Category Archives: African Politics

African Politics, Bosco Ntaganda, Crimes against humanity, DR Congo, ICC, Rwanda

ICC CONVICTS CONGO WARLORD NTAGANDA OF WAR CRIMES INCLUDING RAPE AND SEXUAL SLAVERY

The International Criminal Court has delivered its anticipated judgment in the Ntaganda case. The court has now convicted the warlord for his crimes. The case dealt with the alleged criminal conduct by Ntaganda in the Ituri region in the DRC between 2002 and 2003.  

Ntaganda is a Rwandan born Tutsi and was raised in North Kivu in the DRC. He fled Rwanda to neighbouring Uganda to escape from the Hutu militia and participated in the overthrow of the Hutu-led Rwandan government which was responsible for the Rwandan genocide.

Bosco Ntaganda was the former Deputy Chief of the Staff and commander of operations of FPLC and he was charged of various war crimes including murder and attempted murder, attacking civilians, rape, sexual slavery of civilians, pillaging, displacement of civilians, attacking protected objects, destroying the enemy’s property, conscription of child soldiers under the age of fifteen years and using them to participate actively in hostilities and various counts of crimes against humanity, for acts allegedly committed in 2002-2003 in Ituri.

In the Eastern Congo region of Ituri, there were hostitlities between Hema and Lendu communities. Ntaganda served as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (Forces Patriotiques pour la libération du Congo, FPLC), the armed wing of the Union of Congolese Patriots (Union des Patriotes Congolais, UPC) headed by Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. UPC, who launched an attack against the Lendu community in Ituri province.

Lubanga has been earlier found guilty in 2012 of the war crimes of enlisting and conscripting of children under the age of 15 years and using them to participate actively in hostilities and has been sentenced to a total of 14 years of imprisonment.

In the present case, the ICC observed that the crimes committed against the civilians were not the result of an uncoordinated and spontaneous decision of individual perpetrators acting in isolation, but were the intended outcome of the implementation of a policy which was actively promoted. Lendu population was specifically targeted as a part of a preconceived strategy. ICC thus held that the course of conduct took place pursuant to a policy of the UPC/FPLC to attack and chase away the Lendu civilians as well as those who were perceived as non-Iturians.  ICC found beyond reasonable doubt that Ntaganda and other military leaders of the UPC/FPLC, including Lubanga and Kisembo, worked together and agreed in the common plan to drive out all the Lendu from the localities targeted during the course of their military campaign.

Ntaganda was held individually criminally responsible for murder as a crime against humanity (Article 7(1)(a)) and as a war crime (Article 8(2)(c)(i)), as a direct perpetrator (Article 25(3)(a)).

He has been convicted of various offences including intentionally directing attacks against civilians as a war crime, rape as a crime against humanity and as a war crime, as an indirect coperpetrator of women and girls, sexual slavery as a crime against humanity and as a war crime, pillage as a war crime, as an indirect co-perpetrator, in relation to the looting of items by UPC/FPLC soldiers, conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 years into an armed group between 2002 and 2003, and using them to participate actively in hostilities with respect to the participation of children under the age of 15.

This is a landmark conviction as it was the first trial where a commander was charged with rape and sexual violence committed against child soldiers under his command. Now he is the first man to be convicted for the crime of sexual slavery.

African Politics, Bemba Gombo, CAR, Command Responsibility, DR Congo, ICC

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT SHOCKER: A DIVIDED APPEALS CHAMBER OVERTURNS CONGO WARLORD’S CONVICTION

In a surprising development, the Appeals Chamber of the ICC has overturned the conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba, warlord and former vice-president of Democratic Republic of the Congo. Bemba’s conviction was the first ICC case which involved a conviction for sexual violence as well as the first case to find a perpetrator guilty of command responsibility under Article 28 of the ICC statute. Bemba was convicted of crimes against humanity as well as war crimes committed by his Mouvement de libération du Congo (MLC) troops in the neighbouring state Central African Republic (CAR) from 2002-2003 where his troops were invited to quell a coup.  Bemba was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. 

Now the Appeals Chamber has held that in the present case the judgment under appeal merited no deference and after evaluating the case de novo came to the conclusion that the charges cannot be sustained. Dealing a deadly blow on ‘command responsibility’ the Appeal Court while acquitting him held that he was not responsible for the excesses of his forces. With respect to military leaders, Article 28(a) of the Rome Statute provides that a military commander is criminally responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court committed by forces under his effective command and control, or effective authority and control as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such forces, where the military commander either knew or, owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such crimes and that military commander or person failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.

The Appeals Court has now observed that the scope of the duty to take “all necessary and reasonable measures” is intrinsically connected to the extent of a commander’s material ability to prevent or repress the commission of crimes or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution adding that a commander cannot be blamed for not having done something he or she had no power to do. It held that an assessment of whether a commander took all “necessary and reasonable measures” will require consideration of what measures were at his or her disposal in the circumstances at the time which is consistent with international jurisprudence (Strugar Trial Judgment).

The Court has announced that it is not the case that a commander must take each and every possible measure at his disposal. Despite the link between the material ability of a commander to take measures (which is directly connected to his or her level of authority) and what he might reasonably have been expected to do, it is not the case that a commander is required to employ every single conceivable measure within his or her arsenal, irrespective of considerations of proportionality and feasibility. Article 28 only requires commanders to do what is necessary and reasonable under the circumstances.

Commenting on Article 28, it observed that it is not a form of strict liability. Commanders are allowed to make a cost/benefit analysis when deciding which measures to take, bearing in mind their overall responsibility to prevent and repress crimes committed by their subordinates. This means that a commander may take into consideration the impact of measures to prevent or repress criminal behaviour on ongoing or planned operations and may choose the least disruptive measure as long as it can reasonably be expected that this measure will prevent or repress the crimes.

Acquitting Bemba, the Court reasoned that the Trial Court failed to properly appreciate the limitations that Bemba would have faced in investigating and prosecuting crimes as a remote commander sending troops to a foreign country. The First Court failed to give any indication of the approximate number of the crimes committed and to assess its impact on the determination of whether Bemba took all necessary and reasonable measures. The Appeals Chamber also came to the conclusion that Bemba was not sufficiently notified of some factual allegation and hence suffered prejudice as a result of the lack of proper notice.

The Appeals Chamber observed that ‘simply juxtaposing the fact that certain crimes were committed by the subordinates of a commander with a list of measures which the commander could hypothetically have taken does not, in and of itself, show that the commander acted unreasonably at the time. The trial chamber must specifically identify what a commander should have done in concreto.’ It further observed that it is for the trial chamber to demonstrate in its reasoning that the commander did not take specific and concrete measures that were available to him or her and which a reasonably diligent commander in comparable circumstances would have taken. It is not the responsibility of the accused to show that the measures he or she did take were sufficient as Bemba’s troops were operating in a foreign country with the attendant difficulties on Bemba’s ability, as a remote commander, to take measures. This judgment undoubtedly raises eyebrows as the effectiveness of ‘command responsibility’, which is also a customary international law, has now been seriously questioned. The negative impact of this judgment on the future cases before the ICC will be a great loss to the victims of crimes against humanity.

African Politics, Bemba Gombo, Crimes against humanity, DR Congo, ICC

International Criminal Court says no to suspension of reparations process in Jean-Pierre Bemba Case

Convicted Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo received a huge setback recently when the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court on May 5, 2017 rejected his appeal which urged the Court not to continue with reparation proceedings till his pending appeal was decided.  In the case of the Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, decision on the defence’s request to suspend the reparations proceedings, the Court observed that Article 75 of the Rome Statute gives the Chamber the power to make a reparations order against any convicted person.

Post the conviction and the order on sentence, in July 2016 the Chamber made an order requesting submissions relevant to reparations and in October 2016 the Prosecution, Defence, Legal Representative of Victims (LRV), Office of Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV), Trust Fund for Victims (TFV) and the Registry filed their observations on reparations. Finally in February 2017, the Chamber issued an order inviting submissions on experts to assist the Chamber in its determinations on reparations.

The defence team of Bemba Gombo urged the Chamber to refrain from instructing expert witnesses and to suspend the reparations process at the latest after the selection of any expert(s) and the finalisation of any letter of instruction as it argued that it was inconsistent with the rights of the accused as it operated as an effective presumption of guilt and also placed a heavy burden on the defence’s resources. It argued that even in the Katanga case, the reparation proceedings started only after the withdrawal of the appeals when the LRVs asked the Chamber to set a schedule for filing observations on the principles for reparations in August 2014, two months after the parties had withdrawn their appeal.

It further argued that as reparation orders were intrinsically linked to the individual whose criminal responsibility was established in a conviction and whose culpability for these criminal acts was determined in a sentence and that an accused should not have to remedy harms that are not the result of the crimes for which he was convicted, continuing with the reparations process whilst there was an extant live appeal against conviction was inappropriate.

But the Chamber refused holding that the Appeals Chamber in Prosecutor v Lubanga (Judgment on the appeals against the “Decision establishing the principles and procedures to be applied to reparations”) had identified five constitutive elements, which, at a minimum, must be contained in an order for reparations: 1) it must be directed against the convicted person; 2) it must establish and inform the convicted person of his or her liability with respect to the reparations awarded in the order; 3) it must specify, and provide reasons for, the type of reparations ordered, either collective, individual or both; 4) it must define the harm caused to direct and indirect victims as a result of the crimes for which the person was convicted, as well as identify the modalities of reparations that the Trial Chamber considers appropriate based on the circumstances of the specific case before it; and 5) it must identify the victims eligible to benefit from the awards for reparations or set out the criteria of eligibility based on the link between the harm suffered by the victims and the crimes for which the person was convicted. For addressing these elements the Chamber needed to take a number of preparatory steps. Also the legal texts of the Court contemplated that reparation proceedings may commence in parallel to a pending appeal. Referring to the established practice that preparatory steps to facilitate and expedite the reparations proceedings are launched following a conviction, it held that the issuance of a reparations order is not prejudicial to the rights of the convicted person irrespective of whether there is an appeal against the conviction decision.

The Chamber further observed that in the present proceedings reparations were only at a preliminary stage. Finally Article 64(3)(a) of the Rome Statute gave the Trial Chamber the power to suspend the proceedings if this was necessary to facilitate the fair and expeditious conduct of the proceedings. But suspending the reparations case would in fact be fatal to the fair and expeditious conduct of the proceedings.  It held that the suspension of all reparations proceedings until after the Appeals Chamber had rendered its decision would substantially impact the victims’ interests to access reparations in a timely manner. Thus the Court disallowed the relief sought by Bemba Gombo.

African Politics, Bosco Ntaganda, DR Congo, Poverty, Rwanda

‘Nyama tembo kula hawezi kumaliza’: DR Congo, Ntaganda, Kabila and the road ahead (PART 5 of 5)

The Swahili proverb means ‘You never finish eating the meat of an elephant’. Skullduggery continues.

Though there was a substantial decrease in violence post 2003, low level conflicts in certain pockets continued. Katanga insurgency continues till date. Ituri conflict is primarily between agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in north-eastern Congo. Hostilities in Ituri Province started in 1999. The Front des nationalistes et intégrationnistes [National Integrationist Front] (FNI) and Forces de Résistance Patriotique d’Ituri [Front for Patriotic Resistance of Ituri] (FRPI) fought for Lendu while Union des patriotes congolais [Union of Congolese Patriots](UPC) fought for the Hema. Finally, in December 2003, after the UPC split, fighting decreased significantly in Ituri Province.

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, founder of UPC and the Force patriotiques pour la libération du Congo (FPLC)[military wing of UPC], was found guilty by ICC of committing the war crimes of the enlistment and conscription of children under the age of 15 and using them to participate actively in hostilities between 2002 and 2003 and has been sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment. The Appeals Chamber confirmed the verdict in 2014. ICC, in 2014, found Germain Katanga, commander of FRPI, guilty as an accessory of one count of crime against humanity (murder) and four counts of war crimes (murder, attacking a civilian population, destruction of property and pillaging) and has sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment. But Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, former leader of FNI, was acquitted. In February 2015, the Appeals Chamber confirmed the acquittal.

Bosco Ntaganda, former Deputy Chief of the Staff and commander of operations of FPLC has been charged of various war crimes including murder and attempted murder, attacking civilians, rape, sexual slavery of civilians, pillaging, displacement of civilians, attacking protected objects, destroying the enemy’s property, conscription of child soldiers under the age of fifteen years and using them to participate actively in hostilities and various counts of crimes against humanity, allegedly committed in 2002-2003 in the Ituri Province. The Chamber found that there was a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population pursuant to an organisational policy adopted by UPC and FPLC to attack civilians perceived to be non-Hema. The Chamber also found that an armed conflict had taken place between the UPC/FPLC and other organized armed groups. The trial has already commenced last month and is expected to be a cyclopean one. Due to the gravity of charges and the number of crimes he is accused of, the trial is of much consequence.  It is the first trial, at the ICC, where a commander will be charged with rape and sexual violence committed against child soldiers under his command. The case is significant because Ntaganda evaded justice for nine long years and even an international campaign for his apprehension could not get Congolese government to arrest him. But astonishingly, he voluntarily surrendered in 2013.

In the political arena, President Kabila is desperately trying to change the country’s constitution so that he can remain in power beyond his second and final five-year term. This has raised a storm of protests in the country. Opposition leaders have openly criticised any such moves. Last week, Moïse Katumbi, the multimillionaire governor of copper rich Katanga Province, a close aide of Kabila and the second most powerful man in Congo, announced leaving the ruling party. Congolese remain profoundly sceptical about their future. This makes the political situation all the more gripping.