Nairobi/Goma - United Nations-backed Congolese forces are
attacking and raping civilians instead of protecting them from rebel
groups, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.
The army late last year and early this year launched operations
aimed at flushing out Hutu rebels involved in ongoing violence and a
Ugandan rebel group that has taken refuge in the Democratic Republic
of Congo.
HRW said that it had found a dramatic increase in attacks on
civilians over the last six months and that the majority of rapes it
investigated were carried out by government troops.
'The Congolese government's military operations have been a
disaster for civilians, who are now being attacked from all sides,'
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch,said during a
visit to eastern Congo.
The army, in conjunction with South Sudan and Uganda, in December
attacked Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
It followed this up by partnering with Rwanda to take on the
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) - a Hutu rebel
group formed by those who perpetrated the 1994 massacre of 800,000
Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.
Both the FDLR and LRA embarked on revenge attacks against local
communities following the operations.
HRW said that more than 1,500 civilians have died, thousands of
women and girls have been raped and thousands of homes have been
burned to the ground by all sides.
Hundreds of thousands have fled the attacks, swelling the number
of people displaced by earlier violence.
The UN peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo (MONUC) provided
logistical support to the Congolese army on some of the operations
and HRW said this may implicate them in the violence.
'UN peacekeepers should not support Congolese armed forces that
are committing war crimes and failing to protect civilians and
refugees,' said Roth. 'By continuing to back such military
operations, the peacekeepers risk becoming complicit in abuses.'
MONUC has faced continuous criticism of its role in DR Congo. The
17,000-strong force was unable to protect civilians during a flare-up
in fighting last year that displaced 250,000 people.
More than five million people are estimated to have died as a
result of the DR Congo's 1998-2003 conflict and its long aftermath,
most of them from hunger and disease.
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