Recognition of the Genocide Against the Hutu

A Declaration of Recognition We, experts, researchers, survivors, human rights and social justice advocates, following Global Campaign for Rwandans' Human Rights, GCRHR's research initiative on the crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in Rwanda and subsequently in DRC via its Congolese ally, the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL) rebel group against members of Hutu ethnic group in DR Congo (former Zaïre), based on our own independent expert assessment of all available reliable information, previous research and facts related to the wholesale massacre of the Hutu in relation to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, having considered the authoritative definition of the crime of genocide by the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention which defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: - (a) Killing members of the group,

• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, having carefully and thoroughly examined all the reliable information and facts annexed within this resolution, on the killings of members of Hutu ethnic group in Rwanda and in the former Zaïre against the above acts mentioned in the authoritative definition of genocide, particularly acts (a), (b) and (c), noting that, from the available information and facts, the massacres of ethnic Hutu population were carried out on the basis of an almost identical plan, designed to kill as many victims as possible regardless of their gender, age or nationality, knowing that the UN's own assessment of the massacres of the Hutu in the former Zaïre concluded that the killings revealed a number of inculpatory elements that characterized them as a crime of genocide, noting that, after the UN Mapping report, the UN recommended further actions to prevent, investigate, halt and punish the crimes outlined in its own report to fulfil its obligations under the Genocide Convention, we hereby declare and recognise as a CRIME of GENOCIDE, the wholesale killings of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutu population in Rwanda and of Rwandan Hutu refugees, Burundian Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutu citizens in DRC on the basis of their membership to Hutu ethnic group and without regard to their age, gender or nationality by the Rwandan Patriotic Army and its Congolese ally, the Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL) rebel group. Our Call to Action We call upon the international community to fulfil their obligations under the Genocide Convention and act together to bring the perpetrators to justice. This declaration was proclaimed on 10 July 2019. More details at hutugenocide.org.