In his report, Chilean lawyer Roberto Garreton accused both the government and the rebels of violent abuses while fighting a war since August in the Central African nation. "Both parties to the armed conflict have disregarded the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly the rebels, who display unusual cruelty," he said.
Garreton's report was prepared in December before he was allowed to visit Congo. In February, he met with the government of President Laurent Kabila and with the rebels. He will present an updated report to the U.N. Human Rights Commission during its current session. The rebels accuse Kabila, who deposed late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, of corruption and fomenting ethnic hatred against the country's Tutsi minority. Kabila has accused the rebels and their Rwandan allies of massacring civilians reluctant to join the insurgency.
"The main victims of the war are civilians, including children and even nursing babies," Garreton wrote. In his 62-page report, he accused government forces and their Angolan and Zimbabwean allies of killing hundreds of civilians in indiscriminate shelling of rebel strongholds. He also criticized the government for detaining suspected rebel sympathizers without trial, and for recruiting children soldiers. The death penalty has been imposed "with chilling frequency" by Congo's Military Court after "irregular" trials, he wrote. Torture was common and prison conditions appalling.
But the U.N. expert said the "most serious situation" was in rebel-held territory in the east. "Fear and distrust prevail in the zone occupied by the rebels," he wrote. "The only recognizable authority is that of the members of the Rwandan and Ugandan armed forces and the Congolese who serve them out of fear."
Garreton cited reports that rebels killed about 120 people per day in the first half of September in the Kivu region. More than 1,100 people died in two separate massacres Aug. 24 and Dec. 31, he wrote. Prisons operated by the rebels were off-limits to investigators, the report said. "Some are genuine torture centers and many are extermination centers. The persons held in the centers are regularly tortured and the women are sexually abused," it said.
There was no immediate response from the government or the rebels.
