Congo's Pygmies 'Targeted for Extermination'

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I understand they were raw at one time.

 

 

http://allafrica.com/stories/200407140316.html

 

Congo's Pygmies 'Targeted for Extermination':

International Criminal Court to Consider Allegations

Against Vice President

 

Minority Rights Group International (London)

 

PRESS RELEASE

July 6, 2004

 

The Bambuti Pygmies in the eastern Democratic Republic

of Congo (DRC) were targeted for extermination by

forces controlled by one of the Congo's current Vice

Presidents, reveal the findings of the first research

mission to take detailed testimony from Pygmy villages

in the forests of Ituri and Kivu. Attacks against the

Pygmies included mass killings, acts of cannibalism,

systematic rape and the looting and destruction of

villages.

 

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) today

submitted a dossier of evidence to the Prosecutor at

the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The dossier includes shocking video testimony from the

victims of crimes carried out since 1st July 2002, the

date at which the ICC's jurisdiction over crimes

committed in DRC began, and continuing up to the

present:

 

One witness describes an orchestrated, night-time

attack on a Bambuti village: 'Once they were sure the

village was asleep, they attacked and started to shoot

and kill...they kept saying that we were animals and

that we must be killed...we will eat you, they

said...They captured the young children, gathered them

and held them until daylight. Then they put some of

them in a mortar and pounded them to death. They

destroyed the huts and set them on fire'. The 14-year

old survivor of a mass rape of 9 women and girls by 20

soldiers described: 'The leader ordered the mass rape.

The attack lasted hours. I was called a " dirty

Pygmy " .' Another traumatised victim of rape described

her experience: '...they asked my husband several

times to sleep with my mother. They beat him but he

refused to do it...then they raped my mother and me,

one after the other, each by two of them.'

 

The alleged perpetrators of these crimes include the

former rebel group RCD-Goma, both before and after its

integration into the DRC's armed forces; elements of

Rwandan Interahamwe; and combined forces of the

MLC/RCD-N who conducted a military campaign in Ituri

they called 'Erasing the Board'. The MLC leader is

current Congolese Vice-President, Jean-Pierre Bemba.

 

The crimes have been committed against a peaceful

people who have never taken up arms, and yet are the

silent victims of conflict and exploitation of natural

resources. The Bambuti Pygmies' misfortune is to

inhabit the deep forest territory such as the

north-eastern district of Ituri, rich in resources and

frequented by rebel or renegade forces. Their unique

knowledge and understanding of this inhospitable

forest environment, and their hunting and tracking

skills, have become a curse for which they are

exploited, threatened and coerced. The testimony

demonstrates that atrocities are often committed by

those who de-humanize the Bambuti and believe them to

have 'powers' which can be acquired through acts of

cannibalism and rape.

 

'Officially we are told the war is over, but on the

ground it continues', said the Réseau des Associations

Autochtones Pygmées du Congo. 'The end of the war

doesn't mark the end of the atrocities'.

 

Mark Lattimer, Director of Minority Rights Group

International and member of the research team for this

investigation stated: 'A durable peace in the DRC and

the survival of the Bambuti Pygmies depend on ending

the near complete impunity that exists for human

rights abuses. The perpetrators of these crimes should

be pursued and punished - no matter how high their

office'.

 

'Erasing the Board': Report of the international

research mission into crimes under international law

committed against the Bambuti Pygmies in the Eastern

Democratic Republic of Congo, is published on 6 July

2004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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