CONGO-HUMAN RIGHTS: Rights Groups Object to Agreement with Kabila

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 16 1997 (IPS) - Six human rights groups have joined together to criticise the United Nations for what they believe is a deal to undermine the work of the U.N. human rights rapporteur to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The rights groups worry that an agreement between the United Nations and President Laurent Kabila’s new government in the Congo (formerly Zaire) will, among other things, prevent U.N. rapporteur Roberto Garreton from continuing his work in that country.

The six groups — Human Rights Watch, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, the International League for Human Rights, and the International Commission of Jurists — worry about the precedent the agreement sets.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the directors of the six groups voice their “deep distress”, arguing, “Mr Garreton has been a strong and committed rapporteur who, while displaying the highest professionalism and objectivity, has responded strongly to horrible abuses in Zaire/Congo.”

But Garreton also earned the distrust of Kabila’s victorious Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), when he repeatedly drew attention this past spring to allegations that the then-rebel force may have massacred Rwandan refugees.

As a result, although Annan and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson have both pushed for an investigation into the massacre reports, the rights groups believe that they agreed to keep Garreton out of that mission.

“This deal was done twice,” says Joanna Weschler, U.N. representative of Human Rights Watch. “Both Kofi Annan and Richardson met with Kabila, and in both cases, from what we heard, the promise was made that Garreton not be part of the mission.”

If Garreton really is being excluded, Weschler says, “the implications could go far beyond Congo.” Any such decision, she argues, could endanger the principle by which the United Nations ensures that its human rights officials in the field are supported in the work they do, even if it puts them at odds with governments.

“It also sends a signal to every human rights representative of the U.N. that those who engage in tough reporting, even when necessary and accurate, will not have the backing of the (U.N.) Secretariat,” the letter to Annan contends.

“The self-censorship that this would engender would be disastrous for the effective functioning of the U.N. in the human rights realm,” the six groups add.

Responding to reporters’ questions Monday, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard would not confirm or deny what Garreton’s future role in monitoring rights abuses in the Congo would be.

“All we have said is that the advance team, which would not include Garreton — it would include forensic and other experts — would be going down,” Eckhard says. That team, whose entry into parts of eastern Congo was approved by Kabila last week, is leaving this week to investigate sites where Rwandan Hutus who had fled their native country in 1994 are believed to have been killed.

Further investigation teams have yet to be drawn up, Eckhard adds. “We’re going to try to get into the Congo with the most appropriate people,” he says. But the spokesman cautions, “There also has to be factored into this a consultation with the receiving country.”

Any such consultation would likely mean the scuppering of Garreton, who accused the AFDL of at least abetting the deaths of some of the Rwandan Hutu, many of whom themselves were linked to the genocidal massacres of up to one million people in Rwanda in 1994.

Human rights groups say hundreds of refugees may have been killed in revenge attacks for the 1994 massacres during what was otherwise a relatively low-casualty rebellion by the AFDL, which last month toppled Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

Annan this spring rebuked the AFDL for what he called “a policy of slow extermination”, by which the refugees were forced to flee from camps in eastern Zaire into the surrounding forests, where many of them may have perished from hunger or disease. Kabila, in turn, initially refused to allow U.N. monitors access to several areas, including camps outside the city of Kisangani, where reports have circulated of atrocities against refugees.

In recent days, however, Kabila has tried to mend fences with the United Nations and the United States, agreeing to allow human rights monitors into the eastern zones. Annan last week said that, during their recent meeting at the Organisation of African Unity summit in Harare, Kabila told him, “I also want to get this albatross off my neck.”

Other officials also seem willing to assist him in that task. Richardson, who confirmed the arrangements for the rights monitors to enter after he met Kabila in Kinshasa last week, has argued that the AFDL leader has only just taken the reins of power and needs to be given time to establish a democratic post-Mobutu government.

That attitude, in turn, reflects the awareness that many African leaders, including South African President Nelson Mandela — who helped to mediate Mobutu’s departure and Kabila’s rise to power — are unhappy at the Western criticism of the new government.

Mandela pointedly has noted that many countries who supported Mobutu with scant criticism over his 32-year regime should not be so quick to question the human-rights record of his successor — a clear reference to Mobutu’s longtime patrons, the United States and France.