaïre -Viols, meurtres et autres violations des droits de l’homme imputables aux forces de sécurité”, 1997; M. Mabry and S. Raghavan, “The Horror, The Horror: With A Final Spasm Of Violence, Mobutu’s Corrupt Regime Lurches Toward A Chaotic Collapse”, Newsweek, 31 March 1997.
412 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, February 2009; Witness account gathered by the Secretary-General’s investigative team in the DRC in 1997/1998, 14 March 1997; Friends of Nelson Mandela for the Defence of Human Rights (ANMDH), “La précarité de la situation des droits de l’homme avant la chute de la ville de Kisangani entre les mains de l’AFDL”, March 1997; ICHRDD and ASADHO, “International Non-Governmental Commission of Inquiry into the Massive Violations of Human Rights Committed in the DRC – Former Zaïre – 1996-1997”, 1998; AI, “Deadly alliances in Congolese forests”, 1997; AI, “Zaire: Rape, killings and other human rights violations by security forces”, 1997; M. Mabry and S. Raghavan, “The Horror, The Horror: With A Final Spasm Of Violence, Mobutu’s Corrupt Regime Lurches Toward A Chaotic Collapse”, Newsweek, 31 March 1997; James McKinley Jr., “Serb Who Went to Defend Zaïre Spread Death and Horror Instead”, New York Times, 19 March 1997.
413 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, November 2008; Groupe Horeb, Annual Report, 1999.
414 In late 1997, Uganda had withdrawn most of its troops from Orientale Province. However, large numbers of APR soldiers remained in the major towns. On behalf of the FAC, an APR commander ran the military region covering Orientale Province, North Kivu and South Kivu from Kisangani.
415 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, January-February 2009; Groupe Lotus, press release on acts of violence committed at Ubundu and Kisangani, 22 September 1997.
416 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, January 2009; Groupe Lotus-Groupe Justice et Libération, “Rapport conjoint sur les événements de Bondo”, 1998; AI, “Zaire: Rape, killings and other human rights violations by security forces”, 1997.
