Mapping Report > Section II. Specific Acts of Violence > CHAPTER I. Acts of violence committed against women and sexual violence > B. March 1993 – September 1996: Failure of the democratisation process and regional crisis
Whilst not reaching the levels experienced during periods of war, acts of sexual violence were not unknown during the regime of former President of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, and were primarily perpetrated by Zairian State agents, including the Forces armées zaïroises (FAZ).
Senior civil servants and army officers enjoyed absolute power over civilians in their respective spheres of influence. In Bas-Congo, Kinshasa and Katanga, for example, senior officers frequently committed rape.1005
A number of sources report the existence of rape and enforced prostitution in prisons, such as, for example, in 1995 and 1996 in the Kisangani and Kinshasa detention centres,1006 and in 1997 at Maniema, where a majority of the women detained were subjected to sexual, and often physical, abuse on the part of State agents.1007
Opposition party activists, along with the sisters, wives or daughters of political opponents, primarily from the Parti lumumbiste unifié (PALU) or the Union pour la démocratie et le progrès social (UDPS) were allegedly kidnapped, raped or tortured by the security forces, particularly the Brigade spéciale de recherche et de surveillance (BSRS) from the Gendarmerie headquarters (Circo), the Civil Guard or President Mobutu’s Division spéciale presidentielle (DSP).1008 In 1996, when the Mobutu regime was beginning to come under threat, the armed forces and the police came down hard on people suspected of being involved in the rebellion. It is reported that several women were arrested in Kinshasa, Goma and Uvira either by the SARM1009 or the SNIP1010 intelligence services, or by the police force, and raped and beaten.1011
The frequency of the sexual violence allegedly committed by the FAZ clearly illustrates the tolerance of the military hierarchy towards these crimes. Over the course of two “pacification campaigns” conducted by the FAZ in North Kivu in 1995 and 1996, women suspected of being members of the Nande self-defence militia, the Ngilima, were reportedly arrested at roadblocks put up by the army in Rutshuru. Transferred to Goma, a 44-year-old mother was allegedly raped by several SARM soldiers using the barrels of guns and sticks of wood before being executed.1012 In South Kivu, the FAZ reportedly established roadblocks near areas of mineral extraction and raped a number of women passing by on the pretext of searching their genitals for minerals.1013 Sexual exploitation on the part of the FAZ was so widespread that the “Zairian contingent for camp security”, tasked by the international community with disarming and maintaining peace in the Rwandan refugee camps in North and South Kivu, became known as “the Zairian contingent for camp sexuality”.1014
In Maniema, elements of the police force, the Civil Guard and the FAZ allegedly committed dozens of rapes during the course of searches, looting and roadblock checks. In rural communities, gang rapes were reported.1015
Between 1993 and 1996, tribal militia is also reported to have committed rapes. During the ethnic conflict between the Banyarwanda1016 and the Ngilima, which shook North Kivu in 1993, acts of sexual violence were reported. This included, for example, rapes of school children in Masisi in April 1993, although it was not possible to identify the perpetrators or ascertain the extent of the atrocity.1017 In the same region and over the same period, during the Binza massacre in 1993, groups of armed Hutu, supported by the FAZ, are alleged to have mutilated and disembowelled a pregnant woman, probably a Hunde.1018 Moreover, isolated cases of rapes committed by Hutu refugees were reported by witnesses. 1019 In May 1996, men calling themselves Ngilima were reported to have raped women in Vichumbi village, near Lake Albert in retaliation for the death of one of their members.1020 In September 1996, with the support of the FAZ, “armed Bembe elements” are said to have raped – and often gang raped – Banyamulenge women after murdering the men in the villages of Kabela1021 and Lueba,1022 in Fizi territory.
See also:
1005 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Bas-Congo, March 2009; Serge M’Boukou, “Mobutu, roi du Zaïre. Essai de socio-anthropologie politique à partir d’une figure dictatoriale”, Le Portique, 2007; see also Decision of the Rotterdam District Court (Netherlands) on 7 April 2004 against Col. Sébastien Nzapali, known as the “King of Beasts”. During the trial, the rape allegations could not be confirmed.
1006 Report on the situation of human rights in Zaire (E/CN.4/1997/6); OMCT [World Organisation against Torture], “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women – Republic of Zaire – Comments of the OMCT”; Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Sixteenth session, 13-31 January 1997.
1007 Haki Za Binadamu, “Maniema SOS: les femmes en proie aux instincts sexuels des soudards”, 1997.
1008 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Kinshasa, April 2009; Prison Fellowship, “Rapport circonstancié sur les cas de violations de droits de l’homme au Zaïre”, 1997.
1009 Service d’actions et de renseignements militaires (Military Intelligence and Action Service).
1010 Service national d’intelligence et de protection (National Intelligence and Protection Service).
1011 AI, Violent Persecution by State and Armed Groups, 1996; AI, Lawlessness and Insecurity in North and South Kivu, 1996.
1012 HRW, Forced to Flee, Violence against the Tutsi in Zaire, 1996; AI, Zaire: Lawlessness and Insecurity in North and South Kivu, 1996
1013 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, April 2009
1014 Jean-Paul Mari, “Ici, on extermine les réfugiés”, in Le Nouvel observateur, 29 May 1997.
1015 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Maniema, March 2009; Haki Za Binadamu, “Monitoring: cas types des violations des droits de l’homme au Maniema ”, 1995; Politique africaine, “Le Maniema, de la guerre de l’AFDL à la guerre du RCD”, No. 84, December 2001.
1016 All the names of the ethnic groups have been used invariably.
1017 ”Mémorandum des communautés hutu et tutsi du Nord -Kivu à la Commission d’enquête sur les massacres de Walikale, Masisi et Bwito en mars et avril 1993”, 25 April 1993.
1018 Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, November 2008 and April 2009.
1019 Confidential document of the Secretary-Generals’ Investigative Team charged with investigating serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in the DRC, 1998.
1020 AI, “Lawlessness and Insecurity in North and South Kivu”, 1996.
1021 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, June 2009.
1022 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, November 2008 and February 2009; Report on the human rights situation in Zaire (E/CN.4/1997/6), para. 191; AI, Hidden from scrutiny: human rights abuses in eastern Zaire, 1996, p. 3.
