Global Policy Forum

The international community must assume its moral and legal responsibilities to help end the devastating conflict that continues to plague the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Amnesty International said in a report released today.

The report details the human cost of the conflict and underscores the exploitation of the DRC's natural resources as the biggest single factor perpetuating violence in the country. The northern and eastern regions of the DRC, which are under the control of Congolese armed groups sponsored by Rwanda and Uganda, are rich in many precious resources, including diamonds, coltan, gold, and timber. While senior members of the Rwandese and Ugandan armies and their Congolese allies have grown rich, the vast majority of the local Congolese population faces poverty, insecurity, displacement, abduction and death.

"For the last four and half years Rwanda, Uganda and their Congolese allies have systematically plundered the eastern DRC's natural wealth on a vast scale, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Congolese civilians," said Amnesty International. "This has been possible only because the international community has allowed the perpetrators to act with almost complete impunity. It is only through concerted and robust international action to end such impunity that further abuses will be prevented."

Hundreds of thousands of Congolese civilians have been tortured and killed during fighting to secure control of natural resources. Thousands of others have died due to malnutrition and lack of access to humanitarian assistance after being forced to flee their homes. Foreign forces have also deliberately stoked inter-ethnic conflicts and mass killings in order to promote their economic interests. Thousands of women have been raped. Amnesty has confirmed reports that children as young as 12 have also been forced into hard labor in the mines.

Amnesty International calls on the international community, in particular through the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, to pressure key protagonists in the conflict to condemn abuses by their own forces and bring suspected perpetrators to justice. The organization also recommends a strengthening of the mandate and deployment of the UN cease-fire monitoring body MONUC and the full implementation of MONUC's mandate "to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence." The international community should also support and provide resources for judicial mechanisms, such as an international commission of inquiry, aimed at enforcing accountability for human rights abuses. Amnesty International also recommends that governments take steps to ensure that businesses active in the DRC do not cause or condone rights violations of the communities in which they are operating, and that revenues generated from commercial activities involving the DRC's natural resources contribute to the progressive realization of the population's social and economic rights.

Furthermore, governments should promote the adherence of the DRC and of regional diamond transit countries to the international diamond certification system agreed through the Kimberley Process. Governments should also take practical steps to submit the trade in other natural resources to similar international scrutiny, to ensure that the manner in which those resources are exploited does not give rise to human rights abuses.