Mapping Report > Section I. Inventory of the most serious violations > CHAPTER I. March 1993 – June 1996: Failure of the democratisation process and regional crisis > B. North Kivu

For decades, the increasing number and economic prosperity of the Banyarwanda¹⁰⁷ had been a source of tension with the other communities of North Kivu (the Hunde, Nyanga, Tembo, Kumu and Nande).¹⁰⁸ Present to a modest extent even before the colonial partitioning of 1885, through successive waves of migration the Banyarwanda had become a sizeable community in the province. Their dynamism and the support of influential members in Kinshasa had enabled them to purchase a lot of land and head of cattle and take control of several major trade networks. This growing hold on the province was often hard for the other communities to come to terms with. They accused the Banyarwanda in particular of stealing their land in collaboration with the central government and violating the ancestral rights of their tribal chiefs. Their discontent was fuelled by the fact that many Banyarwanda had not arrived in Zaire until the early 1930s and were only granted Zairian citizenship by virtue of a law contested on 5 January 1972. Far from clarifying the situation, the repeal of this law by President Mobutu in the early 1980s had created confusion among the people and reopened the polemic. In fact, the Banyarwanda were allowed to keep their Zairian identity cards and their title deeds. Nevertheless, the other communities saw them as refugees and immigrants whose title deeds were worthless in comparison to the ancestral rights held by “nationals”.

In 1989, the refusal of part of the population to allow the Banyarwanda to participate in local elections had led to violent incidents and forced the Government to postpone the elections in North Kivu. With the liberalisation of political activity in the early 1990s, competition for power in the province had become more intense and the “indigenous” communities¹⁰⁹ had begun to contest the political and land rights of the Banyarwanda more openly. Accusing the provincial authorities dominated by the Nande and Hunde of trying to deny them their political rights, some members of the Hutu-Banyarwanda farmers’ mutual association, the MAGRIVI,¹¹⁰ became more radical and set up small armed groups. In May 1991, armed units of the Hutu Banyarwanda attacked officers overseeing the population census in Masisi territory. At the National Sovereign Conference (CNS), Nande and Hunde delegates pressed for the Banyarwanda not to be allowed to take part in future elections. At provincial level, Governor Jean-Pierre Kalumbo (of Nande origin) and his party the DCF/Nyamwisi encouraged young indigenous people to enlist in tribal self-defence militias (the Ngilima for the Nande and the Mayi-Mayi for the Hunde and Nyanga) to counterbalance the militiamen from the MAGRIVI. From 1992 onwards, conflicts relating to land ownership and ethno-political murders became more common and every community started to live in fear of attacks by other communities.

In 1993, Hunde and Nyanga groups in the Walikale territory believed that an attack by the Hutu Banyarwanda was imminent. In March 1993, Governor Jean-Pierre Kalumbo (of Nande origin) called on the FAZ to help the Ngilima and the Nyanga and Hunde militias to “exterminate the Banyarwanda”. On 18 March, Vice-Governor Bamwisho, from the Walikale territory, delivered an inflammatory speech against the Banyarwanda in the village of Ntoto.

• On 20 March 1993, armed units from the Hunde and Nyanga Mayi-Mayi reportedly killed dozens of Hutu-Banyarwanda peasants at the market in Ntoto, a village located at the border between the Walikale and Masisi territories. The Mayi-Mayi attacked the Hutus with rifles, knives, arrows and spears. On 21 March 1993, the same Mayi-Mayi group allegedly killed dozens of Banyarwanda at Buoye, a neighbouring village of Ntoto. The attack took place as the victims were leaving the village’s Catholic and Protestant churches. In their attempt to escape their attackers, many Hutu Banyarwanda drowned in the Lowa River.¹¹¹

Starting in the Walikale territory, the violence spread quickly to the Masisi and then to the Rutshuru territories. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• In March and April 1993, armed units from the Hunde Mayi-Mayi killed an unknown number of Hutu civilians in the Kambule district of Katoyi village in the Masisi territory. Before leaving Kambule, the Mayi-Mayi set fire to Hutu dwellings.¹¹²
• In April 1993, Hutu armed units killed at least twelve Hunde civilians, including children, in Mulinde village in the Masisi territory. The victims were killed with blows of machetes, hoes and axes.¹¹³
• In April 1993, armed Hutu units killed around fifty people, mostly Hunde, in the village of Ngingwe in the Bashali chiefdom, in the north-east of the Masisi territory.¹¹⁴
• In April 1993, armed Hutu units set fire to the primary school and the health care centre in the village of Kiusha in the Bashali chiefdom, in the Masisi territory. In the village of Muhongozi, they set fire to the church of the 8th CEPZA (Pentecostal church group, now CEPAC) and killed an unknown number of civilians.¹¹⁵
• On 22 July 1993, armed Hutu units supported by the FAZ killed at least 48 people, most of them Hunde but also three Hutus, in the village of Binza and the surrounding area, in the north of the Masisi territory. The victims were shot or killed by blows from machetes or spears. According to one eyewitness, some of the victims were maimed and a pregnant woman was disembowelled. Several other villages in the vicinity of Binza were attacked during this period, including Kalembe on 25 July 1993.¹¹⁶
• On 7 September 1993, Hutu militiamen killed at least 38 displaced Hunde, including women and children, in the village of Kibachiro on the Karobe hill. The victims had fled their village and had regrouped at Kibachiro because of the prevailing insecurity in the territory. ¹¹⁷

It is very hard to determine how many people died in the first few months of the conflict. Every community has its own version of the facts and its own estimate of the number of victims. Furthermore, killing sprees often occurred at very heavily dispersed sites that are hard to access even now. Where it is possible to visit these sites, it is rare to find first hand witnesses to the events, because the successive wars that ravaged the province often entailed the displacement of the people in the villages that came under attack. With respect to the Ntoto massacre, the figure most often put forward is 500 deaths. ¹¹⁸ At the provincial level, MSF estimated in 1995 that between 6,000 and 15,000 people had died between March and May 1993, and that the violence had caused the displacement of 250,000 people.¹¹⁹

In July 1993, President Mobutu travelled to Goma and deployed soldiers from the Special Presidential Division (DSP) to restore order. Thanks to changes in the leadership of the province, in the sense of a more balanced representation of the various communities, and dialogue between the various civil society associations (from November 1993 to February 1994), calm was gradually restored in North Kivu. However, the deep-rooted issues behind the conflict were not settled and the situation remained very delicate when over 700,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees, some ex-FAR staff and a large number of Interahamwe militiamen responsible for the Tutsi genocide arrived in the province of North Kivu between 14 July and 17 July 1994.

Their long-term settlement added to the insecurity. Above all, it rekindled the fear of Rwandan domination in the region in communities in conflict with the Banyarwanda. Hutu armed units from MAGRIVI were very quick to join forces with the ex-FAR/Interahamwe and strengthened their position towards the Hunde and Nyanga Mayi-Mayi and the Nande Ngilima. From late 1994, the ethnic war resumed, with a higher degree of violence than in 1993.

During this period, the solidarity between Hutu Banyarwanda and Tutsi Banyarwanda was shattered. For a number of years, this solidarity had already been tested, as many Tutsi Banyarwanda had left to fight in the Front patriotique rwandais (FPR), while many Hutu Banyarwanda were working alongside the security forces of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana to stop the FPR from recruiting soldiers in Zaire. After the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda and after the FPR took control in Kigali, the split was confirmed between the two ethnic groups. Between July 1994 and March 1995, over 200,000 Tutsis left the province of North Kivu and returned to Rwanda. Some left of their own volition to benefit from the employment opportunities offered in the army and administration of the new Rwandan regime. Others fled the growing hostility of the Hutu Banyarwanda and ex-FAR/Interahamwe attacks, as well as the resumption of the ethnic war between the Hutu Banyarwanda and the Hunde and Nyanga Mayi-Mayi.

For the Tutsis of Goma, the situation became increasingly difficult in the second half of 1994. Tutsis living in North Kivu were the victims of harassment by other groups and, in some cases, by the authorities. They often lost their jobs and became the target of threats, acts of intimidation and extortion, rape and pillage. An unknown number of Tutsis were reportedly abused and killed, or died in this period.

In August 1995, in the hope of regaining control over the situation at grassroots level, and probably also satisfying the demands of the Rwandan authorities to a certain extent, the Zairian Government made the decision to expel the Hutu refugees.

• From 19 August to 23 August 1995, FAZ soldiers forcibly repatriated several thousand Rwandan refugees from the Mugunga camp, several kilometres from the town of Goma. The refugees were taken to the border in trucks and handed over to the Rwandan authorities. Zairian troops took advantage of the situation and reportedly looted from refugees and set fire to huts and shops in the camp.¹²⁰

Criticised by the entire international community, the operation was a disaster. Indeed, many refugees, convinced that they would be killed on their return to Rwanda, chose to flee the camps and join the Hutu-Banyarwanda people living in the surrounding countryside. Their arrival in these regions went hand in hand with fresh waves of pillaging and caused the inter-community conflict in the Masisi and Rutshuru territories to intensify. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• On 17 November 1995, Hutu armed units killed around forty Hunde in an attack on the village of Mutobo in the Masisi territory. The tribal chief Bandu Wabo was among the victims.¹²¹

• On 9 December 1995, Hunde armed units killed between 26 and 30 Hutus and four FAZ soldiers in Bikenge village in the Masisi territory. In doing so, these Mayi-Mayi intended to avenge the death of their tribal chief Bandu Wabo.¹²²

These attacks brought about massacres and the large-scale displacement of civilian populations, leading to the creation of a number of ethnically homogeneous enclaves in the Masisi and Rutshuru territories. In this climate of increasing lawlessness, the few thousand Tutsis still living in North Kivu became an easy target for the various armed groups. While some Hunde Mayi-Mayi groups formed alliances with them, others attacked them in the same way as the ex-FAR/Interahamwe and the Hutu armed units from the MAGRIVI. Over the course of 1995, the standpoint of the Zairian security forces became more and more ambiguous. While in some cases they protected the Tutsis from attacks by armed groups and the civilian population, in other cases they targeted them directly. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• In the first half of 1996, members of the Zairian security forces forcibly expelled to Rwanda an unknown number of Tutsis living in the town of Goma and in the territories of Rutshuru, Masisi and Lubero. Before their expulsion, members of the security forces and the population often subjected their victims to inhumane and degrading treatments. In the same period, the Zairian security forces pillaged many Tutsi homes and requisitioned their property.¹²³

• Around 3 February 1996, armed Hunde Mayi-Mayi elements killed at least 18 Tutsi civilians at Osso farm, around forty kilometres north-west of Goma in the Masisi territory. The Mayi-Mayi also pillaged the cattle and property they found there. The victims were part of a group of several hundred internally displaced Tutsis who had settled on the site in late 1995.¹²⁴

• On 4 March 1996, armed Hutu and ex-FAR/Interahamwe units killed a dozen Tutsi Banyarwanda in the village of Bukombo in the territory of Rutshuru. Some of the victims were burned alive when their houses were set on fire. Others were killed by machete blows. Before they left, the assailants looted and torched several dwellings. Survivors fled to the Birambizu parish, where they were again attacked in the weeks that followed.¹²⁵

• On 12 May 1996, Hutu armed units killed several dozen displaced Hunde and Tutsis in the Mokoto monastery in the north-east of the Masisi territory. In early January 1996, several hundred displaced Hunde and Tutsis fleeing attacks by armed Hutu-Banyarwanda and ex-FAR/Interahamwe units had found refuge in the monastery. In the days that followed, a few hundred survivors left Mokoto to seek refuge in Kitchanga.¹²⁶

• Between 8 June and 11 June 1996, armed Hutu and ex-FAR/Interahamwe elements from the Katale and Mugunga camps killed dozens of Tutsi civilians near Bunagana and Jomba, including the Chef du poste d’encadrement administratif at Chengerero, a village 10 kilometres from Bunagana. The massacre is thought to have been carried out in retaliation for the attack by Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers at Bunagana several days earlier, leading to the deaths of at least twenty Hutu-Banyarwanda civilians.¹²⁷

In late 1995, faced with the growing insecurity in the territories of Masisi and Rutshuru, the FAZ carried out a number of operations against the various armed groups and militias operating in the province of North Kivu. During these campaigns, the FAZ committed multiple acts of violence against civilian populations.

• On 17 December 1995, FAZ soldiers and Hutu militiamen reportedly killed dozens of civilians, most of them Hunde, in Masisi village and the surrounding villages. The soldiers also looted and torched part of Masisi, destroying many public buildings, including a school. These attacks are thought to have been carried out in retaliation for the deaths of four FAZ members in Bikenge village on 9 December 1995 (see Bikenge incident in paragraph 35).¹²⁸

In March 1996, the Zairian Government sent 800 troops from the Special Presidential Division (DSP), members of the Military Action and Intelligence Service (SARM) and Paracommando units from the 312^th battalion into the Masisi territory. The operation, code-named “Kimia” (“peace” in Lingala) enabled a somewhat precarious calm to be restored in the territory for several weeks. For want of troops and adequate logistical and financial support, however, the operation did not succeed in disarming a sufficient number of militiamen. Furthermore, rather than fight the armed groups, some units in operation Kimia allegedly turned to pillaging livestock and asked money in exchange for their protection to the Tutsis hoping to be escorted to Goma or Rwanda.¹²⁹

In May 1996, the Zairian Government launched Operation “Mbata” (“slap” in Lingala) to disarm the Hunde and Nyanga Mayi-Mayi and the Nande Ngilima militia. However, the operation again failed due to a lack of motivation on the part of the units involved, the hostility of the local people and the resistance of the targeted armed groups. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• On 10 May 1996, Nande armed units killed at least four Hutu Banyarwanda in the village of Vitshumbi in the territory of Rutshuru. According to some sources, local people called on members of the Ngilima to drive out the FAZ who were committing acts of violence in the village. The Hutu Banyarwanda are thought to have been targeted due to their alleged collaboration with the FAZ.¹³⁰
• On 19 May 1996, as part of Operation Mbata, FAZ soldiers killed an unknown number of civilians accused of supporting armed units from the Ngilima, including a Pentecostal pastor, in an attack against the village of Vitshumbi. After the recapture of Vitshumbi, soldiers kept the civilian population locked in village churches for two days. They also looted the village.¹³¹
• On 29 May 1996, FAZ troops massacred over 120 civilians in the village of Kibirizi in the Bwito chiefdom, in the territory of Rutshuru. The FAZ fired at the village using heavy weapons and set fire to several houses.¹³²
• In June 1996, FAZ troops massacred over one hundred people in the village of Kanyabayonga in the Lubero territory. Most of the victims were killed when the village was shelled using heavy weapons and hundreds of homes were torched. Kanyabayonga was considered a Ngilima stronghold and most of the victims were Nande armed units or civilians suspected of supporting the group.¹³³

For reasons mentioned above, the total number of victims of the massacres that occurred in North Kivu between July 1994 and June 1996 is impossible to determine. According to some estimates, the inter-ethnic conflict is thought to have caused close to one thousand deaths in 1995 and led to the displacement of 100,000 people. In June 1996, there were between 100,000 and 250,000 displaced persons in the province. At that time it was estimated that since 1993, between 70,000 and 100,000 people had died as a result of the ethnic war in the province. These figures are impossible to verify in the absence of reliable statistics, but also in the absence of the large number of people who were allegedly the subject of forced “disappearances” that occurred at this time in the province. One case illustrating the very common practice of forced disappearance was confirmed by the Mapping Team and is presented below by way of example.

• On 16 August 1995, two Hunde civilians allegedly disappeared as they were going into the fields near Kitchanga at the crossroads between the Masisi, Walikale and Lubero territories. Their bodies were never found. The people have always suspected Hutu militiamen in the surrounding area to be responsible for their disappearance.¹³⁴

During this period, the violence in North Kivu also led to widespread looting. Buildings designated for education, hospitals and dispensaries were frequently targeted, in particular in the Masisi territory. The war did not spare livestock, one of the province’s key resources. Over three years, 80 percent of the livestock was reportedly pillaged, mainly by the ex-FAR/Interahamwe and Hutu armed units from the MAGRIVI, in collaboration with some FAZ units.¹³⁵