Zaire, (delegation also covers the Congo)

Annual report 1996

ZAIRE

Life for the Zairian people was no easier in 1996. The persistent socio-economic crisis, the increasing poverty of most of the population, the sorry state of public services and the postponement of elections initially promised for July 1995 left most Zairians living precariously from hand to mouth.

The ethnic rivalries in the east of the country, closely linked to the sensitive issue of origin and nationality and its direct consequences for land ownership and the right to vote, remained a source of hatred and violence between the different communities. Since Zaire’s accession to independence in 1960, the Banyamulenge - numerous in South Kivu - and the Banyarwanda -the majority population in the Masisi area (Kivu province) - had possessed Zairian nationality under a law adopted at that time which granted citizenship to anyone who was living within the national borders and claimed it. In 1989, the law was amended and only those who could prove that their ancestors lived in Zaire before 1885 were henceforth entitled to Zairian nationality. The prospect of elections since 1990 caused growing tension between the population of Zairian origin on the one hand and, on the other, the Banyamulenge and especially the Banyarwanda, who saw themselves excluded de facto from the democratic process.

In the Masisi area, the first violent intercommunal clashes occurred in 1993; the situation then calmed down temporarily. From 1994 onwards, the disturbances were aggravated by the huge influx of over a million Rwandan refugees in eastern Zaire. In 1996 the Banyarwanda, backed by the Rwandan Hutu refugees, seized control of more and more of the Masisi area, to the detriment of the indigenous population and the Banyarwanda Tutsis. Almost all the latter were forced to flee to Rwanda, where they were given shelter in a camp set up by the authorities just within the border near Gisenyi, then resettled in the Kibuye region further inside the country. The deployment of Zairian troops to stop the fighting in the Masisi area, then in the Lubero and Rutshuru regions, to which the disturbances had spread in May, did not solve the problems.

Flare-up of fighting on eastern border

In South Kivu, the situation remained fairly calm until late September, except along the Zairean border with Rwanda and Burundi, where frequent skirmishes took place throughout the year between the various armed groups. Towards the end of September, the entire area from Kalemie in the south to Bunia in the north flared up after the ADFL*, a force consisting of several Zairian opposition movements including the Banyamulenge, launched an offensive against the Zairian army. The offensive began in the Uvira region and advanced rapidly towards Bukavu, then Goma. It brought the existing intercommunal tensions to flashpoint, while groups of Zairian soldiers in full and completely undisciplined retreat went on a looting spree. At the same time, the situation in the east of the country sparked disturbances in other regions further inside Zaire; they included Kinshasa, where people suspected of having some link with Rwanda were victimized. Further north, at the border with Uganda, there were clashes between the Zairian armed forces and the WNBF* rebels on the one hand and the Ugandan army and ADFL fighters on the other.

Refugees and local people flee

All the Rwandan and Burundian refugees living in the camps between Uvira and Goma, along with a large number of Zairian civilians, scattered before the advancing ADFL fighters. Some went south, others north, while others headed west towards the interior of Zaire or east towards Tanzania. Their flight took place in particularly desperate conditions, for as the offensive gained momentum, all the humanitarian organizations working in this context were compelled by the lack of any security whatsoever to leave eastern Zaire and hundreds of thousands of people who had taken to the road were devoid of help or protection.

The human tragedy unfolding was so great that several third States urged the need for an external military intervention to allow humanitarian aid to reach the victims. After weeks of negotiations the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, adopted a resolution on 15 November authorizing the deployment “for humanitarian purposes” of a temporary multinational force in eastern Zaire. At the very time the resolution was being adopted, more than 500,000 Rwandan refugees who were living in the Goma region after leaving their camps several weeks earlier and wandering around aimlessly in eastern Zaire started to return to Rwanda. In the following weeks the humanitarian organizations were unable, because of the hostilities and the attitude of the warring parties, to get through to eastern Zaire - except, after a short interruption, to the towns of Bukavu, Goma and Uvira - to help the suffering Zairian civilian population and the Rwandan refugees who continued to trek home in small groups. Despite this almost complete impossibility to take action, most of the States which had agreed to the deployment of a multinational force considered that the mass return of 500,000 Rwandan refugees had rendered the Security Council resolution inoperative. This view was officially endorsed by the President of the Security Council, who terminated the mandate of the multinational force on 31 December.

By the end of the year, the ADFL rebels controlled a broad swathe of Zairian territory, bounded to the south by Uvira, to the north by Bunia and to the west by Walikale. No dialogue had been established between the rebels and the Zairian government and the logic of war held sway.

ICRC active despite difficult security conditions

The humanitarian activities conducted by the ICRC in Zaire in 1996 can be divided into two distinct periods: the first nine months and the rest of the year, with the dividing line being the offensive launched by the ADFL rebels in the east of the country in late September. Throughout the year, ICRC activities in eastern Zaire, including the Masisi area, were dependent on security conditions. On several occasions, as the parties became increasingly reluctant to accept neutral and impartial humanitarian work, the ICRC was forced to suspend some or all of its activities or to restrict its movements. The point of no return was reached in October, when the general chaos caused by the ADFL offensive rendered any humanitarian action impossible. The other humanitarian organizations operating in this context experienced the same difficulties. Several of them suffered deaths and injury among their ranks, particularly the Red Cross of Zaire: five of its volunteers were killed and about a hundred others wounded, including ten seriously, while working to help the victims.

During the first nine months, the ICRC pursued the activities it had begun in previous years. The programme started in 1994 to meet the essential needs of all detainees in certain places of detention visited by the ICRC was extended, first in 1995 and then again in 1996, to cover 24 prisons in seven regions of the country[6]. This assistance was given via non-governmental organizations and local religious groups. The ICRC maintained contact with the prison authorities in order to remind them of their responsibilities towards the detainees. It also encouraged a search for solutions to enable the prisons which possessed land to become self-sufficient, and repaired the sanitary facilities in several places of detention where they were particularly dilapidated. Besides these assistance activities, the delegates continued to register the Rwandan refugees held in Kivu, in order to keep track of them if they were forcibly repatriated to Rwanda, as well as the people detained for security reasons.

Activities to restore and maintain family links continued for Rwandan refugees in the east of the country[7], for Sudanese refugees in Haut-Zaire and for Angolans who had sought shelter in the south-west of the country.

The Red Cross of Zaire in action

In its cooperation programmes with the Red Cross of Zaire, the ICRC concentrated on training first-aid workers. Financial assistance was also given to the National Society to enable it to cover part of its running costs. Besides their exemplary behaviour in Kivu after the humanitarian organizations had to withdraw (see below), the Red Cross of Zaire volunteers distinguished themselves on several occasions, for example, by providing first aid and evacuating the dead and injured when a plane crashed on a market in Kinshasa in January, and again by their vigorous efforts during campaigns to improve hygiene in markets and hospitals in the capital.

The ICRC also continued its work to promote knowledge of and compliance with international humanitarian law, focusing in particular on dissemination to the armed forces. A large number of sessions were organized for the various contingents of the Zairian armed forces, including those stationed in Kivu, to explain the basic rules of that law - particularly those concerning the respect to which the civilian population is entitled - and to make the work of the ICRC and its guiding principles better known.

When the conflict resumed in the Masisi area early in the year and then spread to the Lubero and Rutshuru regions, the ICRC gave assistance to people displaced as a result of the fighting. No serious food shortages were noted and relief supplies therefore included food only in exceptional cases, i.e. for villages which were cut off or for particularly vulnerable groups of people. The ICRC distributed the relief supplies needed to resettle displaced people either in camps or - most frequently - in host families. On several occasions, implements and seed were distributed when displaced people settled in a sufficiently stable environment for long enough to be able to grow food. It also continued to provide medical assistance, evacuating the wounded to referral hospitals outside the areas of unrest. During such transfers it became clear, however, that the enmity between the different communities was so great that a wounded person of one ethnic community could no longer cross through territory controlled by another. The ICRC therefore concentrated on supporting local medical facilities so that the sick and wounded could be treated on the spot. It also took steps to make drinking water more readily accessible and improve drainage systems in the displaced people’s camps, and to repair water-supply systems that had been destroyed in various villages.

In South Kivu, along the Rusizi plain, the ICRC’s work was centred mainly on restoring and maintaining family links for refugees living in the camps, support for medical facilities treating the wounded - who included many Burundians evacuated over the border - and sanitation work; the latter was carried out through a project delegated to the Australian Red Cross Society. Since local medical facilities were increasingly reluctant to admit casualties of Burundian origin, the ICRC undertook to assist the Uvira hospital by providing staff and equipment, with the support of the German Red Cross. However, the spate of events from October onwards meant that this project had to be suspended when it had scarcely begun.

Collapse of law and order

The context in which the ICRC had worked until then changed radically when the ADFL launched its offensive in eastern Zaire in late September. Over the previous months, an ever-stronger xenophobia had taken hold of certain circles in Zaire, which accused the humanitarian organizations of passing on intelligence to the enemy. As the ADFL advanced, humanitarian workers in the east of the country were more openly and directly threatened by Zairian soldiers and representatives of the local authorities. The situation, too, became increasingly chaotic owing to the behaviour of the routed Zairian troops: there was widespread looting, vehicles were stolen from the humanitarian organizations and law and order broke down completely. In such circumstances, the ICRC, like all the other humanitarian organizations, was forced to withdraw its expatriate staff first from Uvira, then Bukavu, and finally Goma. Hundreds of thousands of people - Rwandan and Burundian refugees and Zairian displaced persons - were thus left with no assistance whatsoever.

Victims trapped

From then on, the ICRC repeatedly contacted the Zairian authorities and the ADFL leadership so as to gain access to the people trapped in the Kivu region and to remind the powers that be of their obligation to respect and ensure respect for the rules of humanitarian conduct by all concerned. It also drew the attention of representatives of the international community on several occasions, at international meetings and during bilateral talks, to the urgent need to ensure the safety both of the local population in eastern Zaire and of the displaced people and refugees there, and to see that the humanitarian aid they heeded could get through to them. An appeal to this effect was likewise made by the ICRC President at a press conference in Geneva on 8 November.

Besides these diplomatic approaches, the ICRC mobilized the necessary resources and established a plan of action to be ready to step in as soon as the opportunity arose. In late

November, although as yet unable to intervene in the combat zone itself, it returned to Goma, Bukavu and Uvira with the consent of the Zairian authorities and the ADFL rebels. It also tried to carry out its activities on the edge of the combat zone, in regions still controlled by the Zairian government where people fleeing the fighting - refugees and displaced persons - were beginning to arrive in large numbers, and on the Tanzanian shore of Lake Tanganyika. But the perilous situation and logistical difficulties seriously hampered its efforts to become operational in eastern Zaire, so that by the end of the year, the ICRC, like the other humanitarian organizations, still did not have access to large areas of Kivu.

Help for refugees on the road

On returning to Goma, the ICRC made contact again with its local employees and the Red Cross of Zaire volunteers. During the temporary absence of the ICRC’s expatriate staff, the latter had continued to help the conflict victims as best they could with the resources at their disposal, rendering first aid to the wounded and sick and collecting the bodies strewn throughout the town to give them a decent burial. When the mass return of Rwandan refugees scattered in the neighbouring districts began on 15 November, the ICRC distributed emergency relief supplies (food and water) to people in transit and evacuated sick or wounded refugees. ICRC teams also went outside the town to the site of an abandoned camp where refugees who had previously hidden in the bush had gathered, many of whom were wounded, sick or still very debilitated after weeks of wandering up-country. The ICRC organized transport for them to Rwanda. Once this emergency was over, the delegates tried to extend the range of their activities around Goma. Emphasis was placed on supporting the medical facilities in and around the town, assisting particularly vulnerable groups of the population, repairing water treatment installations and restoring contact between unaccompanied minors and their families. The same approach was adopted in Bukavu, where Red Cross of Zaire volunteers and ICRC local employees had also continued their work during the delegates’ temporary withdrawal. In Uvira, however, only missions to assess needs were possible and conditions remained unsuitable for activities to be resumed there. Although requests were made to the rebel leaders for access to the people held under their authority, no consent had been received by the end of the year.

In the immediate vicinity of the combat zone, the ICRC managed several times to distribute medical aid, food and other essentials to Rwandan and Burundian refugees and to the Zairian displaced persons gathering there. The most significant operation of this kind took place in Shabunda, where the ICRC distributed 60 tonnes of food in December to some 53,000 Rwandan refugees and Zairian displaced persons.

In 1996 the ICRC:

- visited 603 people de- tained in connection with the situation, in 100 places of detention;

- gave all detainees visited the opportunity to exchange Red Cross messages with their families (a total of about 1,100 messages were forwarded);

- continued an assistance programme, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations and local religious groups, to supply water, food and other essential items to some 4,800 persons held in 24 prisons;

- repaired and serviced water-supply and drainage systems in 13 prisons.

- facilitated the restoration and maintenance of contact between Rwandan refugees and their families through a Red Cross message network between the various camps set up in Zaire, between Zaire and Rwanda, and between Zaire and other countries (for total figures, see Rwanda);

- coordinated a large-scale programme to register unaccompanied Rwandan minors among the refugees, with the aim of ultimately reuniting them with their families; this programme was carried out jointly with Save the Children Fund-UK, UNHCR, UNICEF and several non-governmental organizations (for total figures, see Rwanda);

- facilitated the restoration and maintenance of contact between Sudanese, Angolan and Ugandan refugees in Zaire and their relatives who had remained in their own countries; over 15,400 Red Cross messages were exchanged in this context;

- organized the repatriation to Zaire in April of 35 crew members and passengers of an aircraft belonging to the Zairian national airline which had had to make an emergency landing in Kamembe (Rwanda);

- organized the repatriation to Zaire in November of 12 Zairian soldiers and 34 members of their families who had fled the unrest in Kivu and given themselves up to the Ugandan armed forces.

- distributed as needed material assistance, food, seed and implements to a total of 25,000 families affected by intercommunal strife in the Masisi area;

- distributed ad hoc assistance (food and water) to Rwandan refugees passing through Goma on their way back to Rwanda;

- distributed emergency assistance to Rwandan and Burundian refugees and Zairian displaced persons fleeing the combat zones in eastern Zaire and heading for safer areas in the interior of the country, notably in Shabunda (to about 53,000 people), Kalemie (5,000 people), Kindu and Kisangani (several hundred), and in Kigoma in Tanzania (several thousand).

- supported 19 health centres and other medical facilities in the Masisi area to enable them to collect and treat the sick and wounded left unaided because of the intercommunal disturbances;

- assisted the health centres and other medical facilities receiving the wounded and sick in and around Goma and Uvira; sent an expatriate surgeon to the Lemera hospital for the two months of May and June and transferred medical supplies for the Uvira hospital.

- through a project delegated to the Australian Red Cross, sank 20 wells in various villages on the Rusizi plain;

- carried out emergency work to improve access to drinking water for the displaced populations in the Masisi area;

- repaired 2 water-treatment plants in Goma and supported the work of Red Cross of Zaire volunteers to clean up the town and remove and bury the dead.

- continued supporting the Red Cross of Zaire so as to strengthen its emergency response capacity; 8 courses were held for over 600 volunteers and first-aid workers from 11 provinces;

- continued its support for the National Society’s various programmes, in particular the clean-up campaigns for the Kinshasa markets and the training of school traffic wardens to ensure the safety of schoolchildren at main crossroads in the capital.

- held many humanitarian law courses for contingents of the Zairian armed forces, including troops maintaining security in the UNHCR refugee camps in Kivu; a manual prepared by the delegation, in cooperation with specialized Zairian officers, was distributed to most of the participants;

- organized a seminar in May for Zairian officers, from all operational services, responsible for instructing troops in the humanitarian rules for behaviour in war situations;

- publicized a humanitarian message adapted to the circumstances by putting up 12,000 posters in Masisi villages.

Total expenditure in 1996: Sfr 24,630,117

Notes:

* ADFL: Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire-Congo

* WNBF: West Nile Bank Front

6. See the ICRC’s 1994 Annual Report, and 1995 Annual Report.

7. See Rwanda.