ZAIRE

Transition, War and Human Rights
Nearly seven years ago, on April 24, 1990, President Mobutu Sese Seko ostensibly gave in to mounting pro-democracy pressure by announcing the end of the one party state and the beginning of transition to multiparty democracy in Zaire. Seven years into the transition, there have been at least ten different governments but no transition. The president's refusal to step down or to relinquish control of the governments he appointed and manipulated have managed to make a mockery of the promised passage to democracy. The rapid advance of the rebel troops from the east, in turn, threatened to subordinate political change wholly to the passage of arms.
(A902) 4/97, 63 pp., $7.00/£5.95
Order online

“ATTACKED BY ALL SIDES”
Civilians and the War in Eastern Zaire
Nearly 100,000 people, most of them Rwandans once resident in the camps of eastern Zaire, have fled to a site near Ubundu, where their further flight is blocked by the Zaire River. Among them are thousands of unarmed noncombatants as well as soldiers of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR, Forces Armées Rwandaises) and militia responsible for the genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. In addition several thousand refugees remain at Amisi and Shabunda with untold numbers of others scattered in the forest. The ruthless disregard of the rights of civilians, including the right to life, by all armed parties in this conflict raises fears that the noncombatants at Ubundu and elsewhere will once more be attacked, with large-scale loss of life. Many also risk death by hunger or disease unless they are provided with prompt humanitarian relief.
(A901) 3/97, 14 pp. $3.00/£1.95
Order online

FORCED TO FLEE
Violence Against the Tutsis in Zaire
The region of North Kivu in eastern Zaire has been the site of recurrent interethnic violence since 1992, often carried out with the complicity of Zairian regional and national leaders and the Zairian security forces. The explosion of violence in 1993 pitted the mostly Zairian Tutsis and Hutus against other Zairian ethnic groups in the region, but the situation was exacerbated by the arrival in Goma of some 720,000 largely Hutu refugees from Rwanda after the genocide in July 1994. The influx of refugees served to reignite the ethnic violence and to break down the Hutu-Tutsi alliance, leading to attacks against the Tutsi population by both sides. The violence in North Kivu has left hundreds dead, some 250,000 displaced and approximately 16,000 Tutsis forced to flee as refugees to Rwanda. The goal of the attacks is to drive out rival ethnic groups and to create ethnically pure enclaves. This report focuses on the violence against Tutsis, which has been particularly severe since late 1995, and escalated in 1996.
(A802) 7/96, 29 pp. $5.00/£2.95
Order online

Prison Conditions in Zaire
Describing prison conditions under an acute crisis, this report covers not only decayed facilities, poor sanitation and overcrowding, but also prisons facing the economic and political disintegration of the state. Since 1990, a pattern of neglect and corruption has given way to complete abandonment. Prisons are left to their own devices and prisoners left to live or die according to whim and chance. In the past year, only the intervention of humanitarian and religious associations has prevented mass starvation. Even so, the high rate of death and disease dwarfs any of the other problems faced by the prison population.
(1207) 12/93, 72 pp., ISBN 1-56432-120-7, $7.00/£5.95
Order online

INCITING HATRED
Violence Against Kasaiens in Shaba
For three years, President Mobutu has blocked a peaceful movement for democratic change in Zaire, dividing the opposition to his rule. His efforts are now bearing fruit as ethnic and regional violence emerge in a number of regions throughout the vast central African country.
(A510) 6/93, 25 pp., $3.00/£1.95
Order online
 
 

Email Human Rights Watch