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Zairian recounts torture by Serb mercenaries

zaire.kisangani March 19, 1997
Web posted at: 11:10 p.m. EST (0410 GMT)

From Correspondent Catherine Bond

KISANGANI, Zaire (CNN) -- Standing amid the ruins of a Zairian ammunition dump, Guy Mwanatambwe recalled the horrors of being held captive by Serb mercenaries paid by his country's government.

"We were imprisoned here by the mercenary Yugo, a colonel who locked us up for 10 days. There was a hangar here. That's where they guarded us," Mwanatambwe said.

Col. Dominic Yugo was the apparent commander of a band of mercenaries from the former Yugoslavia hired by Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko to protect Kisangani from a rebel attack.

But according to Mwanatambwe, instead of shielding the city's residents, Yugo spread terror instead. Last weekend, rebels captured the city, dealing the government a humiliating loss.

rubble

The rebels, who have been battling the Zairian military since September in an effort to oust Mobutu, now control the eastern third of the central African nation.

In Kisangani, the Serb mercenaries arrested Zairian men and accused them of collaborating with the rebels. One 22-year-old detainee was sexually assaulted, and most were electrocuted, beaten and interrogated, Mwanatambwe said.



guy

"They obeyed their colonel like dogs obey their master."

-- Guy Mwanatambwe


"They beat us with bamboo," he explained. "They beat us on the soles of our feet. The colonel would take someone in front of the car with a spotlight, ask them questions and fire bullets on either side of the head."

Stripped and interrogated

Yugo's real name isn't known. Yugo is presumably his nomme de guerre, an apparent reference to the former Yugoslavia. His band of mercenaries may have included Croats and Serbs, who were enemies during the Bosnian civil war.

"They were all Slavs -- Serbs, Croats," Mwanatambwe said. "There were no French. They were almost all Serbs. They obeyed their colonel like dogs obey their master."

Mwanatambwe was arrested by the mercenaries because he resembles an ethnic Tutsi, and the rebels fighting the Zairian army are led by Tutsis.

They held him for three weeks. After 10 days, he and the 26 other captives from the aircraft hangar were transferred to the Zairian army's operational headquarters at the airport.

mwanatambwe

Mwanatambwe said he and other captives were deprived of water, food and access to a toilet. They were interrogated in the map room, the nerve center of Zaire's unsuccessful counter-offensive.

Six days before the rebels took Kisangani, the prisoners were moved to a building containing the power transformer. Dozens of other men held captive by the Zairian army also were detained there.

Last week, three men were led away from the room Mwanatambe was in. He believes they were executed. At one point, Mwanatambwe was stripped and interrogated.

"It was like a nightmare," he said. The nightmare finally ended Saturday after the mercenaries fled.

 
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