UN
United Nations Peacekeeping
3 Mar
2009
MONUC denounces Conditions of Detentions in DRC Prisons
This Wednesday's weekly press conference was jointly held by the Deputy Director of MONUC Public Information, Ms Eliana Nabaa, Lieutenant-colonel Thierry Provendier (military spokesman), Fernand Castanon, Director of Human Rights Division and Luc Henkibrant (Human Rights Division).
The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for the DRC, Mr. William Swing is on official mission to South Africa from 20 to 27 November 2005. He is due to meet with South African President Thabo Mbeki, Government and Parliaments members. He has already conferred with the South African Head of the Independent Electoral Commission, the Police Commissioner, the Chief of army staff, the Minister of Defense, and the Special Envoy of President Thabo Mbeki for the Great Lakes region. He was due to meet with President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday.
Electoral process:
With respect to the voters' identification and registration process in Equateur and Bandundu provinces, Mr. Swing, accompanied by the Head of the Independent Electoral Commission, Father Malu Malu met with the MPs of Equateur on 19 November 2005. The delegation expressed serious concerns over the slow-pace registration in Equateur province, and called for a prolongation of the registration period as it had happened in other provinces so as to give to all the population the chance of getting registered. Mr. Swing and Father Malu Malu reassured their interlocutors that they will do everything in their power to address the technical problems in order to speed up the registration process.
The first phase of deployment of the referendum kits is over and MONUC has initiated the second phase as from Monday 21 November. MONUC, as far as concerned, will conclude the deployment on 9 December to allow the Independent Electoral Commission to fulfill its part, that is, to deploy the kits from the 166 centers covered by MONUC to the polling stations.
Several demonstrations, some of which violent by the voters' identification and registration office staff were reported this week in several areas, notably Bunia, Maniema, North Kivu and South Kivu. In Goma, 150 IEC staff protested in front of MONUC offices in Goma requesting the Mission to use its influence to help accelerate the payment of their arrears.
MONUC keeps insisting on the need for accelerating the payment of IEC staff salaries to keep the electoral process moving.
From 15 to 17 November, Mr. Swing visited North and South Kivus and held meetings on the electoral process, the armed groups, the army integration and human rights.
With respect to the armed groups, Lt-Col Thierry Provendier further declared:
Kivu brigade's support to FARDC was materialized through a number of successful operations a few weeks ago, notably in the Virunga Park.
Within this framework, MONUC repatriated a group of 17 Rwandan combatants on 17 November, along with 16 civilians arrested last month by FARDC in a military operation conducted in Hombo. Civilians were handed over to HCR. The detained combatants met by MONUC expressed their desire to be repatriated to Rwanda.
Altogether, 28 foreign combatants and 32 dependents were repatriated last week from South Kivu to their countries of origin, including 11 Ugandan combatants recently received by the National Amnesty Commission upon arrival in Uganda.
In North Kivu, for the second time in 10 days, the office of the Governor handed Rwandan ex-combatants to MONUC on 21 November: 7 people, 2 FDLR troops and their dependents. According to the head of the DDRRR, the ex-combatants declared that their leaders have been attempting to prevent them (the troops) from returning to Rwanda.
MONUC is aware that most of the FDLR troops are willing to be repatriated to Rwanda but are prevented from doing so by their leaders. Some even had to clash with other members within the movement in their attempt to escape. That recently happened in Lubero where an FDLR troop was killed and 3 others injured in a clash between a group attempting to join the DDRRR process and another one, led by commander Omega, attempting to prevent them.
MONUC is persuaded that further actions against the FDLR troops will help increase the number of troops accepting to join the DDRRR process.
The Ituri brigade along with the FARDC reviewed the successful operations conducted during the first phase of the operations in the surrounding of Similiki.
From 18 to 22 November, 7 MONUC platoons and 6 FARDC companies participated in the mission. Altogether, 250 peacekeepers and nearly 900 Congolese troops were deployed on the ground.
The mission's objective was to neutralise the militiamen present in the SONGOLO region, 50 Km South west of Bunia.
67 militiamen were killed in the military operations, 31 weapons seized and two NGOs jeeps recovered from the gangs.
Moreover, FARDC regained control of the localities of MEDU, SONGOLO and SOKE and the entire region is now under control.
State authority is restored to Southern district of Ituri, where a large number of militiamen are concentrated. This positive development leads to predict that the forthcoming elections will be peaceful.
In Katanga, where FARDC troops have engaged military operations against the Mai Mai groups, notably in Manono, Pweto, Moba and Mitwaba, about 12,000 internally displaced people moved towards the displaced camps of Mtiana. OCHA has called on MONUC to sensitize the FARDC military officers to the need for preserving the infrastructures in place and facilitating the transport of humanitarian assistance to the vulnerable populations, including food and non-food stuff.
In other news, 4 of the 6 Police Units formed (FPU) have already arrived in DRC and are in the process of deploying. Two units, Bangladeshi and Indian, have deployed in Kinshasa, a 3rd Bangladeshi unit has deployed in Kisangani and a 4th, Indian, in Lubumbashi. Two more Senegalese units are expected in December. They will be deployed in Mbuji Mayi.
On 17 November 2005, MONUC provided necessary logistic support for the transfer of 40 children from the Mangango Orientation Centre to the Beni Transit center. Due to the limited accommodation capacity of the transit center, 28 children remained in the Orientation center and will be transferred as rooms will be made available for them. The majority of the 68 children were part of the Maï-Maï "Jackson" group operating in Rutshuru.
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the DRC, William Swing, inaugurated a training centre housing the jobless vulnerable women on 16 November. The centre is currently run by a local NGO named ''Fondation Mère et Enfant''. The rehabilitation work was funded by MONUC as part of its Quick Impact Projects. The centre trains over 60 women and young girls every year in various areas of arts and crafts.
MONUC humanitarian section further inaugurated 10 wells of safe drinking water in Lubutu, a locality situated about 365 km from Kindu. The MONUC-funded project is a response to the lack of safe drinking water in that locality; where about 60,000 people were in danger of contracting cholera epidemics in 2004.
The representatives of MONUC humanitarian section and CARITAS finally reviewed the rehabilitation project of the Uele Railways (CFU) covering a distance of 1,028 km in Kinshasa on 17 November, namely the Bumba ' Mungbere axis, through Aketi, Buta and Isiro. The project, whose total cost is estimated at US$ 6 million, will be submitted to OCHA to be included in the 2006 humanitarian action plan for the DRC. The creation of about 5,000 jobs is to be envisaged within the framework of the project to be implemented between January 2006 and December 2007 and food security is to be provided to about 5 million people. This is part of the efforts by humanitarian community and MONUC to improve access to vulnerable people and to promote free movement of people and their goods throughout the country. The openings of the river axis Kinshasa-Kisangani, in 2003, and the river axis Lubumbashi-Kindu, in 2004 are clear illustrations.
In the context of the preparation of these elections, the deployment of troops continues in Katanga. As I told you last week, a platoon of 35 blue helmets is already in place in Kolwezi. In Lubumbashi, a South African company is also being deployed. 50 South African MONUC soldiers arrived on 19 November.
The mission of all these troops is to protect the electoral materials and equipment. The rest of the company, that is, 100 troops, will be deployed shortly, as more electoral equipment arrives.
Fernando Castanon, the Director of the Human Rights section, is with us this morning. He just released a third report on the detention conditions in the jails and prisons of the DRC. An update on the first report that was published in April 2004, this report is also a follow-up to the special report of December 2004 on malnutrition in the prisons. Mr Castanon will right now present this report to you. Copies of this report will be available to you. Luc Henkibarnt, whose unit has produced the report, will be available to answer any questions you may have.
Report on the conditions of detention in the cachots and prisons of the DRC
In assisting the authorities in improving the situation of Human Rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the monitoring activities conducted by the Human Rights Division (HRD) within the mandate of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) is carrying out visits to the prisons and detention centres.
Regular visits by the HRD to detention facilities do not allow a comprehensive and precise count of the prison population, as these visits have not made to all detention places. However, by compiling figures obtained during visits carried out between April and September 2005 from 33 prisons out of the 52 now functioning, the number of detainees comes up to 6 856. So, probably, the total prison population should not exceed 10 000, which, compared with the DRC's estimated population of 60 million, would give a relatively low incarceration rate.
Despite this relatively low number of prisoners, overpopulation is quite commonplace in many prisons. Why' There are various reasons for this, but the main one is the limited reception capacity in the prisons still in operation. The vast majority of prisons were built before the country's independence. Some fell in ruins several years ago and have been closed since. In several cases, prisoners are detained in facilities that were designed for another purpose - such as plants or warehouses. In other prisons, originally built to house 1 000 or 1 500 detainees, several buildings are now found to be in ruins and so 200 to 300 are crowed into the few rooms, wards or dormitories still in use. The promiscuity resulting from insufficient space clearly has serious implications for the hygienic and health conditions of the detainees.
But the most serious and dramatic problem is that of malnutrition. In a first report entitled Rapport sur la détention dans les prisons et cachots de la RDC (Report on detention in the prisons and cachots of the DRC) published by the Human Rights section of MONUC in April 2004, a very alarming diagnosis was established regarding the detention conditions of prisoners and the lack of food in the prisons. Several hunger-induced deaths were recorded in the prisons, which led to the publication in December 2004 of the Rapport Spécial sur la Malnutrition dans les Prisons (Special report on malnutrition in the prisons). That report again sounded an alarm on the situation and recommended that urgent measures be taken by the authorities. In May 2005, the Special Representative of Secretary-General sent President Kabila a letter on the situation, together with a photo showing skeletal prisoners at the Goma prison. Today, unfortunately it must be noted that the nutrition situation in the prisons of the DRC continues to be unacceptable.
The sheer lack of food, basic hygiene and medical care continue to transform the Congolese prisons in real death traps. The State does not fulfil its obligation to provide food for prisoners, and, as a result, tens of hunger-induced deaths have been recorded in recent months in the prisons of Goma, Mbuji-Mayi, Mwene-Ditu and elsewhere. It is not exaggerated to state that, in some places, being sentenced to several months or years of imprisonment, sometimes for minor offences, amounts to being condemned to death, as the risk of dying from hunger in prison is so high.
Almost everywhere, it has been reported that the health conditions of detainees remain deplorable. It is not only food which is not provided, but the State no longer provides medical care. If State-employed nurses and doctors are sometimes still in place, they however lack medicines. The majority of the detainees are in poor health, with diseases causing losses among those left weak by malnutrition.
Due to insufficient space, the separation between different categories of detainees - adults and minors, convicts and accused, men and women - is not strictly respected.
Most control mechanisms for inspecting detention conditions do not function and those for verifying the legality of the arrest and detention are not applied everywhere by the authorised magistrates.
Through this report, MONUC also formulates recommendations to the Congolese authorities, which are aimed at helping improve the conditions of detention and respect of the minimum standard rules for the treatment of detainees. Specifically, these recommendations include:
- Urgently taking the measures necessary to remedy the situation of malnutrition in the prisons, which implies, as a matter of priority, the allocation and management of adequate funds to provide food for the detainees.
- Revive farming, agricultural and market gardening activities at the prisons with the aim of increasing food self-sufficiency, especially by setting up sustainable projects, such as prison farms.
- Reduce prison overpopulation - and therefore the number of detainees to feed ' through various measures, including a reduction in the use of preventive detention and its length, and the use of parole release.
Other recommendations are aimed at the rehabilitation, with the support of the international community if need be, of the prison infrastructure, and call for:
- the building or refurbishing, after an audit of the state of the existing infrastructure and an assessment of the needs, of some central and district prisons;
- and the rehabilitation of one military prison in Kinshasa and at least one in the provinces, thus allowing to reduce overpopulation in several prisons and separate civilian and military detainees.
Electoral process:
With respect to the voters' identification and registration process in Equateur and Bandundu provinces, Mr. Swing, accompanied by the Head of the Independent Electoral Commission, Father Malu Malu met with the MPs of Equateur on 19 November 2005. The delegation expressed serious concerns over the slow-pace registration in Equateur province, and called for a prolongation of the registration period as it had happened in other provinces so as to give to all the population the chance of getting registered. Mr. Swing and Father Malu Malu reassured their interlocutors that they will do everything in their power to address the technical problems in order to speed up the registration process.
The first phase of deployment of the referendum kits is over and MONUC has initiated the second phase as from Monday 21 November. MONUC, as far as concerned, will conclude the deployment on 9 December to allow the Independent Electoral Commission to fulfill its part, that is, to deploy the kits from the 166 centers covered by MONUC to the polling stations.
Several demonstrations, some of which violent by the voters' identification and registration office staff were reported this week in several areas, notably Bunia, Maniema, North Kivu and South Kivu. In Goma, 150 IEC staff protested in front of MONUC offices in Goma requesting the Mission to use its influence to help accelerate the payment of their arrears.
MONUC keeps insisting on the need for accelerating the payment of IEC staff salaries to keep the electoral process moving.
From 15 to 17 November, Mr. Swing visited North and South Kivus and held meetings on the electoral process, the armed groups, the army integration and human rights.
With respect to the armed groups, Lt-Col Thierry Provendier further declared:
Kivu brigade's support to FARDC was materialized through a number of successful operations a few weeks ago, notably in the Virunga Park.
Within this framework, MONUC repatriated a group of 17 Rwandan combatants on 17 November, along with 16 civilians arrested last month by FARDC in a military operation conducted in Hombo. Civilians were handed over to HCR. The detained combatants met by MONUC expressed their desire to be repatriated to Rwanda.
Altogether, 28 foreign combatants and 32 dependents were repatriated last week from South Kivu to their countries of origin, including 11 Ugandan combatants recently received by the National Amnesty Commission upon arrival in Uganda.
In North Kivu, for the second time in 10 days, the office of the Governor handed Rwandan ex-combatants to MONUC on 21 November: 7 people, 2 FDLR troops and their dependents. According to the head of the DDRRR, the ex-combatants declared that their leaders have been attempting to prevent them (the troops) from returning to Rwanda.
MONUC is aware that most of the FDLR troops are willing to be repatriated to Rwanda but are prevented from doing so by their leaders. Some even had to clash with other members within the movement in their attempt to escape. That recently happened in Lubero where an FDLR troop was killed and 3 others injured in a clash between a group attempting to join the DDRRR process and another one, led by commander Omega, attempting to prevent them.
MONUC is persuaded that further actions against the FDLR troops will help increase the number of troops accepting to join the DDRRR process.
The Ituri brigade along with the FARDC reviewed the successful operations conducted during the first phase of the operations in the surrounding of Similiki.
From 18 to 22 November, 7 MONUC platoons and 6 FARDC companies participated in the mission. Altogether, 250 peacekeepers and nearly 900 Congolese troops were deployed on the ground.
The mission's objective was to neutralise the militiamen present in the SONGOLO region, 50 Km South west of Bunia.
67 militiamen were killed in the military operations, 31 weapons seized and two NGOs jeeps recovered from the gangs.
Moreover, FARDC regained control of the localities of MEDU, SONGOLO and SOKE and the entire region is now under control.
State authority is restored to Southern district of Ituri, where a large number of militiamen are concentrated. This positive development leads to predict that the forthcoming elections will be peaceful.
In Katanga, where FARDC troops have engaged military operations against the Mai Mai groups, notably in Manono, Pweto, Moba and Mitwaba, about 12,000 internally displaced people moved towards the displaced camps of Mtiana. OCHA has called on MONUC to sensitize the FARDC military officers to the need for preserving the infrastructures in place and facilitating the transport of humanitarian assistance to the vulnerable populations, including food and non-food stuff.
In other news, 4 of the 6 Police Units formed (FPU) have already arrived in DRC and are in the process of deploying. Two units, Bangladeshi and Indian, have deployed in Kinshasa, a 3rd Bangladeshi unit has deployed in Kisangani and a 4th, Indian, in Lubumbashi. Two more Senegalese units are expected in December. They will be deployed in Mbuji Mayi.
On 17 November 2005, MONUC provided necessary logistic support for the transfer of 40 children from the Mangango Orientation Centre to the Beni Transit center. Due to the limited accommodation capacity of the transit center, 28 children remained in the Orientation center and will be transferred as rooms will be made available for them. The majority of the 68 children were part of the Maï-Maï "Jackson" group operating in Rutshuru.
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the DRC, William Swing, inaugurated a training centre housing the jobless vulnerable women on 16 November. The centre is currently run by a local NGO named ''Fondation Mère et Enfant''. The rehabilitation work was funded by MONUC as part of its Quick Impact Projects. The centre trains over 60 women and young girls every year in various areas of arts and crafts.
MONUC humanitarian section further inaugurated 10 wells of safe drinking water in Lubutu, a locality situated about 365 km from Kindu. The MONUC-funded project is a response to the lack of safe drinking water in that locality; where about 60,000 people were in danger of contracting cholera epidemics in 2004.
The representatives of MONUC humanitarian section and CARITAS finally reviewed the rehabilitation project of the Uele Railways (CFU) covering a distance of 1,028 km in Kinshasa on 17 November, namely the Bumba ' Mungbere axis, through Aketi, Buta and Isiro. The project, whose total cost is estimated at US$ 6 million, will be submitted to OCHA to be included in the 2006 humanitarian action plan for the DRC. The creation of about 5,000 jobs is to be envisaged within the framework of the project to be implemented between January 2006 and December 2007 and food security is to be provided to about 5 million people. This is part of the efforts by humanitarian community and MONUC to improve access to vulnerable people and to promote free movement of people and their goods throughout the country. The openings of the river axis Kinshasa-Kisangani, in 2003, and the river axis Lubumbashi-Kindu, in 2004 are clear illustrations.
In the context of the preparation of these elections, the deployment of troops continues in Katanga. As I told you last week, a platoon of 35 blue helmets is already in place in Kolwezi. In Lubumbashi, a South African company is also being deployed. 50 South African MONUC soldiers arrived on 19 November.
The mission of all these troops is to protect the electoral materials and equipment. The rest of the company, that is, 100 troops, will be deployed shortly, as more electoral equipment arrives.
Fernando Castanon, the Director of the Human Rights section, is with us this morning. He just released a third report on the detention conditions in the jails and prisons of the DRC. An update on the first report that was published in April 2004, this report is also a follow-up to the special report of December 2004 on malnutrition in the prisons. Mr Castanon will right now present this report to you. Copies of this report will be available to you. Luc Henkibarnt, whose unit has produced the report, will be available to answer any questions you may have.
Report on the conditions of detention in the cachots and prisons of the DRC
In assisting the authorities in improving the situation of Human Rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the monitoring activities conducted by the Human Rights Division (HRD) within the mandate of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) is carrying out visits to the prisons and detention centres.
Regular visits by the HRD to detention facilities do not allow a comprehensive and precise count of the prison population, as these visits have not made to all detention places. However, by compiling figures obtained during visits carried out between April and September 2005 from 33 prisons out of the 52 now functioning, the number of detainees comes up to 6 856. So, probably, the total prison population should not exceed 10 000, which, compared with the DRC's estimated population of 60 million, would give a relatively low incarceration rate.
Despite this relatively low number of prisoners, overpopulation is quite commonplace in many prisons. Why' There are various reasons for this, but the main one is the limited reception capacity in the prisons still in operation. The vast majority of prisons were built before the country's independence. Some fell in ruins several years ago and have been closed since. In several cases, prisoners are detained in facilities that were designed for another purpose - such as plants or warehouses. In other prisons, originally built to house 1 000 or 1 500 detainees, several buildings are now found to be in ruins and so 200 to 300 are crowed into the few rooms, wards or dormitories still in use. The promiscuity resulting from insufficient space clearly has serious implications for the hygienic and health conditions of the detainees.
But the most serious and dramatic problem is that of malnutrition. In a first report entitled Rapport sur la détention dans les prisons et cachots de la RDC (Report on detention in the prisons and cachots of the DRC) published by the Human Rights section of MONUC in April 2004, a very alarming diagnosis was established regarding the detention conditions of prisoners and the lack of food in the prisons. Several hunger-induced deaths were recorded in the prisons, which led to the publication in December 2004 of the Rapport Spécial sur la Malnutrition dans les Prisons (Special report on malnutrition in the prisons). That report again sounded an alarm on the situation and recommended that urgent measures be taken by the authorities. In May 2005, the Special Representative of Secretary-General sent President Kabila a letter on the situation, together with a photo showing skeletal prisoners at the Goma prison. Today, unfortunately it must be noted that the nutrition situation in the prisons of the DRC continues to be unacceptable.
The sheer lack of food, basic hygiene and medical care continue to transform the Congolese prisons in real death traps. The State does not fulfil its obligation to provide food for prisoners, and, as a result, tens of hunger-induced deaths have been recorded in recent months in the prisons of Goma, Mbuji-Mayi, Mwene-Ditu and elsewhere. It is not exaggerated to state that, in some places, being sentenced to several months or years of imprisonment, sometimes for minor offences, amounts to being condemned to death, as the risk of dying from hunger in prison is so high.
Almost everywhere, it has been reported that the health conditions of detainees remain deplorable. It is not only food which is not provided, but the State no longer provides medical care. If State-employed nurses and doctors are sometimes still in place, they however lack medicines. The majority of the detainees are in poor health, with diseases causing losses among those left weak by malnutrition.
Due to insufficient space, the separation between different categories of detainees - adults and minors, convicts and accused, men and women - is not strictly respected.
Most control mechanisms for inspecting detention conditions do not function and those for verifying the legality of the arrest and detention are not applied everywhere by the authorised magistrates.
Through this report, MONUC also formulates recommendations to the Congolese authorities, which are aimed at helping improve the conditions of detention and respect of the minimum standard rules for the treatment of detainees. Specifically, these recommendations include:
- Urgently taking the measures necessary to remedy the situation of malnutrition in the prisons, which implies, as a matter of priority, the allocation and management of adequate funds to provide food for the detainees.
- Revive farming, agricultural and market gardening activities at the prisons with the aim of increasing food self-sufficiency, especially by setting up sustainable projects, such as prison farms.
- Reduce prison overpopulation - and therefore the number of detainees to feed ' through various measures, including a reduction in the use of preventive detention and its length, and the use of parole release.
Other recommendations are aimed at the rehabilitation, with the support of the international community if need be, of the prison infrastructure, and call for:
- the building or refurbishing, after an audit of the state of the existing infrastructure and an assessment of the needs, of some central and district prisons;
- and the rehabilitation of one military prison in Kinshasa and at least one in the provinces, thus allowing to reduce overpopulation in several prisons and separate civilian and military detainees.
