KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo said Friday it has filed a case against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice, accusing its neighbor of bearing legal responsibility for more than three decades of violence that has devastated eastern Congo.
Congo accused Rwanda of breaching international conventions on genocide, racial discrimination, discrimination against women and torture. It said civilians in the east have suffered massacres, extrajudicial killings,
torture, sexual violence, forced displacement and ethnic and gender-based discrimination since the 1990s.
Mineral-rich eastern Congo has been battered by decades of conflict as government forces and allied militias fight more than 100 armed groups, the most potent of them the Rwandan-backed M23. Its fighters made major advances early last year, seizing Goma and other key cities as they quickly expanded their presence.
The U.N. has called the conflict in eastern Congo “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.”
The violence goes back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Hutu fighters responsible for the killings fled across the border into eastern Congo. Rwanda has repeatedly sent troops or backed armed groups there in the years since, saying it was acting to neutralize Hutu fighters and protect its security. Congo and the U.S. government have accused Rwanda of using the rebels as a pretext to gain access to the region’s mineral wealth.
Congo named a string of Rwandan-backed rebel groups it blames for the violence over the years, including M23.
It asked the ICJ to declare Rwanda internationally responsible for the conflict, order it to halt its activities in Congo, demand guarantees they won’t be repeated, and award reparations to Congo and civilian victims.
The court said in a statement that Congo had filed an application instituting proceedings. It did not say whether it had determined if it has jurisdiction to hear the case.
Rwanda’s government did not immediately respond publicly to the filing of the case. It has consistently denied backing armed groups in Congo, though U.N. experts have said they found evidence that Rwandan troops have fought alongside and directed M23.
This is Congo’s third attempt to bring Rwanda before the ICJ, the United Nations’ highest court for disputes between states. Congolese authorities withdrew an earlier case in 2001, and the court dismissed a second in 2006 for lack of jurisdiction, finding Rwanda had not signed or had entered reservations to some of the treaties Congo cited, or that other conditions for a case weren’t met.
The new filing comes as separate, U.S.- and Qatar-mediated peace talks between Congo and Rwanda have struggled to produce a lasting deal.
On Thursday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on a Rwanda -based gold refinery, describing it as being part of “a network working in coordination” with M23 in eastern Congo. It said the sanctions against Gasabo Gold Refinery were in support of the U.S. and Qatari peace efforts.
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Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda contributed to this report.
