Nairobi, Jun 26 (EFE).- The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo filed a lawsuit against Rwanda on Friday before the International Court of Justice for genocide and other human rights violations in eastern DRC, directly and through allied armed groups.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Communication, Kinshasa accused Kigali of “violating” the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), and against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
“For over thirty years, civilian populations in eastern DRC have been subjected to massacres, extrajudicial executions, acts of torture, sexual violence, forced displacement, and discrimination based, among other things, on ethnic origin and sex,” the text states.
The Congolese authorities also maintained that Rwanda carried out these actions through its armed forces and rebel groups such as the Alliance of the Congo River/May 23 Movement (AFC/M23), the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (AFDL), the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), and the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP).
“Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the Rwandan Armed Forces (RDF), along with armed groups supported, directed, or controlled by the Republic of Rwanda, conducted unlawful military operations on the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” the statement said.
“These operations targeted refugee camps, villages, and urban centers in the east of the country, resulting in significant loss of life, mass displacement, and exceptional suffering, in violation of the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” it said.
Considering that the Rwandan government bears “international responsibility for these violations,” Kinshasa argued that the ICJ should order “the cessation of the internationally wrongful acts, prescribe guarantees of non-repetition, and grant full reparation to the DRC and the victims, in accordance with international law.”
The conflict in eastern Congo escalated in late Jan. 2025, when the M23 seized control of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, and, weeks later, of Bukavu in South Kivu, following clashes with the Congolese Army.
Since Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame signed a peace agreement on Dec. 4 in Washington in the presence of their US counterpart, Donald Trump, who ratified the June pact (initialed at the ministerial level), both sides have accused each other of violating it.
This agreement complements the mediation efforts sponsored by Qatar between the Congolese government and the M23, which signed a framework agreement in Doha on Nov. 15.
Since 1998, the eastern DRC, rich in minerals essential to the technology industry, has been embroiled in a conflict fueled by rebel groups and the army, despite the deployment of the UN mission in the DRC (MONUSCO). EFE
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