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DRC: Laurent Nkunda on amnesty and the ICC; A Congolese deputy calls

28 Mar 2008

Dear Colleagues,

Please find below information on recent developments related to the
International Criminal Court's investigation in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC).

You will find two articles related to Congolese warlord Laurent Nkunda in which
he calls for the application of amnesty for North Kivu rebels and claims to be
prepared to defend himself before the ICC should he be sent to
The Hague [Note: Laurent Nkunda has not been accused by the ICC]. You will also
find an article on which a Congolese deputy calls for the prosecution of the DRC
government by the ICC for the recent fighting in the Bas-Congo region.

Please take note of the Coalition's policy on situations before the ICC
(below), which explicitly states that the CICC will not take a position on
potential and current situations before the Court or situations under
analysis. The Coalition, however, will continue to provide the most
up-to-date information about the ICC.

Regards,

Linda Gueye
CICC Communication Section
[email protected]

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1. " Rebel General Insists on Amnesty Deal, 13 March 2008, By Jack Kahorha
and Taylor Toeka Kakala in Goma and Lisa Clifford in The Hague"
http://www.iwpr.net/?apc_state=hfrfacr343383&l=en&s=f&o=343490

"Laurent Nkunda says the government must honour its pledge to grant North
Kivu militias immunity from prosecution for acts of rebellion.

With the ceasefire in Congo's North Kivu province now on shaky ground, rebel
leaders say a promised amnesty deal is crucial if the peace is to hold.

Numerous rival militia factions in this eastern province of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, DRC, signed a peace agreement in January, but fighting
among the various groups has continued, creating an ongoing crisis for
civilian populations targeted by attacks, rape, looting and general
harassment.

As part of the deal signed in the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, the
DRC authorities promised to grant an amnesty to members of about 20 armed
groups from North and South Kivu provinces, under which they would not face
retribution for acts of war and insurrection committed during fighting in
the two provinces which has displaced and killed hundreds of thousands.

One of the groups at the epicentre of the recent violence told IWPR that it
was this promise of amnesty that brought them to the negotiating table in
the first place, and he suggested it was now time for the government to live
up to its promises.

"We fought each other and now we must work together ... [but] the only way
of getting us back to the parent's hut was to be granted amnesty," said
Laurent Nkunda, leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the
People, CNDP, one of the main warring militias in the province.

"The parent's hut" refers to the local practice where children expelled from
the home by their parents for misbehaving are allowed to return after
negotiation or asking for forgiveness.

CNDP spokesman Séraphin Mirindi insisted, "The success of [this deal] is
dependent on the respect of the amnesty granted to the mutineers."

Congo's interior minister, Denis Kalume, has promised to submit a bill to
parliament enabling the amnesty to take effect, but that has yet to happen.

Observers in DRC put the delay down to the periodic skirmishes still
breaking out among rebels in the east.

"At this point the amnesty law has not yet been developed," said Eugène Bope
Bakema, chairman of the Friends of the Law group in Congo.

The offer of forgiveness was a controversial issue at the January 6-23 peace
conference, particularly the question of whether the renegade general Nkunda
- whose troops are accused of terrible crimes and who is seen as one of the
instigators of trouble in the Kivus - should be included in the deal.

The speaker of Congo's National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe, said any amnesty
had to include Nkunda for the sake of peace.

"The amnesty is not selective or discriminatory. It concerns everyone," said
Kamerhe. "Nkunda has the same rights as the others. Why should we ask people
to put down their weapons without granting them anything?"

The amnesty was accepted by many conference participants because while it
covers acts of warfare and rebellion, it specifically excludes war crimes
and crimes against humanity.

"If among the fighters there is a person who burned villages, committed mass
killings of civilians for one or another reason, he will be pursued for
those crimes," said Kamerhe.

It is precisely such war crimes that interest the International Criminal
Court, ICC, in the Hague.

ICC prosecutors said recently they would turn their attention from the
northeastern Ituri region, where three alleged warlords have now been
charged, to other parts of DRC. They named North Kivu as a possible location
for investigations, and Nkunda as a potential target.

If and when ICC investigators arrive on the ground in the Kivu provinces, it
could be difficult for them to know where to begin. The region has been
mired in conflict for many years, with rape, murder and torture committed by
all sides.

Nkunda's troops feature prominently in many of the reports of abuses which
the ICC could investigate, as they fall squarely within its terms of
reference - war crimes and crimes against humanity committed from July 2002
onwards.

A recent United Nations report alleged that ethnic Tutsi soldiers loyal to
Nkunda killed 30 civilians in the village of Kalonge, about 100 kilometres
from Goma, in early January. The civilians, who were ethnic Hutus, were said
to have been shot, hacked with machetes and beaten with hammers.

At the time of the incident, Nkunda's representatives were in Goma attending
the peace talks, and he denies the accusations. "

2. " DRCongo rebel denies war crimes allegations: report, AFP, 26 March
2008" http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=16967

"The leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo's main rebel militia,
Laurent Nkunda, is confident of being cleared if he faces war crimes charges
in an international court, a Dutch newspaper reported Wednesday.

Nkunda, the Tutsi leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the
People (CNDP), is a former general and blamed for an insurgency against
government forces in the conflict-torn eastern province of Nord-Kivu.

The unrest was supposed to have ended under a peace accord in January.

"Any serious investigation will demonstrate my innocence ... even if I have
to go to the Hague (headquarters of the International Criminal Court, or
ICC), you will see that they have nothing against me," he said in an
interview with the Dutch daily Trouw.

Nkunda claims to be protecting the region's Tutsi minority. The authorities
in Kinshasa see him as promoting the interests of neighbouring Rwanda.

In February the ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said he was probing
"crimes committed in eastern DRCongo, in particular in the Kivu provinces,"
without naming Nkunda.

"Different options are being analysed on alleged crimes, in particular
unspeakable sex crimes committed by individuals and armed groups in the
Kivus, by the forces of Laurent Nkunda, by the FDLR (Democratic Forces for
the Liberation of Rwanda) forces, by local armed groups and individual
members of the regular army," a spokeswoman for the prosecutor, Nicola
Fletcher, told AFP."

3. Congo-Kinshasa: Le leader du BDK veut traduire le gouvernement devant la CPI,
Le Phare (RDC), 28 mars 2008
http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200803280500.html?viewall=1 (French)

« [...] Ne Muanda [Congolese deputy and leader of the politico-religious party
"Bundu dia Kongo"] demands the establishment of an independent commission of
investigation on genocide in the Bas-Congo. [...] For the massacres [committed],
he demands that the government is brought before the International Criminal
Court. »

Unofficial translation is provided by the CICC Secretariat.

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