KINSHASA - Congo's leaders, foreign donors and the United Nations were slow to see the risk of fresh conflict in the nation's east, leaving civilians open to murder, rape and looting by armed groups, Human Rights Watch said.
Government soldiers, renegade Tutsi fighters and Hutu rebels from neighbouring Rwanda were all responsible for widespread abuses in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, including the massacre of civilians, forcing children to fight and gang rape, HRW said in a report published on Tuesday.
"The Congolese government, backed by the international community, tried several short-term solutions to the fighting but failed to deal with the underlying causes of conflict," the New York-based rights group added.
"The inability of the state to protect its citizens from attack, the claims of armed groups to control parts of the territory and exploit its wealth, and the near total impunity for perpetrators of crimes, all remain unsolved."
Congo's army has been fighting rebels loyal to Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda since August, when his men abandoned a January peace deal and pulled out of mixed government brigades. The clashes have displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Pleased with the success of last year's presidential polls, the first democratic vote in the former Belgian colony for four decades, foreign donors had been quick to sign development deals with Congo but slow to condemn rights abuses, the report said.
The United Nations mission in Congo (MONUC) had been preoccupied with redefining its role to take account of the newly elected government, while also dealing with allegations of corruption among its own ranks in North Kivu, HRW said.
"By the time national and international leaders recognised the risk of renewed armed conflict, Nkunda had increased the number of his combatants and enlarged his territorial base. The FDLR (rebels) had reportedly acquired new arms and ammunition," it said.
