http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=31634 Record Details Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=31634 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=31634 In January 2009, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, following a dramatic shift in political alliances, launched joint military operations in eastern Congo against an abusive Rwandan Hutu militia, some of whose leaders had participated in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The operations were intended to neutralize the group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Les Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR), which over the previous 15 years had preyed on Congolese civilians in the mountainous provinces of North and South Kivu. Government representatives said the operations would bring peace and security to the region. They have not. Two successive Congolese military operations—one conducted with Rwandan military forces, known as operation Umoja Wetu, and the second conducted with the direct support of United Nations peacekeeping troops, known as operation Kimia II— have been accompanied by horrendous abuses by both government and rebel forces against a civilian population in eastern Congo that has long suffered so much. The attacks against civilians have been vicious and widespread. Local populations have been accused of being “collaborators” by one side or the other and deliberately targeted, their attackers saying they are being “punished.” Human Rights Watch has documented the deliberate killing of more than 1,400 civilians between January and September 2009, the majority women, children, and the elderly. Human Rights Watch