Who was responsible for Operation “Effacer le tableau” (Wipe the Slate Clean) in 2002- 2003? This operation led to 170 summary executions, 69 cases of rape including 27 children, systematic looting, and cases of forced labour in the Mambasa region of northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the United Nations. The question of who led it was central in the second week of hearings with victims and witnesses who had travelled to Paris to testify before the court. According to the prosecutor, Roger Lumbala’s RCD-N armed group was trying to conquer the territory of its rival, Mbusa Nyamwisi’s RCD-KML. The court has been trying Lumbala, a former warlord turned minister, for complicity in crimes against humanity since November 12.
From Monday, December 1 to Friday, December 5, the hearings continued, with victims taking the stand one after another. Three facts emerged: the “Effacer le tableau” troops responsible for this bloody operation did indeed commit systematic looting, rape, executions, torture, and used forced labour; the victims overwhelmingly point the finger at Lumbala; but some witnesses believe the troops were acting under the authority of Jean-Pierre Bemba, former leader of the MLC armed group. Bemba is currently Deputy Prime Minister of the DRC and a key ally of the current president, Félix Tshisekedi.
“They took everything”
A former teacher from Mambasa had only been married a week when the “Effacer le tableau” troops arrived and took all his wedding gifts. “There were plates, kitchen utensils, and many other things. I tried to bury them in the ground, but they were already at the door and took everything,” he told the court. “They even took a needle.” He was then requisitioned to transport his looted goods. When his young wife saw the rebels leaving with her husband, she followed them. “Once we arrived at their destination, they told me to go back but they kept my wife for a week,” he said, but did not say what happened to her during her week of captivity.
Another victim gave an idea. “I was tied up and one of them said, ‘Sala mosala na bino’ [do your job, in Lingala]. Then they raped my wife and daughter in front of me,” he told the court, adding that his daughter did not survive. After he was freed and his brother drove him to hospital for emergency care, the man says he saw Lumbala’s soldiers at the hospital entrance, including one of the men who had raped his wife and daughter. This man recognized him and prevented him from getting treatment. “Lumbala’s men had also brought one of their own, who was wounded, to the hospital. When they saw us coming, one of them recognized me and told his colleagues to chase me away. We went to get treatment elsewhere,” recalled this Nande gold trader, who says he lost his fortune in the war. The RCD-N soldiers “thought that we, the Nande, were accomplices of Mbusa Nyamwisi [a Nande]. I lost more than $24,000. At the time, I had a motorbike worth more than $3,000, which was not something everyone had.”
Pisco Paluku taught mathematics at a school in Mambasa. He appeared before the judges with a map he had drawn to explain the progression of the fronts. They first clashed, he told the court, in Mabukusi, 27 km west of Mambasa, when Lumbala’s soldiers encountered those of Mbusa Nyamwisi. When Mambasa was taken by the RCD-N, the witness claims to have taken part in a meeting organized by Freddy Ngalimo, alias Mopao, who told the inhabitants that the RCD-N soldiers had come to “save Mambasa, recover the territory of Mbusa Nyamwisi, that he (Ngalimo) was the commander, and that Lumbala would lead us”. But far from being saved, the witness said he was instead subjected to forced labour. “We were requisitioned to build their camps, draw water and prepare food for them,” Paluku told the court. “We were forced to go and catch other people’s animals, goats and chickens, which we then prepared for them to eat. To get away, we had to stay indoors all day or spend the night in toilets. Despite the smell, it was a safe place to avoid being caught and forced to work for them.”
“Father, I can never forgive them.”
Next to testify was Father Silvano Ruaro, an 87-year-old Italian priest who has preached and taught in Mambasa since 1989. He is well known there, to the point that another priest called as witness, Francesco Laudani, called him “the soul of Mambasa”. For nearly three hours, Father Silvano testified about the looting and rapes committed in Mambasa by soldiers from Effacer le tableau. The priest, who still lives in the area, said that when the rebels arrived, they looted everything, including at the Catholic mission he ran. “When they entered, there were bullets flying everywhere, he told the court. “We saw residents carrying mattresses. When they got to the Catholic mission, I fled into the fields, from where I could see them looting the mission. There were cows and sheep. They killed everything for fun. They were stomping and shouting ‘we are Bemba’s soldiers’.” The priest said he had never experienced looting on such a scale before: “They left me with just four pairs of underwear.”
Later he met victims of sexual violence while accompanying a Médecins Sans Frontières employee who had come to assess the needs of displaced people and refugees in Mangina, near Beni, in North Kivu. “I was acting as interpreter,” said Father Silvano. “One of the victims came to talk to us about her case, and she told me she was my student in Mambasa. She told us how she was raped, saying: ‘There were five soldiers, one raped me while the other four held me down, and they took turns’.” His student was only 12 years old at the time. He also spoke of how the wife of a Mambasa pastor was raped in her husband’s presence: “The pastor said to me ‘Father, I can never forgive them. They raped my wife. There were 19 of them’.”
Father Silvano’s different view
But while other victims identified their attackers as Lumbala’s men, Father Silvano instead pointed the finger at Bemba. “When they were still in Bafwasende [before the first conquest of Mambasa], we heard talk of Lumbala and his republic of Bafwasende, but we didn’t take it seriously because he had no political or military influence,” said the priest. During the time he spent with them in Mambasa, he says he “never heard them [the rebels] refer to Lumbala”.
The lawyers for the civil parties countered with a November 4, 2002 press release published by his Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which attributed the recapture of Bafwasenfende and Mambasa to Lumbala’s RCD-N forces, supported by Bemba’s MLC. But the priest maintains he had nothing to do with the press release, saying it was published while he was in Kampala seeking aid for displaced persons. According to him, the two local commanders of Operation “Effacer le tableau” were Fréddy Ngalimo, alias Mopao, and Ramsens Widi Divioka, alias Roi des imbéciles (“King of Fools”), both of whom claimed to belong to the Armée de libération du Congo (ALC), the armed wing of the MLC.
For his trip to Kampala at the end of October 2002, the witness said he received an authorization to leave the country signed by Mopao as commander of the ALC. The court then showed another document signed by Constant Ndima, then ALC commander, which bore a seal with the words “Congolese Rally for Democracy-National (RCD-N)-Armée de libération du Congo”. While it may be confusing, this attested to the alliance between the RCD-N and the MLC. The prosecutors wanted to know why the witness, a privileged source of information for the media, diplomats, aid workers and the Church, had not sought to understand the actors involved. “Yes, I was troubled,” he replied. “We heard Lumbala speak, but he wasn’t impacting the violence.”
The weight of old age
The priest also mentioned his meeting in Beni with Jeannot Bemba Saolona, Jean-Pierre Bemba’s father, who wanted to know everything his son had done in Mambasa. “I spoke to him for two hours, telling him everything,” the witness recounted. “Girls who were raped and lost everything, systematic looting. He was moved and didn’t know what to do. He apologized and said, ‘I gave my son his body, but not his mind’.”
Father Francesco Laudani did not testify via videoconference as originally planned, due to health concerns and his advanced age. But the court read his statement. According to him, Operation “Effacer le tableau” was carried out by Lumbala’s and Bemba’s troops, and he referred to the balance of power between Constant Ndima and Lumbala. “Ndima was under Lumbala’s orders,” he said in his written statement. “Ndima was aware of the situation and answered to Lumbala.”
The fact that Father Silvano denied Lumbala’s role surprised the victims, who said they expected him to support them. “I don’t know what motivated him to change his position on an event everyone went through,” came Paluku’s reaction outside the courtroom. “Perhaps his age? He’s old enough. Maybe he is confusing Lumbala and Bemba. Everyone spoke of Lumbala.”
