U.N. Chief to Name New Head of Probe Into Congo Deaths

Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced Monday that he will replace the United Nations’ top human rights investigator in Congo in an effort to push forward a much-delayed investigation into reported massacres of refugees by soldiers allied with Congolese President Laurent Kabila.

Kabila agreed June 7 to cooperate with the investigation following a meeting in Lubumbashi, Congo, with top U.S. officials, including U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson and John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for human rights. Since then, however, Kabila has blocked the probe by objecting to the inclusion of Roberto Garreton, a Chilean human rights expert named in April to head the investigation.

Annan’s spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said a new investigative team will be appointed as early as today and that Garreton will not be on it. Annan acted after the Geneva-based U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which normally handles such issues and had appointed Garreton, invited the secretary-general to intercede, Eckhard said.

The U.N. investigation is seen as an early test of Kabila’s commitment to international standards of human rights and cooperation. Many independent human rights groups believe that at the very least, Kabila turned a blind eye to reports of massacres. On Monday, these groups accused Annan of caving in to pressure from Kabila and the United States, which has been the most prominent international backer of the new leader.

“The message here is that if you’re a tough, objective, thorough [investigator] and the abusive government objects to you, the [U.N.] secretariat won’t back you up,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch.

“We’re going to be suffering the consequences of this compromise for years to come,” Roth said. “Now, abusive government after abusive government is going to say, ‘Why don’t you do for us what you did for the Congo and give us a new investigator?’ ”

But Annan’s spokesman described the decision as essentially pragmatic, as opting to go ahead with the investigation under new leadership rather than standing on legalistic principles and remaining stymied.

“The secretary-general, given the choice between Garreton and the investigation, is happy to choose the investigation,” Eckhard said. He compared acquiescing to Kabila’s objections to Garreton to the U.S. legal principle of permitting a criminal defendant to object to a trial judge on grounds of prejudice.

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Kabila has argued that Garreton made statements in April about the reported massacres indicating that he had prejudged the situation. At the time, Garreton suggested that forces allied with Kabila were responsible for killings.

U.N. refugee officials suspect hundreds and perhaps thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees were killed this spring by Tutsi soldiers affiliated with Kabila’s military drive to overthrow the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko. Kabila was supported in his revolution by the Tutsi-dominated government of neighboring Rwanda, and U.N. officials believe that refugee killings occurred in retaliation for the genocide of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists in Rwanda in 1994.

U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns in Washington voiced support for Annan’s decision. “We agree with the secretary-general that getting the facts is what’s most important,” Burns told reporters.