Human rights group Amnesty International accused state security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo of systematic torture and killings in a report published on Thursday.
The London-based organisation’s study focused on violence in the capital Kinshasa during and after the landmark 2006 elections which were the first democratic, multiparty polls for 40 years.
Amnesty blamed two government security forces — the special services police (DRGS) and the republican guard (GR) — for attacks on opponents of President Joseph Kabila and called for an urgent government investigation.
”Many people have been targeted by the security forces simply because they share the same ethnicity as Jean-Pierre Bemba, Kabila’s main political rival, during the elections,” said Amnesty’s Africa programme head Erwin van der Borght.
”Many of these individuals are still in prison without charge or trial.”
He also said that people interviewed by Amnesty for the report reported ”torture and ill-treatment” in detention, adding: ”The climate of intimidation and fear in Kinshasa has intensified as a result.”
The report also alleges rights violations by the republican guard during fighting in March 2007 in which Amnesty says up to 600 people died.
It also blames fighters loyal to Bemba, who has been in Portugal since April, for some rights abuses at this time.
Amnesty is calling for the government to speed up efforts to create unified national army, police and intelligence services to tackle the problem.
It also wants action over ”an institutional culture that is permissive of human rights violations” which it links to weak civil law enforcement and judicial systems.
”Many security forces continue to serve narrow political interests and this lies at the root of the lack of public confidence felt by most Congolese,” van der Borght said.
Amnesty did hail some ”welcome recent developments” in strengthening rights protections, including the establishment of provincial committees to monitor human rights violations allegedly committed by the security services.
The report comes two days after Human Rights Watch denounced ”horrific” crimes against civilians in the restive Nord-Kivu province of eastern DRC, including murder, rape and forced recruitment of child soldiers.
Long a hotbed of unrest, the upsurge in violence in Nord-Kivu pits supporters of dissident ex-general Laurent Nkunda against government forces as well as local Mai Mai militias and Rwandan Hutu rebels who also oppose Nkunda. – Sapa-AFP