Ten years of the Mapping report in the DRC: demonstrations to demand justice
DRC army soldiers on patrol in Eringeti, in the east of the country, in 2013 (illustrative image).
ALAIN WANDIMOYI / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, citizens' movements organized marches in all the country's major cities to demand justice for the crimes documented in the Mapping report.
Ten years after the publication of this report, recommendations have remained dead letters and crimes go unpunished.
About 5,000 people demonstrated this Thursday, October 1 in Bukavu, in the province of South Kivu, to demand the establishment of a special tribunal for the DRC.
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With our correspondent in Bukavu
,
William Basimike
Whistles in the mouth, vuvuzelas, banners and even torches in the hand, almost all social strata of South Kivu gathered on Munzihirwa Square in Nyawera
to demand justice
.
It was on this square that the Archbishop of Bukavu, Christophe Munzihirwa, was killed in October 1996 when the AFDL arrived, former President Laurent Désiré Kabila, supported by the neighboring countries of the 'East.
Idesbald Byabuze is one of the protesters.
For him,
enough is enough
: “
There was, not a genocide, but genocides in our country.
All Congolese families have been, in one way or another, affected by an economic crime, war crime or crime against humanity.
This is an opportunity for all Congolese to understand that the moment has arrived to say no to impunity, and we have decided!
"
Denis Mukwege absent
The demonstrators submitted two memoranda to the governorate of South Kivu, one asking the Secretary-General of the United Nations to get involved in the publication of the names indexed
by the Mapping report
, and the other encouraging President Félix Tshisekedi to the DRC a rule of law.
Sifa Noella is a survivor of the rapes committed by the FDLR in Shabunda in 2000. She is worried: “
We want the perpetrators to be tried while they are still alive.
They will not be judged when they are dead!
Among us, the victims, there are some who can no longer walk, others are starting to die.
We shouldn't wait until we die to do ourselves justice.
"
Despite his promise to participate in this march supervised by the police, the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr.
Denis Mukwege
was absent.
His relatives spoke of security reasons.
The amnesty that erases everything ...
The Mapping report had identified 617 war
crimes, crimes against humanity and possible crimes of genocide and proposed the creation of mixed chambers of justice.
Nothing since.
It is total impunity for the former belligerents who for the most part refuse to go back on this period or to speak out, notes
our correspondent in Kinshasa
,
Kamanda wa Kamanda
.
Some try to justify themselves, but never recognize the crimes.
For Raphaël Ghenda, companion of Laurent-Désiré Kabila within the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo / Zaire and spokesperson for the very first AFDL government in 1997, justice must be particularly interested in rebellions which opposed the AFDL regime.
It does not recognize the crimes identified by the Mapping report.
“
Everywhere we went, we did not engage in abuses as we have known in Makobola, Kassika, Kissangani… Who are the responsible?
First of all, the two major Congolese political movements that you know: MLC and RCD
.
"
For Roger Lumbala, former leader of the RCD / National, all these crimes have already been erased by the 2014 amnesty. “
It is not yet a matter of going back on the court decision to initiate other actions while the Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a sovereign country, has already voted for amnesty to allow my peaceful cohabitation, national reconciliation
.
"
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