[JURIST] Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] revealed new evidence [text, PDF] Monday indicating a Belgian mining company, Groupe Forest International, lied about bulldozing homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) [JURIST news archive]. The homes were destroyed during a 2009 police operation to clear the area of small-scale miners who were allegedly stealing from the company’s Luiswishi mine in the Kawama area. Groupe Forest International has repeatedly claimed that the demolished buildings were temporary homes belonging to small-scale miners and that the demolitions were legal. However, AI obtained satellite images, video footage and a DRC government prosecutor’s criminal investigation file indicating that bulldozers supplied by a Groupe Forest International subsidiary illegally destroyed over 387 structures, many of which were permanent homes near the mine. The evidence showed that state officers forcibly evicted hundreds of villagers, including children, from the homes. A DRC prosecutor attempted to investigate the demolitions but was instructed by government officials not to press charges, said AI. Audrey Gaughran, Global Issues Director for AI, stated [press release]:

There is now overwhelming and irrefutable evidence showing that the forced evictions that Groupe Forrest International has denied for years in fact took place. … This is a cover-up by the Congolese authorities. The state has failed its own people by not bringing anyone to justice for these forced evictions and by not ensuring that compensation was paid.”

In addition to unsuccessful attempts requesting justice from the Congolese government, a resolution in Belgium for the displaced Kawama villagers also failed. The AI report calls on Belgium to reconsider its policies to ensure Belgian multinational corporations can be regulated for sanctions abroad.

The DRC [BBC backgrounder] has been the site of considerable human rights abuses committed by both government forces and various rebel groups. Earlier this month AI called on [JURIST report] UN peacekeepers and Congolese authorities to protect the country’s civilians from armed rebels that are considered extremely dangerous. Last month rights experts from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] announced the findings of a report alleging a number of summary executions [JURIST report] and forced executions carried out against civilians by Congolese national forces during operation “Likofi” between November 2013 and February 2014. In July the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict presented a report outlining the situation of the child in the DRC, which found the recruitment of child soldiers [JURIST report] persists.