Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "I think the UN report will force the international community to carry out further reflection on recent events in the region," Fides was told by Fr. Loris Cattani, Xaverian missionary with a long experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo and member of the Network for Peace in Congo," commenting on the report, published on October 1 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the serious violations of human rights that occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) between 1993 and 2003.
The 550-page report shows 617 serious violations of human rights and international law during the period under review. In just ten years, "tens of thousands of people have been killed and many more raped, mutilated, or have been victims of other heinous violence," says the document, which also denounces the systematic rapes used as a real “weapon of war.”
"The attacks are apparently systematic and widespread" in the period between 1996 and 1997 against the Hutu ethnic group, and in particular, the Rwandan Hutu refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The attacks reveal different aspects that "could be defined as crimes of genocide," if proven "before a competent court," says the document, specifying however that there are "some considerations to the contrary" that could lead a court "to conclude in favor of the absence of a specific intention, required to establish that a crime of genocide has taken place."
The report has aroused strong controversy among the neighboring countries of the DRC, who are implied in the document.
“Deeper reflection is needed on this issue that is still quite delicate. However, it seems that this document will be a step forward in arriving at the truth about those years, a first step towards real peace in the region," says the missionary. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 04/10/2010)
