DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

RDC: l’armée affirme avoir délogé les FDLR de 35 localités

Source: Radio Okapi

Les Forces armées de la RDC (FARDC) affirment avoir repris le contrôle de trente-cinq localités occupées jusque-là par les rebelles rwandais des FDLR au Sud et Nord-Kivu. C’est ce qu’a annoncé mardi 7 avril le commandant de la troisième zone de défense de l’armée congolaise, Général Léon Mushale, qui faisait un premier bilan des opérations lancées contre ces combattants rwandais depuis le 29 janvier dernier.

8 avril 2015 - L’officier de l’armée congolaise précise que parmi les localités récupérées, 21 sont situées au Sud-Kivu et 14 dans la partie sud du parc des Virunga, au Nord-Kivu.

La même source indique que les militaires congolais ont également neutralisés 237 rebelles FDLR dont 13 ont été tués.

Le général Léon Mushale parle également de 85 armes lourdes et légères et plusieurs munitions récupérées.

Au cours de ces opérations, quatre cases ont été incendiées, deux civils tués et un autre blessé.

Le général Mushale ne donne pourtant aucun bilan du côté FARDC, mais affirme que l’armée se comporte bien sur le terrain des opérations.

« Nos forces armées sont une armée respectueuse du droit international humanitaire. C’est la raison pour laquelle il y a eu un faible taux des tués parmi les FDLR », fait savoir le général Léon Mushale.

Le commandant de la troisième zone de défense des FARDC accuse les rebelles FDLR de continuer à tuer, à enlever et à violer.

« Les FARDC sont déterminées donc à éradiquer l’ennemi FDLR », assure-t-il.

Depuis le mois de janvier, l’armée congolaise mène seule l’offensive contre les FDLR. Le gouvernement congolais a renoncé au soutien de la Monusco, dans ces opérations militaires. Des divergences sont apparues entre les Nations unies et son partenaire congolais sur la présence dans la chaîne de commandement de deux généraux soupçonnés de violation des droits de l’homme.

RDC : Une dizaine de soldats tués

Source: Le Figaro.fr avec Reuters

8 avril 2015 - Une dizaines de soldats de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC) ont été tués lundi [6 avril] dans une embuscade tendue dans l'est du pays par des rebelles rwandais des Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a-t-on appris aujourd'hui [8 avril] de source militaire.

L'attaque s'est produite dans le secteur de Masisi, dans la province du Nord-Kivu. Deux colonels figurent au nombre des victimes, a précisé cette source, un membre des forces armées congolaises s'exprimant sous couvert de l'anonymat. Le bilan est le plus lourd depuis le déclenchement, en février, d'une offensive armée contre les rebelles.

Formées pour l'essentiel d'anciens soldats et miliciens hutus rwandais impliqués dans le génocide du printemps 1994 au Rwanda, les FDLR comprendraient quelque 1.400 combattants. Le groupe rebelle est considéré comme l'un des principaux facteurs de violences dans l'Est congolais.

DRC Opposition Protests Exclusion of Youth Vote

Source: Voice of America

8 April 2015 - An opposition party in the Democratic Republic of Congo is protesting an electoral calendar that it says will deny many young people the right to vote in local elections this year.

Opposition parties in the DRC have been contesting the electoral process for months, with deadly consequences in January, when according to Human Rights Watch, at least 40 people were killed in street protests. The government denies that figure and has said about a dozen people died.

Those protests led to the announcement of an electoral calendar, but now opposition activists are contesting the date set for local and provincial elections this year, which they say is too soon. They say logistics are not in place and many young voters would be excluded.

New calendar called unconstitutional

Speaking at a public meeting on the streets of Goma, Christian Badosse, a local spokesman for the Engagement for Citizenship and Democracy [ECIDE] party said the new calendar is unconstitutional.

He said this is because the constitution clearly states everyone over the age of 18 has the right to vote.

According to the calendar announced by electoral commission president Abbe Appollinaire Malu Malu, the local elections this year will be based on lists of voters drawn up in 2011, and anyone not on those lists will not vote.

As Badosse pointed out, that excludes people who were under 18 in 2011, but are now between 18 and 22.

He told the crowd that recently, many young Congolese died for the right to vote.

"You exerted pressure in the streets between January 19th and 22nd," Badosse told the mainly young audience, saying it is possible many Congolese died in those protests.

Maluku cemetery probe

Badosse suggested there now is a question over the figure of 40 victims cited by Human Rights Watch. He said there is now an inquiry about the bodies found at Maluku cemetery near Kinshasa.

Last Friday, the government announced that more than 400 bodies have been discovered in a mass grave at Maluku. The deputy prime minister said these were bodies of the destitute and of children who died in infancy.

The government has announced a judicial investigation into the circumstances surrounding the grave.

The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has welcomed that announcement and says the U.N. human rights office will ‘accompany’ the investigation.

The ECIDE meeting was stopped by police after about 10 minutes.

“I knew the police would come," said someone in the crowd. There were no arrests and no violence.

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RWANDA

Rwandan rebel group kills 10 soldiers in eastern Congo ambush

Source: Reuters World Service

8 April 2015 - Rwandan rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed around 10 soldiers in an ambush this week, an army source said on Wednesday, the insurgents' deadliest attack since the start of a military campaign against them in February.

The military source, who asked not to be identified, said that two colonels were among those killed and several other soldiers were injured in the attack by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The ambush took place on Monday in the Masisi region of north Kivu province, he said.

The FDLR, a Hutu force of some 1,400 fighters, includes soldiers and militiamen involved in neighboring Rwanda's genocide in 1994. It has embedded itself in the communities of eastern Congo, a region plagued by dozens of armed groups.

FDLR fighters have sought to exploit the region's rich deposits of gold, diamonds and tin and waged periodic war with the Kinshasa government and other armed groups.

Many analysts say that defeating the FDLR is critical to breaking a catastrophic cycle of violence in eastern Congo.

However, a slow start to the military campaign has raised doubts about its ability to defeat the FDLR, which has fought alongside the army in the past against other Rwanda-backed rebels.

General Leon Mushale, the top Congolese army commander in eastern Congo, said only 13 FDLR fighters had been killed since the campaign began. He said this was because the army was taking care not to incur civilian casualties.

At least one Congolese soldier was killed in the first week of the campaign, but military authorities have not given an overall toll for their casualties.

FDLR fighters have fled deeper into the dense forests of eastern Congo rather than risk open combat. The army says it has captured dozens of towns held by the rebels and that hundreds of combatants have been captured or surrendered.

The operation is being carried out unilaterally by the Congolese army after a row over alleged human rights violations by two Congolese commanders led the U.N. peacekeeping force to withdraw its support.

Rwanda says French genocide papers could answer 'dark' questions

Source: AFP

8 April 2015 - Rwanda said Wednesday that France's declassification of documents relating to the 1994 genocide will shed light on unanswered questions over the mass killings, in which Kigali accuses Paris of having an indirect role.

The French decision Tuesday concerns documents in the Elysee presidential palace relating to Rwanda between 1990 and 1995, spanning the genocide which claimed at least 800,000 lives.

"The president had announced a year ago that France must provide proof of transparency and facilitate remembrance of this period," a source in French President Francois Hollande's office said.

Rwandan Minster of Justice Johnston Busingye said Wednesday that Paris should ensure that all the documents are released.

"The Franco-Rwanda political, diplomatic and military relationship during the 1990-1995 period has been a tightly guarded domain," Busingye told AFP.

"Perhaps the goings on at the time will finally be opened up, and it will shed light on the many dark and grey questions still unaddressed. One only hopes that the declassification is total."

The papers, which include documents from diplomatic and military advisors as well as minutes from ministerial and defence meetings, will be available to both researchers and victims' associations, the French presidency said.

Ties between France and Rwanda are strained, with Rwandan President Paul Kagame accusing Paris of complicity in the genocide because of its support of the Hutu nationalist government that carried out the mass slaughter, mainly of ethnic Tutsis.

- Survivors welcome declassification -

Paris has repeatedly denied the accusations and insists that French forces had worked to protect civilians. Relations between both countries were completely frozen from 2006 to 2009.

The president of Ibuka, Rwanda's genocide survivors' association, called for documents to be made available as soon as possible.

"Let them do it and do so quickly, it is interesting, it is good," said Jean-Pierre Dusingizemungu, saying it could shed light on France's role and actions through the period of the genocide.

The genocide was sparked by the killing of country's president, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down in April 1994.

Kagame last year caused a stir by repeating his accusations against France before commemorations to mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide which ran from April to July 1994.

He notably said that France had not "done enough to save lives" and had not only been complicit but "an actor" in the massacre of Tutsis.

He also spoke of "the direct role of Belgium and France in the political preparation of the genocide, and the participation of the latter in its actual execution".

Former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe, who was President Francois Mitterrand's foreign minister at the time of the genocide, termed the accusations "intolerable" and urged Hollande to "defend France's honour."

Stung by the repeated accusations, France cancelled plans for the justice minister to attend the 20th anniversary commemorations.

A French parliamentary enquiry set up to try to establish the truth about the French role declared that "France was in no way implicated in the genocide against the Tutsis."

But the two rapporteurs, one of whom was Bernard Cazeneuve who is France's interior minister, however admitted the French authorities made "serious errors of judgement."

The United Nations was also taken to task in 1994 for only belatedly recognising that a genocide was in progress.

The announcement of the French declassification of the Rwanda papers came on the 21st anniversary of the outbreak of the genocide on April 7, 1994.

French Rwanda genocide documents not complete, activists warn

Source: RFI

7 April 2015 - Activists have welcomed the French government's decision to declassify archive documents relating to the 1994 Rwandan genocide but said it does not go far enough. "Some documents still have to be declassified," Alain Ghautier, the head of French NGO Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda, commented on Wednesday.

The papers, essentially official documents from the president’s office, span 1990-1995, a period during which France's role has attracted controversy.

The decision comes on the 21st anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people were killed.

“The declassification of these archives is good news for us, as well as for the Rwandans,” Gauthier explains. “However, we should wait to know the content of these documents to see if they are interesting.”