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The Christmas massacres: LRA attacks on civilians in Northern Congo

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Summary

The LRA were quick at killing. It did not take them very long and they said nothing while they were doing it. They killed all 26. I was horrified. I knew all these people. They were my family, my friends, my neighbors. When they finished I slipped away and went to my home, where I sat trembling all over. - A 72-year-old man who hid in the bushes and watched as the LRA killed his family on Christmas day in Batande, near Doruma. He is one of only a handful of people still alive in his village.

I cry everyday for her. You can't imagine what it's like to have your daughter taken from you. It makes me ill when I think about what they [the LRA] could be doing to her in the bush. I don't know if I'll ever see her again, or even if she's still alive. - A mother whose 13-year-old daughter was abducted by the LRA in September 2008

In late December 2008 and into January 2009, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) brutally killed more than 865 civilians and abducted at least 160 children in northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). LRA combatants hacked their victims to death with machetes or axes or crushed their skulls with clubs and heavy sticks. In some of the places where they attacked, few were left alive.

The worst attacks happened in a 48-hour period over Christmas in locations some 160 miles apart in the Doruma, Duru, and Faradje areas of Haut-Uele district of northern Congo. The LRA waited until the time of Christmas festivities on December 24 and 25 to carry out their devastating attacks, apparently choosing a moment when they would find the maximum number of people all together. The killings occurred not just in Congo but also in parts of southern Sudan where similar kinds of weapons and tactics were used.

The Christmas massacres in Congo are part of a longstanding practice of horrific atrocities and abuse by the LRA. Before shifting its operations to the Congo in 2006, the LRA was based in Uganda and southern Sudan where LRA combatants also killed, raped, and abducted thousands of civilians. When the LRA moved to Congo, its combatants initially refrained from targeting Congolese people, but in September 2008 the LRA began its first wave of attacks, apparently to punish local communities who had helped LRA defectors to escape. The first wave of attacks in September, together with the Christmas massacres, has led to the deaths of over 1,033 civilians and the abduction of at least 476 children.

LRA killings have not stopped since the Christmas massacres. Human Rights Watch continues to receive regular reports of murders and abductions by the LRA, keeping civilians living in terror. According to the United Nations, over 140,000 people have fled their homes since late December 2008 to seek safety elsewhere. New attacks and the flight of civilians are reported weekly. In some areas, people are frightened to gather together believing that the LRA may choose such moments to strike, as they did with such devastating efficiency over Christmas.

Even by LRA standards, the Christmas massacres in Congo were especially brutal. LRA combatants struck quickly and quietly, surrounding their victims as they ate their Christmas meal in Batande village, or as they gathered for a Christmas day concert in Faradje. In Mabando village, the LRA sought to maximize the death toll by luring their victims to a central place, playing the radio and forcing their victims to sing songs and to call for others to come join the party. In most of the attacks they tied up their victims, stripped them of their clothes, raped the women and girls, and then killed their victims by crushing their skulls. In two cases the attackers tried to kill three-year-old toddlers by twisting off their heads. The few villagers who survived often did so because their assailants thought they were dead.

The widespread, virtually simultaneous nature of the attacks as well as the similar means used to kill the victims points to a coordinated operation carried out under orders from a single command structure. Captured LRA combatants, interviewed by Human Rights Watch, said that LRA leader Joseph Kony himself ordered attacks on civilians beginning in September 2008, at a time when Kony was still promising to sign the peace accords. An LRA spokesman contacted by Human Rights Watch denied all responsibility for the attacks, saying they had been carried out by Ugandan soldiers pretending to be LRA combatants. Human Rights Watch found no evidence to support this assertion.

Under international law, individuals who commit, order, or plan murder, rape, torture, abductions, and use child soldiers during armed conflict are responsible for war crimes.

The LRA attacks occurred 10 days after the Ugandan and Congolese armed forces launched a joint military operation against the LRA, beginning with an aerial bombardment of the LRA's main camp in Garamba National Park. When previously attacked in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, LRA combatants used similar brutal tactics against surrounding populations, retaliating against civilians rather than hostile forces.

Three current LRA leaders, including Kony, have outstanding arrest warrants against them, issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Uganda. Since 2006, Kony took part in protracted peace negotiations with Uganda, insisting that the ICC warrants were an obstacle to peace and should be rescinded. However, there is evidence that during the peace negotiations the LRA was rebuilding and restocking its forces.

After Kony repeatedly failed to sign a peace agreement that he indicated he would endorse, Uganda, Congo, and southern Sudan organized a joint military campaign against the LRA. The United States provided substantial planning, logistical, and intelligence assistance to the operation. When Kony once again failed to sign the peace agreement in late November 2008, the military campaign was launched.

On December 14 the joint operation began with a surprise aerial strike at the main LRA camp in Garamba National Park. Kony had unexpectedly departed from the camp shortly before the attack, sparing him injury and allowing him to organize subsequent LRA operations. LRA combatants dispersed into several groups and redeployed to attack towns and villages in areas near the national park. As they scattered, it became harder for the joint force to locate them and to impede their attacks. Joint operation planners told Human Rights Watch that they had intended to safeguard women and children held by the LRA, many of whom were in another camp, but troops meant for this purpose arrived late because bad weather and other complications hampered air transport. Planners did not make adequate contingency plans in the event their first plan failed and military forces were unprepared when the LRA began their devastating attacks on surrounding civilian areas on December 24 and 25.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in the Congo, MONUC, was not involved in the planning for the joint operation and had limited forewarning about it. With only some 200 troops in the area who were designated primarily to provide logistical support to the Congolese army-not to protect civilians-MONUC peacekeepers were too few and too illequipped to assist civilians who came under attack. On December 22, the UN Security Council authorized the renewal of the MONUC mandate for another year, and expanded its force by 3,000 troops, bringing its total troop level to nearly 20,000 blue helmets. The council instructed MONUC to provide the highest priority in its operations to the Kivu provinces of eastern Congo, a request that MONUC officials said hampered them from moving needed troops and equipment to the area where LRA attacks were occurring.

Nevertheless, the troop increase was important and could provide some extra capacity to help civilians at risk of further LRA attacks, yet none had yet arrived at the time of writing. On February 3 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored the lack of response from troopcontributing nations to the request for the additional 3,000 peacekeepers. With only minimal pledges made and no new troops on the ground, MONUC has no additional capacity to protect civilians in Haut-Uele and the mission continues to struggle to respond to the urgent protection challenges.

Given the LRA's history of turning against civilians when under attack, the governments carrying out the military operation-Uganda, Congo, and southern Sudan-should have taken greater measures to protect civilians in the area from reprisal attacks by the LRA. They should also have given higher priority to rescuing abducted children and adults who remain with the LRA. At the end of January, after nearly six weeks of military operations, only 114 people had been rescued, out of some 600 believed to be held by the LRA. Higher figures presented by Ugandan government authorities of those they said had been rescued could not be verified.

To minimize further harm to civilians, the forces involved in the joint military operation should urgently prioritize the protection of civilians and coordinate their efforts with MONUC. The UN Security Council needs to provide direction and additional resources, including further logistical capacity, to MONUC and the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to enable them to protect civilians at risk of LRA attack.

The ICC arrest warrants for LRA leaders remain outstanding. In late January, the LRA's second-in-command, Okot Odhiambo, wanted on an ICC arrest warrant, contacted the International Organization for Migration (IOM) expressing a desire to surrender with an unknown number of his combatants. At the time of writing he had not yet done so. Any ICC suspect who is captured or surrendered during military operations against the LRA should be sent to the ICC for trial.

As of latest reports from mid-February, the LRA continued to attack villages and kill civilians. On February 9, John Holmes, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, arrived in Doruma, a small town devastated by the Christmas massacres where no UN peacekeepers have yet deployed and where minimal humanitarian assistance has reached the beleaguered population. He was greeted by a small crowd of desperate local citizens, one of whom held up a sign that read, "We laugh to stop ourselves from crying."

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