The United Nations Security Council Committee has ordered sanctions against a DR Congo army colonel for atrocities including rape and massacring civilians. The UN sanctions list, published on Wednesday, also named three Rwandan rebel leaders currently operating in DRC.

Innocent Zimurinda, a lieutenant colonel in the Congolese armed forces, has been topping the list of rights groups for years as a repeated perpetrator of gross violence against civilians, particularly in DRC’s conflict area of North Kivu.

In his capacity as an army commander, Zimurinda was responsible for the massacre of over 100 Rwandan refugees, mostly women and children, in the Shalio area in April 2009. The UN further said that he was also responsible for a massacre of 89 civilians in the Kiwanja region in November 2008.

The Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict said in May that Zimurinda has also been involved in the arbitrary execution of child soldiers.

Naming and shaming
In March this year, 51 human rights groups working in eastern DRC alleged that Zimurinda was responsible for multiple human rights abuses involving the murder of numerous civilians, including women and children, between February 2007 and August 2007. The groups have also accused him of widespread rapes on women and girls.

Human Rights Watch has applauded the inclusion of Zimurinda on the UN sanctions list. “It is very important that the international community continues to name and shame people like Zimurinda,” says HRW Africa researcher Anneke van Woudenberg.

She points out that Zimurinda continues to play an “important operational role in North Kivu,” and that the DRC “must bring him to justice.”

One UN diplomat, meanwhile, said Zimurinda "is one of the most brutal in a zone where there is no shortage of bloodthirsty combatants."

The three other names on the list -- Gaston Iyamuremye, Félicien Nsanzubukire and Leodomir Mugaragu – are all members of Rwanda’s ethnic Hutu rebel group FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda), who are active in Eastern DRC.

Iyamuremye is one of the group’s vice presidents, while Nsanzubukire is an FDLR chief said to have organized weapons smuggling into DRC from Tanzania between November 2008 and April 2009. Mugaragu, meanwhile, is the head of FDLR’s military wing.

The UN sanctions for Zimurinda and the three rebel leaders include assets freeze and travel bans. The French, British and US missions said that they would work with the sanctions committee to identify other individuals and groups that merit action.

Fighting for minerals
Rebel and militia groups, along with rogue army elements, have been battling for control of mineral riches in eastern DR Congo provinces for several years. Whole villages have been razed and in July and August several hundred women were the victims of mass rapes.

The sanctions committee was set up by the UN Security Council in 2004. Before it made the list public on Wednesday, the committee already had 20 individuals and six organizations on its list. All are accused of violating a UN arms embargo in eastern DR Congo, recruiting child soldiers and human rights abuses.

The UN Security Council has expressed growing frustration with events in DRC. This week it backed new guidelines seeking to make companies check on imports from the country to make sure payments do not go to armed groups.