Kinshasa Downplaying Alleged Massacre

The Kinshasa authorities are downplaying the number of victims of an alleged massacre by the Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, rebel group to accelerate the departure of United Nations peacekeepers before an election in September next year, some analysts and diplomats have told IWPR.

A Human Rights Watch, HRW, report on March 28 accused LRA rebels of the massacre of 321 civilians and abduction of about 250 others at Makombo in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, in December. The Kinshasa authorities dismissed the claim, saying that "no more than 25" had died.

The LRA, an armed rebel group led by Joseph Kony, initially based in northern Uganda, has evolved to become a regional threat operating between southern Sudan, the DRC and the Central African Republic. The LRA is accused of responsibility for numerous abuses and atrocities, including abduction, rape, torture and killing of civilians. Arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court, ICC, for the LRA’s top five leaders, including Kony.

“The Makombo massacre is one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history, yet it has gone unreported for months. The four-day rampage demonstrates that the LRA remains a serious threat to civilians and is not a spent force, as the Ugandan and Congolese governments claim,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, HRW’s senior Africa researcher and author of the report, said.

The dead from the attacks included at least 13 women and 23 children, the youngest a three-year-old girl who was burned to death, the campaign group said in findings based on a visit to the area in February.

The United Nations mission to the DRC, MONUC, said its own investigation, which will officially be released in a few weeks’ time, found that at least 290 people were killed and about 150 abducted.

However, DRC justice minister Lessa Bambi Luzolo said of the Makombo incident, “When it comes to victims in the civilian population, the number of victims is no more than 25."

Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said, “I cannot comment on the government figures but the UN figures are reliable as we have a dedicated team who investigated.”

Congolese information minister Lambert Mende insisted, however, that reports by international organisations frequently exaggerate the situation in the country, “In cases where three people died, it is claimed that 300 died. In cases where three women are raped, it is claimed that 300 women are raped, although there are only 50 inhabitants in the village.”

But Van Woudenberg said the Congolese government had been inconsistent over the alleged Makombo massacre, “They first denied it and then said that no more than 25 have died, which has also been contradicted by the district commissioner of Haut Uélé(in northeast DRC) saying that 68 people were killed. They are clearly papering over this [HRW] report.”

The controversy over the number of alleged victims of the LRA attack comes as the authorities press for the departure of MONUC, whose peacekeepers, now numbering 20,000, have been in the country for over a decade following the country’s bloody civil war.

MONUC said in a statement on April 7 that the DRC government had asked for the UN withdrawal process to be completed by August, 30, 2011 at the latest. A presidential election is scheduled to take place in September next year.

Some analysts and diplomats believe the Congolese government is downplaying the number of victims of the alleged LRA massacre to expedite the departure of UN troops before the September 2011 ballot.

A senior European diplomat, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IWPR, “Minimising the number of victims in this [HRW] report is intended to give the impression that peace is back in DRC, although it is not the case.”

Claire Morclette, DRC campaigner at Amnesty International, said the call for the withdrawal of UN troops “certainly doesn’t match the reality on the ground as many parts of the country remain very insecure”.

The departure request, she said, was a politically-motivated decision “in view of the upcoming elections and their desire to have MONUC out before then”.

Guillaume Lacaille, a senior analyst covering DRC for the International Crisis Group, said, “The Congolese army is not yet able to take over from MONUC and prevent local conflicts getting out of hand.

“[Joseph] Kabila won the presidential elections in 2006 mainly for his commitment to bring peace and order in eastern Congo.

“As NGOs report constantly the dire situation in the Kivus and the northeastern region of Congo, the regime tends to minimise or bring suspicion to the work done by independent observers.”

Mende described as “ridiculous” claims that the Congolese government was trying to downplay the scale of the alleged Makombo atrocity to speed up the departure of the UN. “Internationals seem to want to worsen the situation to stay longer in their comfortable situation,” he said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has recommended the Security Council withdraw up to 2,000 of the peacekeepers by the end of this June - but only from the more stable, mainly western and central provinces.

Ban made the proposal in a report released at the UN headquarters in New York on April 5.

In the east of the country, the UN has long been worried about the continuing instability.

"The humanitarian situation in the Kivus and parts of Orientale province remains of deep concern with a large number of internally displaced persons, high levels of sexual violence against women and attacks on humanitarian workers," top UN official in DRC Alan Doss said.

In the northeast, barely a week passes without an LRA attack and people there are constantly harassed, according to Lejeune-Kaba.

Eight workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross were released this month after being abducted and held for a week by militia members in South Kivu province.

The recent revolt in Equateur province in northern DRC, where several UN employees were killed during fighting with a traditional militia known as the Enyele, also raises the issue of localised conflicts, especially with local elections coming.

Several humanitarian organisations are urging MONUC to stay, saying that their departure would make it very hard to operate safely.

“The Democratic Republic of Congo remains the worst place to be a woman or a child. The UN Security Council cannot ignore these facts,” Van Woudenberg said.

The Security Council is shortly sending a team to Kinshasa to discuss the future of the peacekeeping force with Kabila. This mission was scheduled last weekend but has been delayed because of disruption to air transport and the new date has yet to be announced. 

 Philomene Remy is an IWPR intern.