(New York, March 20, 2002)
Human Rights Watch today condemned arrests and beatings of human rights activists and journalists by the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) in eastern Congo. Human Rights Watch also criticized the RCD and its ally, Rwanda, for arbitrarily detaining Congolese in a container near Goma.
“RCD authorities always tell local human rights organizations to bring reports of violations directly to them rather than informing outsiders. And then they beat the activist who brings them such concerns to a pulp.”
Alison Des Forges,
Senior Advisor to the Africa Division
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On March 15 security officials of the Direction Provinciale de la Sécurité in Goma arrested and severely beat Richard Muhindo Bayunda, a human rights activist. He was arrested when he met security officials to protest against the recent detention of a journalist, and the fact that the authorities were threatening his re-arrest if he did not pay US $60, effectively a bribe. The officials kicked Bayunda and beat him with clubs and rifle butts. When released later that day, he was vomiting blood and had open wounds on his back, buttocks and mouth. Bayunda heads the Center for Research on the Environment, Democracy, and Human Rights (CREDDHO) in Goma, an organization that regularly denounces abuses to the RCD authorities.
“RCD authorities always tell local human rights organizations to bring reports of violations directly to them rather than informing outsiders,” said Alison Des Forges, Senior Advisor to the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. “And then they beat the activist who brings them such concerns to a pulp.”
Bayunda was arrested when he met security officials to discuss the March 9 detention of Raphael Paluku Kyana, director of a community radio station in Kanyabayonga, who was en route to a training workshop for media professionals organized by the All-African Council of Churches in Nairobi. Kyana was held for several days at the Direction Provinciale de la Sécurité. That same week Deo Baabo, head of the non-governmental organization GEAD in Goma, was also detained and interrogated for several days because he was wrongly accused of having gone to Kinshasa without authorization. In another case of harassment of civil society actors, RCD authorities in early March suspended a journalist of Radio Television Nationale du Congo just after he chaired a press conference held by women’s groups in Bukavu to celebrate International Women's Day. In previous years organizers of International Women's Day have also been threatened with arrest and other repressive measures.
Rwandan army soldiers and the RCD, who are fighting against local armed groups known as Mai Mai, are currently detaining suspects in a cargo container in Ndosho, about 15 kilometers from Goma, under inhumane conditions. Although the facility is located on territory supposedly administered by the RCD, Rwandan soldiers seem to exercise authority over it, deciding such questions as who has access to the detainees. According to local sources, Rwandan soldiers have even refused to allow RCD judicial authorities to visit the container. Detainees, some of whom have reportedly been tortured, have no access to medical or legal help or to their families. The container gets very hot in the day and very cold at night. Among those detained are five men named Muhondo Mirimo, Munihire Mirimo, Floribert Mirimo, Kamanyole, and Weteshe.
Human Rights Watch called on the Rwandan government and the RCD to close this illegal and inhumane detention facility. The detainees should either be released or charged with a recognizable offence and transferred to an officially acknowledged place of detention, in accordance with Congolese law.
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