Mapping Report > Executive Summary > Implementation of the Mapping Exercise

Throughout the implementation of the Mapping Exercise, contacts were established with Congolese non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in order to obtain information, documents and reports on serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that occurred in the DRC during the period covered by the ToR. To this end, meetings were held with over 200 NGO representatives to present the Mapping Exercise and request their collaboration. Thanks to this collaboration, the Mapping Team had access to critical information, witnesses and reports pertaining to the violations committed between 1993 and 2003. Without the courageous and outstanding work of the Congolese NGOs during these ten years, documenting the many violations committed would have been incredibly difficult.

Meetings were also held with the Congolese authorities, in particular with the civilian and military judicial authorities across the country, government representatives, in particular the Ministers for Justice and Human Rights, and the government agencies responsible for judicial system reform.

Consultations were also held with the main partners of the Mapping Exercise [MONUC, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)], diplomatic missions as well as actors involved in human rights and the fight against impunity in the DRC (notably UN organisations, international NGOs, religious groups and trade unions) to explain the exercise and seek their collaboration. The project was warmly received by all and the collaboration fruitful.

The Mapping Exercise was rolled out in three successive phases:

• Phase one began with the arrival of the Chief of the Mapping Team in July 2008, and was dedicated to the recruitment of teams and to the collection, analysis and use of documents, both confidential and in the public domain, from existing information sources on the violations committed during the period under examination. Over 1,500 documents on this subject, some of them confidential, were obtained from many sources, including the United Nations, the Congolese Government, Congolese human rights organisations, major international human rights organisations, the national and international media and various NGOs (notably unions, religious groups, aid agencies and victims’ associations). In addition, different national and international experts were consulted in order to open up new avenues of research, corroborate some of the information obtained and streamline the overall analysis of the situation.

• Phase two began on 17 October 2008 with the deployment of the field Teams to carry out the mandate in all provinces of the DRC from five field offices,¹⁷ including all investigations, consultations and analyses necessary both to prepare the inventory of the most serious violations and also to assess the existing capacities of the Congolese judicial system to deal with this and formulate options for transitional justice mechanisms that could contribute to the fight against impunity. During this phase previously obtained information was verified in order to corroborate or invalidate that information with the aid of independent sources, while also obtaining new information on previously undocumented violations.

• Phase three began with the closure of the field offices on 15 May 2009 and was aimed at compiling all the information gathered and drafting the final report. During this period, regional consultations regarding transitional justice were held with civil society representatives in Bunia, Bukavu, Goma and Kinshasa. The final report was submitted to OHCHR on 15 June 2009 for review, comments and finalisation.