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RIGHTS: War Crimes Court’s First Trial on the Horizon

Srabani Roy

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2007 (IPS) - International human rights groups applauded Monday’s indictment by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) of a former militia leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a positive first step toward trying others accused of war crimes.

The ICC formally charged Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the onetime leader of the country’s Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), with “war crimes of enlisting and conscripting of children under the age of fifteen years into the FPLC [Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo].”

The FPLC is the military wing of the UPC. Lubanga was charged with using children “to participate actively in hostilities in Ituri [in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC] from September 2002 to 13 August 2003.”

“This case is considered a major milestone in international attempts to fight against impunity in order to eradicate the practice of using child soldiers. It will be the first trial of the ICC and, importantly, focuses exclusively on child soldiers,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy of the Office of the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in a statement.

The charges against Lubanga will initiate the first trial under the ICC, which was set up in 2001 and came into force in 2003 to handle cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Violence continues in parts of DRC, although peace agreements were signed in 2002 and a historic presidential election held last year, which was eventually won by incumbent President Joseph Kabila in a run-off in October.

The DRC government referred the issue of the most heinous crimes committed during the country’s 1998-2003 civil war, in which more than four million people died, to the ICC in March 2004. At the outset of the investigation, Ituri was singled out as one of the most violent regions, and the military wing of the UPC identified as one of the most violent militias.

“We welcome the decision of the ICC to confirm the charges against Lubanga,” Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Programme at Human Rights Watch in New York, told IPS. “We see the trial as the beginning of the end of the absolute impunity against the horrific crimes in eastern Congo.”

Lubanga was arrested in Kinshasa and transferred to the ICC in March 2006. He is being held in a detention centre near The Hague. A date for his trial has not yet been set but it is expected to begin later this year.

Many human rights and legislative groups agreed that the fact that the ICC was able to bring charges and initiate a trial in less than a year is an indication of the improved efficacy of the international court, which has come under criticism in the past for failing to move swiftly in its investigations. These include DRC, Uganda and Darfur, Sudan.

“Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is exactly the type of person for whom the ICC was created – a warlord who has forced children as young as nine to commit murder, rape, and mutilation, often against their own family members,” said Golzar Kheiltash, a legal analyst with Citizens for Global Solutions, in a statement issued by the Washington-based non-governmental organisation.

David Donat Cattin, a legal advisor with the International Law and Human Rights Programme of Parliamentarians for Global Action, a network of legislators and parliamentarians worldwide, concurred.

“A big change compared to Yugoslavia and Rwanda is that the victims were allowed to participate,” Cattin noted as a significant difference between the ICC and these other independent international tribunals, in which he said victims were only allowed to observe the proceedings. “Justice has been done for the victims.”

Although generally seen as crucial move forward by the ICC, Dicker of HRW and others expressed disappointment about the limited nature of the charges.

Besides conscripting children, Lubanga has been accused of heinous crimes, including ethnic massacres, torture and rape.

“We had expected the charges to go further in terms of the alleged crimes [against Lubanga],” Dicker told IPS.

He added that his organisation had also expected that charges would be brought against other militia leaders in Uganda and Rwanda, accused of alleged involvement in the violence in Ituri in the later years of the conflict. Dicker noted that going beyond the borders of the DRC was “in line with the prosecution’s case against Lubanga.”

Similarly, Mariana Goetz, ICC programme advisor for the Britain-based non-governmental organisation REDRESS, which works with survivors of torture, noted in a statement that limiting the charges to child recruitment “may deepen cleavages amongst rival factions in Eastern Congo and alienate victim populations.”

The ICC’s charges do not reflect justice for many victims, including girls who were often used at sex slaves, REDRESS noted.

Given the limited nature of the ICC’s charges, some human rights organisations worry that it is not enough to deter other militia leaders and war criminals from continuing with their violence.

“It will take more than these charges to deter others,” HRW’s Dicker told IPS.