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Zaire CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Fundamental civil liberties, such as freedom of speech
and
press, peaceful assembly and association, and political
rights,
although nominally guaranteed to Zairians by the
constitution, have
been seriously infringed upon by the Mobutu regime. This
deprivation has been compounded by the fact that the
Zairian people
have received very little information over the years
concerning
their civil and legal rights.
Several independent human rights organizations are
active in
Zaire, including the Voice of the Voiceless, the Zairian
League for
Human Rights, and the Zairian Association for the Defense
of Human
Rights. They are reported to operate freely, and generally
have not
been harassed by the government despite their critical
reports
documenting human rights abuses by the regime.
Nevertheless, the
Mobutu government has refused to permit governmental or
private
international human rights organizations to investigate
cases of
human rights abuses in Zaire. Complaints against the
government
have included political repression and imprisonment of the
political opposition; curtailment of religious freedoms;
intimidation, theft, killings, and other excesses by
security
forces; and inhumane treatment of prisoners. A 1991 report
on human
rights in Zaire by Amnesty International indicated that
political
imprisonment, security force violence, and other abuses
were
prevalent. The United States Department of State's 1991
publication
on human rights practices reported that "Human rights in
Zaire
remained seriously restricted . . . . Zairians remained
subject to
arbitrary detention and physical mistreatment." According
to that
report, key sources of the problem include the
authoritarian nature
of the regime, the size of the security apparatus and its
freedom
of action, and pervasive and widespread corruption. The
instruments
of law and order are also the chief abusers of human
rights,
greatly diminishing their legitimacy. Another important
factor is
that although the armed forces receive their general
authority from
the central government, they are often not within its firm
control,
especially at the local level. Efforts by Mobutu to
improve the
human rights situation are typically in response to
Western threats
to diminish foreign economic or military aid and have
generally
been ineffective. This situation prevails despite the fact
that
Zaire is a signatory of the United Nations International
Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter of
Human and
People's Rights.
There had been some hope in the early 1990s that the
human
rights situation in Zaire would improve, following
Mobutu's
announcement in 1990 of political reforms, ostensibly
intended to
lead to a new constitution and multiparty elections. But
in 1993
the political situation remained chaotic, with a
beleaguered Mobutu
clinging to power and continuing to repress dissent and
block
genuine progress toward political reform.
In March 1993, the United Nations Commission for Human
Rights
condemned Zaire's violations of human rights and basic
freedoms.
The commission's report cited in particular the widespread
use of
torture, inhuman conditions of detention,
"disappearances," summary
executions, and failure to ensure fair trials. It also
deplored the
regime's systematic and forceful repression of peaceful
demonstrations and accused the regime of deliberately
inciting
ethnic violence in Shaba.
In September 1993, Amnesty International rated the
human rights
situation in Zaire as worse than it has been since the
chaos
following independence in 1960. In support of this
assessment, it
cited widespread deliberate violations of human rights by
regional
authorities loyal to Mobutu, ethnic murders in Nord-Kivu
and Shaba
instigated by government security personnel, the arrest
and
detention of the editor of an opposition newspaper, and
the
obstruction of transitional government meetings. Given the
extent
of random banditry throughout the country, Zaire in the
early 1990s
was a country in which lawlessness prevailed and human
rights were
systematically trampled.
* * *
Although no single book deals exclusively with Zaire's
national
security, several works serve as excellent sources of
information
on various aspects of national security. These include:
The Rise
and Decline of the Zairian State by Crawford Young and
Thomas
Turner; The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire by
Michael G.
Schatzberg; and Thomas M. Callaghy's The State-Society
Struggle:
Zaire in Comparative Perspective. Several other
studies recount
aspects of Zaire's past national security environment,
especially
the immediate postindependence period. These include:
The Congo
Cables: The Cold War in Africa--From Eisenhower to
Kennedy by
Madeleine G. Kalb and Crawford Young's Conflict in the
Congo. Also, annual editions of Africa Contemporary
Record:
Annual Survey and Documents provide useful information
on
recent developments within the armed forces as well as a
detailed
listing of military equipment. The Military
Balance,
published annually by the International Institute for
Strategic
Studies, also provides a detailed listing of military
equipment,
service strength, and military budgets. The magazine
African
Defence Journal provides a wealth of information about
current
developments in the Zairian armed forces. Current
information on
the internal security and police forces can be gleaned
from George
Thomas Kurian's World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and
Penal
Systems, as well as periodic and annual reports on
human rights
and judicial systems issued by Amnesty International,
Africa Watch,
and the United States Department of State. (For further information
and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1993
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