ZAIRE: National Conference Needed to Overcome Crisis

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Apr 8 1997 (IPS) - The crisis in Zaire and the other countries of the African Great Lakes region can only be resolved with an international conference to set the bases for peace and development, concluded three UN experts.

But the solution of the problem is unfortunately up against the immobility of the international society which, not happy with small disasters, is awaiting a “megacatastrophe” in Zaire, where the tension is currently at breaking point, they said.

The end of the massacres, initiated three years ago in Rwanda, repeated in Burundi and now reported in Zaire, will only be achieved when the regional problem is tackled in an integral manner, they predicted.

Roberto Garreton, special UN reporter on human rights in Zaire, Rene Degni-Segui, reporter for Rwanda, and Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, for Burundi, presented the Human Rights Commission with their reports on the situation in the three countries Tuesday.

The international conference had been put off until now because “there are different interests in play.” The Rwandan government, for example, is hostile to a meeting of this kind, said Degni- Segui.

The reporters recommended the UN call the conference “with the utmost urgency” in agreement with the Organisation for African Unity (OAU).

For a peace conference to be held, the various parties must have true desires for peace, but “this is still not the case in Zaire,” said Garreton.

The rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL) “do not have enough commitment” to the peace process as “they are in the process of winning the war,” said the Chilean expert.

The ADFL forces currently hold nearly a third of the territory of Zaire and are advancing on Kinshasa, the capital, without meeting much resistence from the army of the dictator Mobutu Sese- Seku.

Garreton’s report of his visit to eastern Zaire late last March, said the information collected “and the physical presence of the reporter in what were evidently mass graves,” allowed him to confirm the seriousness of attacks carried out by the ADFL.

Although the information on the reported massacres “is deficient and even contradictory,” in general terms many of the facts reported “must be held as true,” he said.

The reports refer to episodes of violence attributed to the ADFL and carried out in Lemera and Kidote last Oct. 6, in Bukavu on Oct. 31, and in Goma, in early November.

Other similar incidents have occured in Matanda, Katale, Mugunga, Chimanga, Nyakariba and Nyamitaba so far in 1997. All these facts “are, essentially, confirmed by many reports and statements, although the number of victims quoted differs,” said Garreton.

In his presentation to the Human Rights Commission Tuesday, the reporter for Zaire said there were many exaggerated claims, with completely disproportionate figures, even compared with the amount of people living in the areas where the attacks were carried out.

In the case of Nyakariba, the professed number of victims varies between 300 and 15,000. As for Nyamitaba, it fluctuates between several hundreds and 50,000, he said.

The UN special reporters on human rights in the three countries of the Great Lakes region insisted foreign intervention was needed to help reach a solution.

The picture given by Garreton’s report “is enough to validate a call for urgent intervention,” said Pinheiro.

This intervention “could be military or of another kind,” explained.

The presence of uniformed forces to keep open supply corridors for humanitarian aid had already been requested unsuccessfully by international refugee aid organisms.