The DRC Mapping Exercise Report, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1993-2003 UN Mapping Report, was a report by the United Nations within the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the wake of the armed aggressions and war which took place between March 1993 and June 2003. Its aim was to map the most serious violations of human rights, together with violations of international humanitarian law, committed within the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In doing this it was to assess the capacities within the national justice system to deal appropriately with such human rights violations and to formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in identifying appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations. It contained 550 pages and contained descriptions of 617 alleged violent incidents.
The mapping exercise began in 2008, with 33 staff working on the project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including Congolese and international human rights experts. The report was submitted to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in 2009.
The report contains a detailed accounting of the breakup of Hutu refugee camps in eastern Congo at the start of the First Congo War in October 1996, followed by the pursuit of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees and Hutu population across the country’s vast hinterland by teams of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda soldiers and their Congolese rebel surrogates, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo.
Context.
In the wake of the discovery of three mass graves in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in late 2005, the United Nations first announced its intention to send a human rights team to conduct a mapping exercise in DRC in a June 2006 report to the Security Council. In May 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon approved the terms of reference of the mapping exercise following a series of consultations among relevant UN agencies and partners and with the Congolese government. 
The mapping exercise began officially on 17 July 2008, with the arrival of the team's chief in Kinshasa. Between October 2008 and May 2009, a total of 33 staff worked on the project in the DRC, including Congolese and international human rights experts. Of these, some 20 human rights officers were deployed across the country, operating out of five field offices, to gather documents and information from witnesses to meet the three objectives defined in the terms of reference. The report was submitted to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on 15 June 2009 for review, comments and finalisation.
Research methodology.
The mapping team's 550-page report contains descriptions of 617 alleged violent incidents occurring in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003. Each of these incidents points to the possible commission of gross violations of human rights and/or international humanitarian law. Each of the incidents listed is backed up by at least two independent sources identified in the report. As serious as they may be, uncorroborated incidents claimed by one single source are not included. Over 1,500 documents relating to human rights violations committed during this period were gathered and analysed with a view to establishing an initial chronology by region of the main violent incidents reported. Only incidents meeting a 'gravity threshold' set out in the methodology were considered. Field mapping teams met with over 1,280 witnesses to corroborate or invalidate the violations listed in the chronology. Information was also collected on previously undocumented crimes.
The 1,500 documents reviewed, some of them confidential, were obtained from many sources, including the United Nations, the Congolese government, Congolese and major international human rights organisations, national and international media and various unions, religious groups, aid agencies and victims’ associations. Lastly, various sources, individuals and experts, national and international, were also consulted to open up new avenues of research, corroborate information and streamline the overall analysis.
Mandate and Objectives.
The report states that the mapping team “was not concerned with pursuing in-depth investigations or gathering evidence of sufficient admissibility to stand in court” but rather with “providing the basis for the formulation of initial hypothesis of investigation by giving a sense of the scale of violations, detecting patterns and identifying potential leads or sources of evidence”. 
The mapping exercise, led by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) with some US$ 3 million in funding, had three objectives: 
Unlike some commissions of inquiry with a specific mandate to identify the perpetrators of violations and make them accountable for their actions, the objective of the Mapping Exercise was not to establish or to try to establish individual criminal responsibility. Instead, its aim was to expose in a transparent way the seriousness of the violations committed, with the aim of encouraging an approach aimed at breaking the cycle of impunity. The report does, however, identify the armed groups to which the alleged perpetrators belonged, since it was essential to identify the groups allegedly involved in order to suggest proper legal characterisations for the conduct in question. Consequently, information on the identity of the alleged perpetrators of some of the crimes listed does not appear in the report but is held in a confidential project database submitted to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. However, the identities of alleged perpetrators under warrant of arrest and those already sentenced for crimes listed in the report have been disclosed. Names have also been cited where political officials have assumed public positions encouraging or provoking the violations listed.
Period covered.
The report is presented chronologically, reflecting four key periods in the DRC's recent history: 
Report recommendations.
Justice.
The UN Mapping Report recommended the creation of a mixed judicial mechanism made up of national and international personnel as one of various transitional justice measures to be considered to address the numerous international crimes committed in the DRC. It did not make firm proposals on the national or international character of such mechanism, or its precise form or function.
The operating methods and exact form of such a court “should be decided on and specified in detail by consulting the actors concerned, as well as the victims affected...” A mechanism of this kind should also – among many other things – apply international criminal law in relation to international crimes, including “the responsibility of superiors for the acts committed by their subordinates;” it should “exclude the jurisdiction of the military courts in this area;” and should “have jurisdiction over anyone who has committed these crimes, whether they are nationals or non-nationals, civilians or military personnel.” (Paragraph 1052 / 1054)
Truth-seeking and reparations.
Declaring that the Congolese people have a “right to the truth on all the serious violations of human rights,” the report suggests the establishment of a new, non-judicial “truth commission” that can help to determine institutional, political, military and other responsibilities; preserve evidence; identify the perpetrators of atrocities; recommend compensation measures and institutional reforms; and provide individual victims with a broader platform in which to air their grievances and concerns. (Paragraph 1057 / 1060-1061).
Given the huge number of victims, the report says a comprehensive and creative approach to the issue of reparation is clearly required, and notes that the Congolese government should be the first to contribute. But it also points to the responsibilities of other countries involved in the conflict and notes that individuals and corporate entities such as multinationals which exploited the DRC's natural resources during the conflict could also be ordered to pay compensation if found criminally responsible. (Paragraph 1074-75)
Crime of genocide.
The report notes, “it is important that a full judicial investigation take place, in order to shed light on the reported incidents” in 1996-97. “Only such an investigation and judicial determination would be in a position to resolve whether these incidents amount to the crime of 
genocide.” (Paragraph 522)
The mapping report team noted that “The question of whether the numerous serious acts of violence committed against the Hutus (refugees and others) constitute crimes of genocide has attracted a significant degree of comment and to date remains unresolved. The report repeatedly stresses that this question can “only be decided by a court decision on the basis of evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. However, "the apparent systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of inculpatory elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be characterised as crimes of genocide." 
Certain elements could cause a court to hesitate to decide on the existence of a genocidal plan, such as the fact that as of 15 November 1996, several tens of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees, many of whom had survived previous attacks, were repatriated to Rwanda with the help of the AFDL/APR authorities and that hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees were able to return to Rwanda with the consent of the Rwandan authorities prior to the start of the first war. Whilst, in general, the killings did not spare women and children, in some places, at the beginning of the first war, Hutu women and children were in fact separated from the men, and only the men were subsequently killed.
Leaked draft report.
An earlier draft of the report was leaked by French newspaper Le Monde on 27 August, creating intense controversies as it reported that several Congolese rebel groups, Ugandan troops (along with Burundian, Angolan and other armed groups) had committed grave human rights violations. The most contentious aspect of the report referred to the possibility that the armed forces of Rwanda and their local allies may have committed acts, which could constitute crimes of genocide against ethnic Hutu civilians fleeing the country in fear of reprisal. There was concern in the United Nations that Rwanda might end its participation in peacekeeping operations in reaction to the official release for the report. The authors of the report indicated that they were concerned that the language of “genocide” may be watered down before the official publishing of the document, therefore they felt it necessary to leak the report to safeguard the integrity of the report.
Report Key Findings.
The apparently systematic nature of these violations suggests that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of both first and second congo wars or seen as equating to collateral damage. The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who posed no threat to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or psychological integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. Very large numbers of victims were forced to flee and travel long distances to escape their pursuers, who were trying to kill them. The hunt lasted for months, resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of people subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading living conditions, without access to food or medication. On several occasions, the humanitarian aid intended for them was deliberately blocked, in particular in Orientale Province, depriving them of assistance essential to their survival.
Here are some of the draft report's key findings:.
Paragraph 512. The systematic attacks, in particular killings and massacres perpetrated against members of the Hutu ethnic group, are described extensively in section I of the report. These attacks resulted in a very large number of victims, probably tens of thousands of members of the Hutu ethnic group, all nationalities combined. In the vast majority of case reported, it was not a question of people killed unintentionally in the course of combat, but people targeted primarily by AFDL [Congolese rebels led by Laurent Kabila, who became president in 1997]/APR [Rwandan army]/FAB [Burundi's army] forces and executed in their hundreds, often with edged weapons.
Paragraph 513. At the time of the incidents covered by this report, the Hutu population in Zaire, including refugees from Rwanda, constituted an ethnic group as defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Moreover, as shown previously, the intention to destroy a group in part is sufficient to be classified as a crime of genocide. Finally, the courts have also confirmed that the destruction of a group can be limited to a particular geographical area. It is therefore possible to assert that, even if only a part of the Hutu population in Zaire was targeted and destroyed, it could nonetheless constitute a crime of genocide, if this was