Congo: Petition against ethnic hatred

Dear Friend,

I am taking the liberty of sending you a petition to prevent a second
genocide in Africa. Events in the Congo and neighbouring countries have
taken a very worrying turn, and risk degenerating into a full scale
genocide unless the international community takes urgent action-
something it has failed to do in the past.

There cannot possibly be a more important issue than this.

1. To express support for the petition, please write back to
ntavitian@arcadis.be expressing your support for the petition, e.g.: "I
support the petition to prevent a second genocide in Africa". Please
also ensure that you write your name below the text.

2. To encourage more potentially concerned people to sign onto the
petition, please send this petition onto all those people you have
electronic contacts with. You may want to adapt this introduction to the
petition in order to personalise it. However, please do not change the
text of the petition itself.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Nicolas Tavitian
Ntavitian@arcadis.be
________________________________________________________

PETITION FOR ACTION TO PREVENT A SECOND GENOCIDE IN THE GREAT LAKES
REGION OF AFRICA AND IN THE CEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

- To halt ethnic hatred in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the
Great Lakes Region
- To ensure that those responsible for war crimes and crimes against
humanity do not remain unpunished
- To ensure that European citizens1 money is not used to reinforce those
who call fellow human beings *waste*, *vermin*, *microbe*, and who call
for their *methodical* and *determined* extermination.
- I join this call to the European Parliamentarians, and ask them to
appeal accordingly to European governments and to the European
Commission.

                                        Brussels, 16 September 1998


Dear Sir or Madam,

Ethnic hatred is a threat to all peoples and regions of the world. When
this evil finds a suitable environment to prosper inm when it meets no
force capable of containing it; when it is cleverly  excited, exploited
and brought to an extreme, it can lead to genocide. This happened in
Rwanda in 1994, under the eyes of the International Community. There is
a real risk that this may happen again in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, if the International Community fails to react with determination.

We have all witnessed on television the hateful speeches made by members
of the government of Congo, including President Laurent Désiré Kabila,
since the new war started in Congo. These speeches have started to
produce results. The information available shows that from the very
first days of August, numerous civilians, and particularly Congolese and
Africans *of Tutsi morphology* have been the victims of massif and
systematic violence.

In the capital, Kinshasa, hundreds of them have been arrested, locked up
in a stadium or in repulsive jails inside military camps or secret
detention centres. They have been deprived of water and food for days on
end, beaten up, tortured, raped and arbitrarily dispossessed. In rural
areas such as the outskirts of Kalemie and Moba, in the north or
Katanga, or in villages close to Uvira in the Southern Kivu, mass
murders have been perpetrated. By now, thousands of Congolese and other
Africans have lost their lives by summary execution for no other reason
than their assumed belonging to an ethnically suspect group- the Tutsi
group- of for their friendship with members of this group.

These atrocities are being carried out in several parts of the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) controlled by Laurent Désiré Kabila1s
government. They are often the work of civil servants and military
personnel, acting on the orders of the government or of *Self-Defense
Committees*; in other cases, pogroms are carried out by hysterical
crowds, incited by government members1 calls echoed by dozens of public
and private media.

Recent condemnations by the Arusha International Criminal Court of some
of the perpetrators of the Genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda
represent an asset in the fight against impunity and a clear message to
governments in the region. Nevertheless, this message has come out too
weakly and too late to prevent ethnic hatred from spreading to the
entire region of the Great Lakes, not to mention the entire African
Continent.

Other clear signals must be sent by the international community, and
particularly by the European Parliament, to all political and military
actors in the area, to ensure a minimal respect of human rights and of
international humanitarian law which stem from international agreements
all of which have been signed and ratified by the DRC and neighbouring
countries.

The International Community should demand that all parties involved in
the conflict should treat fairly and humanely civilians and unarmed or
injured combatants and that they allow full by access by humanitarian
organisations to needy individuals and populations.

The International Community should also ensure that the authorities of
the DRC publicly and unambiguously denounce  all encouragement to racial
hatred and all persecution towards Congolese or foreign citizens on the
basis of their ethnic origin.

Additionally, efforts towards a negotiated solution to the Congolese
conflict must be strongly encouraged.

The proposed call by the European Parliament to the region1s political
and military political actors should be accompanied by a clear warning,
concerning inter alia the need to bring all those responsible for
inciting racial hatred before the courts, including the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, whose mandate could be extended for this
purpose.

The European Parliament could thus, at this stage, support through all
means at its disposal the organisation of an independent investigation
on serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law
committed in the DRC since the beginning of the war, on 2 August 1998.
The conclusions of such an enquiry would not doubt assist considerably
in the launching of criminal proceedings against those responsible for
these violations.

The European Parliament could also demand the suspension of European aid
to those governments supporting directly any warring party committing
war crimes or crimes against humanity. In this respect, and in view of
the many calls to commit war crimes and other exactions on the part of
the government of Laurent Désiré Kabila, the coalition supporting him
which includes Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia (and possibly also the
Sudan) should be the target of a stern warning without delay.

Fighting ethnic hatred and preventing a possible genocide is a heavy
responsibility, which the international community has failed to honour
in the past. We believe that as European Parliamentarians you are
ideally placed to appeal to the governments of Europe and to the
Commission, notably on the basis of the conditionality of development
aid to respect for human rights.

That is why we are asking you to defend these positions in the relevant
bodies, including the European Parliament1s Development Committee, the
ACP-EU Joint Assembly, the EP Foreign Affairs Committee as well as
before all other bodies and authorities capable of halting the progress
of ethnic hatred in the African region of the Great Lakes and of
preventing the catastrophe threatening the entire African continent.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Contact Address for this petition:
Marek Poznanski
56 Quai aux Briques
1000 Bruxelles
Tel (home): ++32 2/512 54 85
Tel (office): ++32 2/412 06 61
Fax: ++32 2 412 06 66

The Human Rights Action Network, a part of Derechos Human Rights, distributes appeals on behalf of victims of human rights violations. You are invited to join the network. Please check the date of the present action and do not write if it's over a month old.