Congo killings may be genocide

A draft UN report says crimes by the Rwandan army and allied rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo could be classified as genocide.

The report, seen by the BBC, details the investigation into the conflict in DR Congo from 1993 to 2003.

It says tens of thousands of ethnic Hutus, including women, children and the elderly, were killed by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan army.

Rwanda's justice minister has dismissed the claims as "rubbish".
The report also lists human rights violations committed by security forces from all the countries involved in what has been called "Africa's world war".

The final UN High Commission for Human Rights report should be made public in the next few days.

Although the conflict is officially over, eastern DR Congo, near the Rwandan border, remains volatile.

On Thursday, the UN Security Council held an emergency session to discuss allegations that Rwandan Hutu rebels were among armed men who raped at least 150 women and baby boys in the town of Luvungi and surrounding villages earlier this year.

The 545-page report, prepared by about 20 human right officers, documents what they call widespread and systematic attacks by the Rwandan army and the Congolese AFDL rebel movement.

The AFDL rebels were led by Laurent Kabila, father of current Congolese President Joseph Kabila.

Those targeted were Rwandan Hutus who had fled into what is now DR Congo, then called Zaire, after the 1994 genocide.

Rwandan Hutu extremists slaughtered some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the genocide.

Many of those responsible fled Rwanda as Tutsi rebels took power in Kigali in June 1994, taking hundreds of thousands of Hutu civilians with them. 

Thomas Fessy  

 This long-awaited report brings details to the unresolved debate over the question of an alleged genocide of ethnic Hutus between 1996 and 1998.The UN presents it as a historical document but the information may be used to seek justice and find those responsible for the atrocities.It might change the image of Rwanda's government, which has received almost unconditional support from the international community since the 1994 genocide.It also comes after the Rwandan election campaign during which several opponents of President Paul Kagame were killed in unknown circumstances and others arrested for claiming that a double genocide occurred in the 1990s.

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