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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
DRC: Amnesty calls on MONUC to implement its new mandate
NAIROBI, 4 August 2003 (IRIN) - International human rights organisation Amnesty International has called on the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known by its French acronym MONUC, to implement fully its newly strengthened mandate under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter and "intervene decisively to protect civilians lives".
In a report issued on Saturday after a three-week research mission in eastern Congo and Uganda, Amnesty said despite the installation of a transitional government, the need for international intervention in the east remained urgent.
"Most Congolese are desperate for peace to return to their country so that they can begin to pick up the pieces of their broken lives," Amnesty said. "But as massacres, mutilations and rapes continue throughout the Ituri and Kivu regions, it would be a triumph of vain hope over bitter, daily experience for the Congolese people of eastern DRC to believe that peace has genuinely returned to their communities."
It recommended that MONUC be provided with all necessary combat personnel, equipment and training to fulfil its new mandate. The UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution extending MONUC's mandate until 30 July 2004 and authorising it use all necessary means to protect civilians.
MONUC troops should also deploy throughout all areas around Bunia, the main town in Ituri District, Amnesty said.
It also urged the UN mission to have adequate numbers of French-speaking liaison and humanitarian affairs officers to facilitate communication with local communities.
Amnesty said that the Congolese government, Rwanda and Uganda must end all military and political support to the armed groups operating in the Congo, saying that these groups were responsible for gross human rights abuses.
At the same time, Amnesty welcomed a decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to collect evidence of crimes committed in Ituri since July 2002, which may fall within its jurisdiction. It said it hoped that this would lead to full investigations and prosecutions by the ICC.
On 25 July, international medical NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) appealed to the UN Security Council and the international community to ensure the protection of and access by humanitarian agencies to civilians in Ituri.
MSF made the appeal when it launched a new report in Nairobi, Kenya, on the embattled Ituri District, It expressed concern over the low level of humanitarian aid reaching civilians in Bunia and surrounding areas, where inter-militia fighting in recent months has displaced thousands of civilians.
The report, "Ituri: Unkept Promises? A Pretense of Protection and Inadequate Assistance", was based on testimonies gathered in May and June by MSF staff in Bunia and Beni.
Amnesty said on Saturday that the Ituri conflict had not been a war in which civilians had been the victims of "collateral damage", but one in which civilians had "consistently and deliberately" been targeted.
"It is essential that the international community is there [in Ituri] in force, both to nurture along the healing process and, where necessary, to directly confront the militia who would continue killing," Amnesty said.
[The Amnesty report is available online at: http://news.amnesty.org/]
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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