Rights Watchdog Urges DR Congo To Settle Months Long Deadly Intercommunal Land Dispute

Umer Jamshaid Published March 30, 2023 | 02:50 PM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th March, 2023) A prominent international human rights watchdog on Thursday called on the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to urgently resolve a long-standing intercommunal dispute over traditional rights to power and land in the western Kwamouth community to prevent a repeat of the violence that killed at least 300 people between June 2022 and March 2023.

"The Congolese authorities should urgently take necessary measures to protect civilians in the west from further attacks and uphold the rule of law... It's critically important to bring those responsible for the deadly violence in Kwamouth to justice and to address the underlying grievances," Human Rights Watch (HRW) senior Congo researcher Thomas Fessy said.

The dispute between residents of villages over a customary tax and land access dominated by Teke and Yaka communities damaged and destroyed hundreds of homes, as well as schools and medical centers. Some Congolese security forces deployed to suppress the violence "allegedly committed extrajudicial executions, looting, and sexual violence," HRW said in a statement.

The government failed to provide assistance to overwhelmed provincial security forces, as well as adequate aid to over 50,000 people displaced by the violence, the statement read.

According to HRW, Teke people historically owned most of the land and customary titles in Kwamouth community. For many years, members of the Yaka and other communities from nearby Kwilu and Kwango provinces formed an agricultural labor force for landowners in Kwamouth territory or became farmers in exchange for the customary tax in goods. Tensions over the tax continued throughout 2021 and hit a crisis point in February 2022 when Teke chiefs raised the tax, which many farmers rejected. Teke authorities then attempted to forcibly collect the tax, triggering a series of deadly attacks and reprisals that forced several thousand people to flee their homes.