DR Congo poll followed by wave of killings – UN
Security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo carried out killings and arbitrary arrests after elections last year, according to a UN report.
The UN Joint Human Rights Office documented the killing of 33 civilians in Kinshasa by members of the army, police and the elite Republican Guard.
The country’s justice minister has rejected the report’s findings.
International observers say last November’s disputed elections, won by President Joseph Kabila, were flawed.
The report focuses on the period between 26 November and 26 December 2011 in Kinshasa – seen as an opposition stronghold.
It says that during this month, at least 33 people were killed – including 22 by gunshot – and at least 83 others were injured, including 61 who were shot.
At least 16 people remain unaccounted for, it said.
‘Dumped in river’
It said it had documented the arrest of at least 265 civilians, most of whom had been detained illegally or arbitrarily.
Many of these, the report alleges, were detained due to their affiliation with the UDPS opposition party or because they came from the home province of its leader, Etienne Tshisekedi.
It blames the bulk of these acts of violence on the Congolese Republican Guard and officers of the National Congolese Police and its specialised units.
Witnesses are quoted as saying some of the bodies were dumped in the Congo river, while others were buried in mass graves.
The report calls on the Congolese authorities to conduct independent investigations into all the cases of human rights violations committed in the capital to bring those guilty to justice.
It also recommends that illegal detention facilities in the capital should be immediately shut down.
The November elections were the first Congolese-organised polls since the end of a devastating war in 2003, which left some four million people dead.
President Kabila has admitted that there were mistakes in the electoral process, but said no poll was 100% perfect and rejected concerns that the results, criticised by Western observers, lacked credibility.
bbc news.
Thank you for this interesting and thnhougrgoiog essay. There is, as you point out, little incentive for the CENI to do anything other than carry on with business as usual.’ A careful reading of recent statements from the international community (make what you will of this term) reveals dissatisfaction with the electoral process, but that thus far few tears have been shed over Mr. Tshisekedi’s loss. The Catholic Church in the DRC is far from neutral, whatever else one may choose to believe of it (Tshisekedi’s brother, for example, is an influential archbishop in Kasai Occidental). A recount even a partial one will accomplish little, and donors have yet to display any particular appetite for the expenditure and disruption that would be caused by anything like a do-over’ in some districts. It is clear to all that there were substantial irregularities on 28 November, but the election was in large part decided many months earlier with the revision of the electoral roll and the constitutional changes in January 2011 which allowed Kabila to consolidate his hold on power.My personal feelings aside, I do not find the case for any significant change in the international community’s approach to the DRC, as it is presented here, to be compelling. The DRC’s neighbours and donors know that they have little to gain from stirring the pot’ at this juncture, and a majority of the country’s citizens already have a list of concerns far more pressing than a revisiting of last year’s controversial polling.