Report: UN investigators believe Guinea massacre was ‘crime against humanity’

Report: Guinea massacre ‘crime against humanity’

PARIS — U.N. investigators say Guinea’s wounded junta leader may bear responsibility for the mass killings and rapes of protesters in September, which they consider crimes against humanity, a French news report said Monday.

The U.N. investigators say the case should go to the International Criminal Court, according to Le Monde newspaper, which published details from what it said was a 60-page report handed to the U.N. Security Council this weekend. The daily did not explain how it obtained the document.

Adding to the West African nation’s turmoil since the September massacre, the state of junta leader Capt. Moussa ‘Dadis’ Camara’s health has been a mystery since he was shot at by his own presidential guard this month and airlifted to a Moroccan military hospital. Guinea’s vice president is now coordinating the government’s activities.

In Guinea, Frederic Kolie, a Cabinet minister and a spokesman for the military junta, said authorities did not yet have the report and had no immediate response.

On Sept. 28, soldiers loyal to Camara sealed off the exits to the national soccer stadium where tens of thousands of protesters had gathered to demand an end to military rule. Troops entered and fired their assault rifles, spraying bullets into the unarmed crowd, survivors have said.

The three-member U.N. commission, which interviewed 700 people to reach its findings, wrote that “there is sufficient reason to presume the direct criminal responsibility of president Moussa Dadis Camara” in the violence, Le Monde said.

The paper said the report also singled out several members of his entourage as suspected of responsibility — including Lt. Abubakar “Toumba” Diakite, the man who shot Camara in a dispute Dec. 3. He has been in hiding since then.

The U.N. commission qualified the violence as crimes against humanity — as did Human Rights Watch, which also carried out an on-the-ground investigation.

According to Le Monde, the U.N. report said 156 people were killed or disappeared on Sept. 28, though the junta has insisted that only 57 people were killed. At least 109 women or girls were victims of rape and sexual mutilation, the commission reportedly said.

The investigators noted that the numbers of victims were probably even higher and said security forces carried out “hundreds of other cases of torture, of cruel and degrading treatment” in the days following Sept. 28, according to Le Monde. The paper published details from the report in French, and an official English version of the report was not immediately available.

The commission considered the violence “systematic” and “organized,” according to the paper.

It said there were “indications of a premeditated intention” to kill as many people as possible — according to Le Monde, it said soldiers used real bullets, gave no warning, “fired until the bullets ran out and targeted parts of the body where vital organs are located.”

The commission also described sexual violence. “Women were raped with objects, including bayonets, sticks, pieces of metal and clubs,” said an excerpt published in the newspaper.

Without revealing the report’s contents, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s office said Saturday that he had transmitted the document to Guinea’s government, the U.N. Security Council, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States.

“The secretary-general takes this opportunity to remind the government of Guinea of its obligation to protect victims and witnesses, including those who cooperated with the commission,” the statement said.

Ban also urged Guinea’s government “to seize this opportunity to break definitively with the violence that characterized the tragic events” of Sept. 28.