DRC Mapping Exercise Report


The DRC Mapping Exercise Report, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1993-2003 UN Mapping Report, was a report by the United Nations within the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the wake of the armed aggressions and war which took place between March 1993 and June 2003. Its aim was to map the most serious violations of human rights, together with violations of international humanitarian law, committed within the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In doing this it was to assess the capacities within the national justice system to deal appropriately with such human rights violations and to formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in identifying appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations. It contained 550 pages and contained descriptions of 617 alleged violent incidents.
The mapping exercise began in 2008, with 33 staff working on the project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including Congolese and international human rights experts. The report was submitted to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in 2009.
The report contains a detailed accounting of the breakup of Hutu refugee camps in eastern Congo at the start of the First Congo War in October 1996, followed by the pursuit of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees and Hutu population across the country's vast hinterland by teams of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda soldiers and their Congolese rebel surrogates, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo.

Context

In the wake of the discovery of three mass graves in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in late 2005, the United Nations first announced its intention to send a human rights team to conduct a mapping exercise in DRC in a June 2006 report to the Security Council. In May 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon approved the terms of reference of the mapping exercise following a series of consultations among relevant UN agencies and partners and with the Congolese government.
The mapping exercise began officially on 17 July 2008, with the arrival of the team's chief in Kinshasa. Between October 2008 and May 2009, a total of 33 staff worked on the project in the DRC, including Congolese and international human rights experts. Of these, some 20 human rights officers were deployed across the country, operating out of five field offices, to gather documents and information from witnesses to meet the three objectives defined in the terms of reference. The report was submitted to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on 15 June 2009 for review, comments and finalisation.

Research methodology

The mapping team's contains descriptions of 617 alleged violent incidents occurring in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003. Each of these incidents points to the possible commission of gross violations of human rights and/or international humanitarian law. Each of the incidents listed is backed up by at least two independent sources identified in the report. As serious as they may be, uncorroborated incidents claimed by one single source are not included. Over 1,500 documents relating to human rights violations committed during this period were gathered and analysed with a view to establishing an initial chronology by region of the main violent incidents reported. Only incidents meeting a 'gravity threshold' set out in the methodology were considered. Field mapping teams met with over 1,280 witnesses to corroborate or invalidate the violations listed in the chronology. Information was also collected on previously undocumented crimes.
The 1,500 documents reviewed, some of them confidential, were obtained from many sources, including the United Nations, the Congolese government, Congolese and major international human rights organisations, national and international media and various unions, religious groups, aid agencies and victims’ associations. Lastly, various sources, individuals and experts, national and international, were also consulted to open up new avenues of research, corroborate information and streamline the overall analysis.

Mandate and Objectives

The report states that the mapping team “was not concerned with pursuing in-depth investigations or gathering evidence of sufficient admissibility to stand in court” but rather with “providing the basis for the formulation of initial hypothesis of investigation by giving a sense of the scale of violations, detecting patterns and identifying potential leads or sources of evidence”.
The mapping exercise, led by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with some US$3 million in funding, had three objectives:
  • Conduct a mapping exercise of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003.
  • Assess the existing capacities within the national justice system to deal appropriately with such human rights violations that may be uncovered.
  • Formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the Government of the DRC in identifying appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations, in terms of truth, justice, reparation and reform, taking into account ongoing efforts by the DRC authorities, as well as the support of the international community.
Unlike some commissions of inquiry with a specific mandate to identify the perpetrators of violations and make them accountable for their actions, the objective of the Mapping Exercise was not to establish or to try to establish individual criminal responsibility. Instead, its aim was to expose in a transparent way the seriousness of the violations committed, with the aim of encouraging an approach aimed at breaking the cycle of impunity. The report does, however, identify the armed groups to which the alleged perpetrators belonged, since it was essential to identify the groups allegedly involved in order to suggest proper legal characterisations for the conduct in question. Consequently, information on the identity of the alleged perpetrators of some of the crimes listed does not appear in the report but is held in a confidential project database submitted to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. However, the identities of alleged perpetrators under warrant of arrest and those already sentenced for crimes listed in the report have been disclosed. Names have also been cited where political officials have assumed public positions encouraging or provoking the violations listed.

Period covered

The report is presented chronologically, reflecting four key periods in the DRC's recent history:
  • March 1993–June 1996: The first period covers violations committed in the final years of the regime of President Mobutu Sese Seko and is marked by the failure of the democratisation process and the devastating consequences of the Rwandan genocide on the declining Zairian state, in particular in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. During this period, 40 incidents were listed.
  • July 1996–July 1998: The second period concerns violations committed during the First Congo War and the first year of the regime established by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. This period has the greatest number of listed incidents in the whole of the decade under examination.
  • August 1998–January 2000: The third period concerns the inventory of violations committed between the start of the Second Congo War in August 1998, and the death of President Kabila. This period includes 200 incidents and is characterised by the intervention on the territory of the DRC of the government armed forces of several countries.
  • January 2001–June 2003: The final period lists 139 incidents of violations committed in spite of the gradual establishment of a ceasefire along the front line and the speeding up of peace negotiations in preparation for the start of the transition period on 30 June 2003.

    Report recommendations

Justice

The UN Mapping Report recommended the creation of a mixed judicial mechanism made up of national and international personnel as one of various transitional justice measures to be considered to address the numerous international crimes committed in the DRC. It did not make firm proposals on the national or international character of such mechanism, or its precise form or function.
The operating methods and exact form of such a court “should be decided on and specified in detail by consulting the actors concerned, as well as the victims affected...” A mechanism of this kind should also – among many other things – apply international criminal law in relation to international crimes, including “the responsibility of superiors for the acts committed by their subordinates;” it should “exclude the jurisdiction of the military courts in this area;” and should “have jurisdiction over anyone who has committed these crimes, whether they are nationals or non-nationals, civilians or military personnel.”

Truth-seeking and reparations

Declaring that the Congolese people have a “right to the truth on all the serious violations of human rights,” the report suggests the establishment of a new, non-judicial “truth commission” that can help to determine institutional, political, military and other responsibilities; preserve evidence; identify the perpetrators of atrocities; recommend compensation measures and institutional reforms; and provide individual victims with a broader platform in which to air their grievances and concerns..
Given the huge number of victims, the report says a comprehensive and creative approach to the issue of reparation is clearly required, and notes that the Congolese government should be the first to contribute. But it also points to the responsibilities of other countries involved in the conflict and notes that individuals and corporate entities such as multinationals which exploited the DRC's natural resources during the conflict could also be ordered to pay compensation if found criminally responsible.