Arms supply in Congo fuel rights violations - watchdog
By Sheila Naturinda
Posted Tuesday, June 12 2012 at 00:00
Posted Tuesday, June 12 2012 at 00:00
The report titled, If you resist, we will shoot you, highlights how Congolese security forces and armed groups commit human rights violations because of the easy access to weapons and ammunition.
“The situation in the DRC demonstrates the urgent need for governments around the world to agree on a comprehensive Arms Trade Treaty when final negotiations take place at the UN in next month,” Mr Paule Rigaud, the deputy programme director for Africa at Amnesty International, said.
The report comes a few weeks after US-based Human Rights Watch also suggested that DR Congo neighbours - Rwanda and its military officials were arming and supporting the mutiny renegade Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who is a wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
The report says Rwandan military officials allowed Gen. Ntaganda to enter Rwanda and supplied him with new recruits, weapons and ammunition. Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister, however, denied any involvement in the socio-political and military troubles in the DRC.
Since February this year, renewed fighting in eastern DR Congo has forced close to 30,000 refugees to flee to Uganda.
Uganda plans to transfer the refugees from a temporary camp near Kisoro, 480 kilometres from Kampala to other established refugee settlements further inside the country where better relief services are offered.
Mr Rigaud said: “Until human rights safeguards are in place, states should end those transfers of military equipment to countries like the DRC, where there is a substantial risk such supplies will be used to commit or to facilitate human rights violations.”
In recent years, a range of weapons, munitions, and related equipment has been supplied to the DR Congo’s government, including small arms, ammunition, tear gas, armored vehicles, artillery guns and mortars.
The main suppliers are said to be China, Egypt, France, South Africa, Ukraine and USA.
The UN Security Council in 2003 imposed an arms embargo on the DR Congo which was subsequently weakened in 2008.
Designated sites for the import of arms and the removal of restrictions on supplies to non-integrated units in the armed forces were removed. “States must determine if there is a substantial risk that the arms are likely to be used by the intended recipient to commit or facilitate serious violations of international human rights,” reads the report.
Providing weapons and ammunition to Gen. Ntaganda’s mutiny contravenes the UN’s Security Council arms embargo on Congo, which stipulates that all states shall “take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer, from their territories or by their nationals […] of arms and any related materiel, and the provision of any assistance, advice or training related to military activities […] to all non-governmental entities and individuals operating in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
Amnesty International is also calling for the reinstatement in the mandate of the UN arms embargo for a restricted number of designated entry points for the import of all conventional arms to the Government of the DRC.
snaturinda@ug.nationmedia.com
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