UNITED NATIONS — The United States on Monday called for an international inquiry into the gruesome murders of two United Nations investigators in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-March.
In an emailed statement, the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, pressed the secretary general, António Guterres, to “initiate a special investigation” into the murders of Michael J. Sharp, an American citizen, and Zaida Catalan, a dual citizen of Chile and Sweden.
The two were appointed by the Security Council to an independent panel of experts to investigate atrocities in the vast, conflict-scarred country. Along with a Congolese interpreter, they had traveled to a part of Kasaï-Central Province to investigate a new rebellion that had pocked the area with suspected mass graves. Their own bodies were found in a shallow grave two weeks later. Ms. Catalan had been decapitated.
The United Nations called on the Congolese authorities to investigate their murders and appointed an internal panel — a Board of Inquiry, as it is called — to look into what had gone wrong, but without the power to carry out a criminal investigation. Critics said the Congolese authorities, themselves implicated in the conflict in the region, were in no position to carry out a credible investigation. Mr. Sharp’s father, John, called for an independent, international inquiry.
UNITED NATIONS — The United States on Monday called for an international inquiry into the gruesome murders of two United Nations investigators in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-March.
In an emailed statement, the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, pressed the secretary general, António Guterres, to “initiate a special investigation” into the murders of Michael J. Sharp, an American citizen, and Zaida Catalan, a dual citizen of Chile and Sweden.
The two were appointed by the Security Council to an independent panel of experts to investigate atrocities in the vast, conflict-scarred country. Along with a Congolese interpreter, they had traveled to a part of Kasaï-Central Province to investigate a new rebellion that had pocked the area with suspected mass graves. Their own bodies were found in a shallow grave two weeks later. Ms. Catalan had been decapitated.
The United Nations called on the Congolese authorities to investigate their murders and appointed an internal panel — a Board of Inquiry, as it is called — to look into what had gone wrong, but without the power to carry out a criminal investigation. Critics said the Congolese authorities, themselves implicated in the conflict in the region, were in no position to carry out a credible investigation. Mr. Sharp’s father, John, called for an independent, international inquiry.
On Monday, Ms. Haley called on Mr. Guterres order an investigation under the auspices of the United Nations. She also said she would use her seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to establish a broader Commission of Inquiry into human rights violations in the Kasaï region.
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An outspoken critic of the Human Rights Council, Ms. Haley is scheduled to speak to the session in Geneva on Tuesday.
“We owe it to their legacy to end the human rights abuses being carried out by armed groups and the D.R.C. government against the Congolese people,” she said in the statement.
Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for Mr. Guterres, said the secretary general could not appoint a criminal investigation without authorization from an intergovernmental body like the Security Council.
“In any case, the secretariat cannot substitute the criminal justice system of a sovereign country,” Mr. Dujarric said. “We stand ready to support any investigative mechanism set up by the relevant intergovernmental bodies.”
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