Tag: Congo Genocide

Genocost, a U.K.-based Congolese advocacy group, commemorated Congo Genocide this week on Aug. 2. Aug. 2 is the day that U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo, starting the Second Congo War in 1998. Though a peace treaty was signed in 2003, the violence, displacement and mass killing continue. Genocost asks that nations formally recognize Aug. 2 as Congo Genocide Commemoration Day. I spoke to Genocost spokesperson Sylvester Mido.

The leaked U.N. report to be officially released Oct. 1 is not the first such report to have been drafted by the U.N. – nor is it the first one to be covered up. On Oct. 11, 1994, Robert Gersony of USAID reported that Kagame's RPF army had been committing systematic massacres of the Hutu population in Rwanda starting in April 1994.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame was sworn in to serve another seven-year term on Sept. 6, 2010, 11 days after the explosive Aug. 26 leak of a U.N. report documenting genocide committed by his army in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The leaked report from the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) mapping atrocities committed in D.R. Congo points to crimes which might be labeled genocide against Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus committed by Kagame’s Rwandan army between 1996 and 2003.