Mapping Report > Section I. Most serious violations > CHAPTER IV. Towards Transition > C. Katanga

Throughout 2000, the Mayi-Mayi led by Chief Makabe based in Musao, in the Badia area, fought alongside the FAC and ZDF in order to prevent the ANC/APR from taking control of the Malemba Nkulu region. As the front stabilised and the number of atrocities by the FAC directed at the civilian population increased, however, the relationship between the FAC and the Mayi-Mayi deteriorated significantly. In January 2001, the accidental killing of two Mayi-Mayi in the Makabe group by FAC soldiers during a joint operation degenerated into open conflict.

• In January and March 2001, elements of the FAC reportedly set fire to around 20 villages in the areas of Badia (Ayamba, Lufuy, Kikose, Lubinda, Kyungu, Kimbalama, Kalembe, Kishiko, Katota, Lwamba Numbi, Lwamba Kamalenge, Kakongolo, Kajima, Kalwenye, Munengwelela and Musao) and Mwanza Seya (Nshimbi, Kimiba, Lubembey, Bunda and Mputu 1) in the Malemba Nkulu region. These attacks are said to have resulted in over ten civilian deaths and caused thousands of others to be displaced. The soldiers had accused the inhabitants of the villages of supporting the Mayi-Mayi.⁷⁸³

In 2001, following the introduction of the ceasefire between the principal belligerents and the cessation of most military operations in Katanga, the Government in Kinshasa dissolved the FAP but did not implement an appropriate demobilisation and reintegration plan. Feeling they had been abandoned by those in power, the Mayi-Mayi led by Chief Makabe and his lieutenant Kabale became more and more aggressive towards the FAC and representatives of the State. On 14 November, in Katoto, in the Haut-Lomami district, the interim Governor of Katanga, Jacques Muyumba, organised a reconciliation meeting between the Mayi- Mayi leaders, the FAC and the police. The agreement reached at the meeting did not hold, however, and further acts of violence began to be committed on the ground from 2002. It appears that during the period under consideration, the Mayi-Mayi continued to receive weapons from certain senior figures in the FAC, further adding to the confusion reigning at the time. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents.

• On 27 February 2002, elements of the FAC burned 11 civilians alive, including at least one child, and set fire to houses in Kilumba Kumbula, in the Mwanza area in the Malemba Nkulu region. The victims had been arrested by an FAC patrol as they were returning from the fields. The FAC tied up the victims and took them to the village of Kilumba Kumbula, where they locked them in a thatched hut and set fire to it. Victims who tried to escape were shot dead. One civilian managed to get away.⁷⁸⁴

• On 27 February 2002, elements of the FAC killed seven civilians, including two children, one woman and the local chief, in Kimiba, in the Mwanza area of the Malemba Nkulu region. The FAC had found a note written by some Mayi-Mayi in the house of the chief of Kimiba, asking him to provide them with food. Convinced that the chief was collaborating with the Mayi-Mayi, they decided to kill both him and his family. The FAC set fire to the village before they left.⁷⁸⁵

• In March 2002, elements of the FAC killed at least nine civilians, including five children, in the village of Ngwena Mai in the Luela Luvunguyi area, in the Kabalo region. Many people displaced by the war were living in the village, which was in the government zone and was also used as a base by two Mayi-Mayi groups. The extortion and rapes committed by the FAC and directed at the population had made the soldiers very unpopular amongst civilians. After one soldier had been killed by Mayi-Mayi, the FAC entered the village and opened fire on the civilians indiscriminately. They also raped at least one woman, looted and then set fire to the village.⁷⁸⁶

• In May 2002, elements of the FAC killed the wife of the minister of the Kiwala Church in the Congo and her three children with bayonets in the village of Lubondoyi in the Mwanza area of the Malemba Nkulu region. The Mayi-Mayi had been fighting over control of the village for several months. The FAC had accused the minister of collaborating with the Mayi-Mayi. As the minister had managed to escape to Lubondoyi, the soldiers executed his family.⁷⁸⁷

During the period under consideration, ANC/APR troops pursuing the FDLR troops stationed in Katanga cracked down on civilians suspected of collaborating with the FDLR. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents.

• On 4 March 2002, elements of the ANC/APR buried 13 civilians alive, including at least two children, in the village of Lwizi in the Sud-Lukuga area, in the Nyunzu region. The victims had been accused by the RCD of selling food to the FDLR.⁷⁸⁸
• Between May and July 2002, elements of the FAC looted and set fire to several villages in the Badia area, in the Malemba Nkulu region, including Lubinda, Kikose, Sukie and Kimbalama. They killed at least eight civilians accused of supporting the Mayi-Mayi, sometimes mutilating them. Each time the FAC withdrew, the Mayi-Mayi returned to the villages and pillaged the civilians’ remaining property.⁷⁸⁹
• Between February and November 2002, members of the Mayi-Mayi conducted a reign of terror in the chiefdom of Kayumba in the Malemba Nkulu region. They attacked the town of Mukanga on several occasions and killed at least 16 civilians considered hostile to the Mayi-Mayi movement. Cases of cannibalism were reported. The population of Mukanga was forced to take refuge in the village of Mukubu.⁷⁹⁰
• Between 2001 and 2003 the Mayi-Mayi groups operating in the communities of Nkulu, Mwanza and Kayumba in the Malemba Nkulu region kidnapped and recruited several tens of children. Most of these children were used to carry pillaged property, transport munitions and cook. Some were given firearms and used as sentries whilst others took part in the hostilities against first the ANC/APR and then the FAC.⁷⁹¹

• Between 2001 and 2003, in the communities of Nkulu, Kayumba and Mwanza in the Malemba Nkulu region, Mayi-Mayi groups kidnapped tens of young girls aged between 8 and 12 years to use them as sex and domestic slaves. A witness also reported rapes committed by the FAC based in Malemba Nkulu.⁷⁹²

Over the same period, in the part of Katanga under the control of the ANC/APR/RDF⁷⁹³, the confrontations continued between Mayi-Mayi groups and ANC/APR/RDF soldiers. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents.

• Between mid-2000 and 2002, ANC/APR soldiers conducted a reign of terror and killed at least 34 civilians in the villages of Lunfunkwe and Kiwewe, less than 10 kilometres from the town of Kalemie. The victims were suspected of being Mayi-Mayi or of collaborating with them. Most of them were killed with sticks or edged weapons.⁷⁹⁴
• Between 2001 and 2003, in the context of their war against ANC/APR troops for the control of the Tumbwe communities in the Kalemie and Benze region, in the Nyunzu region, members of Mayi-Mayi groups killed an unknown number of civilians and pillaged and set fire to homes. Before they left the villages, they often forced civilians to come and settle in the areas under their control. On 21 May 2001, in the Nyunzu region, the Mayi-Mayi attacked the village of Benze in the Sud-Lukuga community controlled by the ANC/APR. During the operation, they killed and mutilated civilians, set fire to houses and looted property. In 2002, in the Tumbwe community, in the Kalumbi groupement in the Kalemie region, the Mayi-Mayi tortured, mutilated and killed civilians. They also looted civilian property and set fire to villages.⁷⁹⁵
• During 2002 and 2003, elements of the ANC/APR/RDF based in Nyemba and Miala conducted a reign of terror in the area between the communities of Tumbwe and Sud–Lukuga, in the Kalemie and Nyunzu regions. The soldiers attacked the villages in the area and killed an unknown number of civilians on the basis that they were collaborating with the Mayi-Mayi and refused to assemble in the RCD-Goma zone. The soldiers also forcibly recruited several civilians and killed those who refused to be integrated. They held several suspects in detention in muddy holes in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions and summarily executed an unknown number of civilians in public.⁷⁹⁶

On 30 July 2002, President Kabila and President Kagame signed a peace agreement in Pretoria.⁷⁹⁷ On 18 and 19 September, the Rwandan Defence Forces withdrew from the towns of Kalemie, Nyunzu, Kongolo and Kabalo. Kinshasa, for its part, prohibited FDLR activities on its territory and tried to repatriate the 1,500 to 1,800 members of the FDLR who had been stationed at the Kamina base for over a year. As the FDLR rejected the process, the FAC attacked the Kamina base on 30 October, however the main result of the operation was that it allowed over 1,300 members of the FDLR to flee to North Katanga, South Kivu and Eastern and Kasai Occidental. On 1 November, the 95th Brigade, based in Ankoro, was given orders to arrest FDLR members in the Horizon Brigade, disarm them and take them to Kamina. The FAC managed to disarm the 3rd Company of the FDLR and arrest 21 of its members. Following mediation efforts by the Mayi-Mayi Chief Médard and Chief Ntuta, with whom the FDLR were allied, the FAC released these members of the FDLR on 5 November. In spite of this, tension in Ankoro remained high between the Mayi-Mayi and the FAC, with the latter accusing the former of opposing the disarmament of the FDLR.

• Between 10 and 20 November 2002, elements of the FAC fired approximately 245 shells on the town of Ankoro, allegedly causing the death of over 100 civilians and the destruction of over 4,000 houses, including schools and hospitals, generally by setting fire to them. The FAC pillaged over 100 houses during the days of fighting. On 10 November, the FAC and Mayi-Mayi had been involved in a series of minor provocations and altercations near the river, which had degenerated into open conflict and prompted the FAC commander to launch an operation to neutralise the Mayi-Mayi. Believing the civilian population to be complicit with the Mayi-Mayi and the FDLR, the soldiers bombarded the residential neighbourhoods of Ankoro-Nord and Ankoro-Sud with heavy weapons for several days.⁷⁹⁸

In order to restore calm to the Malemba Nkulu region, the Governor of Katanga, Ngoy Mukena, and General John Numbi Banza Tambo met in August 2002 at Makabe’s headquarters in Musao. They gave the Mayi-Mayi leaders, Makabe, Mwende and Kabale, numerous gifts in return for their commitment to disarm. The Mayi-Mayi leaders fell out over how to share the spoils, however, and refused to disarm, which resulted in the violence continuing throughout 2002. In February 2003, Governor Mukena and General John Numbi paid another visit to Makabe. They made him a General and give him the title of Head of Security for the Malemba Nkulu region. In return, Makabe reorganised his militia, had Kabale arrested and promised to call in the weapons that had been distributed across the region.

After a lull of a few months, Kabale was released and returned to the chiefdom of Kayumba. The local population, which had suffered at the hands of Kabale’s Mayi-Mayi in 2002, immediately set off to hunt him down. On 13 May 2003, they killed Kabale near Lake Zibambo. Elements of the Mayi-Mayi organised a punitive expedition in retaliation. In the town of Malemba Nkulu, the Mayi-Mayi, claiming they were now solely responsible for maintaining order in the region, attacked and looted the offices and homes of the local police. The violence then spread to the chiefdom of Kayumba and to the Bukama and Kabongo regions, on the main Kitenge road.

• From 21 May 2003, elements of the Mayi-Mayi allegedly killed an unknown number of civilians, committed rape and looted and set fire to the villages of Mukanga, Museba, Ilunga, Kamitengo, Kakenza and Kimana in the chiefdom of Kayumba in the Malemba Nkulu region. At least 12 identified people were reported killed in Mukanga with the Mayi-Mayi mutilating the bodies of several victims. They also looted several school buildings and health centres.⁷⁹⁹

The Mayi-Mayi in the Bukama region sowed terror and committed atrocities directed at numerous civilians in the region. An autonomous Mayi-Mayi movement was created in the Kabongo region and, from the end of 2003, it became increasingly aggressive and violent towards the FAC and the civilian population.

In total, according to an estimate produced by the MONUC office, between 2002 and 2004, over 500 people were killed and over 2,000 villages destroyed as a result of open warfare between the FAC and Mayi-Mayi from Katanga.