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DRC: ICC Outreach in Ituri; Child Soldier Report; News Articles

24 Sept 2008

Dear all,

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

This message includes a press release on ICC outreach to victims south
of Bunia, Ituri as well as information on a new child soldiers report
and several news articles.

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.

With regards,

CICC Communications
[email protected] <mailto:communications@;coalitionfortheicc.org>

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I. ICC PRESS RELEASE

This document has been produced by the ICC- OTP. The CICC Secretariat
distributes it as part of its mandate to keep member organizations and
individuals informed about developments related to the ICC. The
documents do not reflect the views of the CICC as a whole or its
individual members.


"ICC extends outreach to victims of conflict to the south of Bunia,
Ituri (DRC)," 9 September 2008,
http://www.icc-cpi.int/press/pressreleases/419.html <http://www.icc-cpi.int/press/pressreleases/419.html>

"On 7 and 8 September 2008, the Outreach Unit of the International
Criminal Court (ICC) held two information days for the populations of
Mwanga and Gongo villages, located more than 25 km to the south of
Bunia (in Ituri).

Over 280 persons - mainly female victims of war, members of civil
society, elders, and members of Catholic and Protestant congregations
- were, for the first time, able to receive information on the role
and activities of the ICC in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in
general and in Ituri in particular. This was also an opportunity for
them to express their interest in the fight against impunity and their
concerns regarding issues such as the mechanisms for identifying
victims and modalities governing victim participation in the various
stages of the proceedings, as well as the slow pace of judicial
proceedings and the prosecution of other warlords in Ituri.
This exchange of information was followed by a lively debate, largely
concerning the current state of affairs in the Kivus. The debate
enabled a number of issues to be addressed at the same time as
providing an opportunity to gauge the expectations of the
participants. The villages of Mwanga and Gongo are inhabited largely
by the Lendus and Babiras, and were the scene of deadly attacks during
the armed conflicts in Ituri."

II. CHILD SOLDIERS REPORT

"A fragile peace : child soldiers between justice and armed groups in
eastern DRC," ("Devant la paix fragile, les enfants soldats sont
entre la Justice et les groupes armés à l'Est de la R D Congo,")
Vision Gram International, 28 September 2008,
http://coalitionfortheicc.org/documents/Vision_Gram_child_soldier_report_sept_08.pdf <http://coalitionfortheicc.org/documents/Vision_Gram_child_soldier_report_sept_08.pdf>
(in French)

Informal Summary: This report on child soldiers issued by Vision Gram
International offers several recommendations and calls on the ICC to
help the Congolese government arrest Laurent Nkunda and transfer him to The Hague; the international community to assist the ICC in its fight against impunity by getting closer to the victims and putting pressure on perpetrators to stop their crimes; and local NGOs to monitor the violations of children rights in conflict zones. The report also considers the question of whether the "ICC represents a threat to child soldier recruiters."

III. NEWS ARTICLES

i. "Amnesty Controversy Grows: As fighting in east of country
continues to rage, observers question recent decision to offer rebels
an amnesty," by Taylor Toeka Kakala (IWPR), 22 August 2008,
http://www.iwpr.net/?apc_state=hfrfacr346331&l=en&s=f&o=346509 <http://www.iwpr.net/?apc_state=hfrfacr346331&l=en&s=f&o=346509>

"With the ceasefire being broken almost daily in North Kivu, many are
asking whether an amnesty law should have been passed by the Congolese
parliament last month.

The legislation which pardons acts of war and rebellion in the
troubled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC - a region
ravaged by years of conflict - was passed by parliament on July 12.

The amnesty was the main condition imposed by rebel groups for signing
a peace deal and was billed by many involved in the process as the
only way to end fighting in the east. The legislation passed easily
with 257 votes in favour, 49 against and 30 abstentions.

However, as the ceasefire in North Kivu is flouted almost every day,
and all armed groups are reportedly recruiting new fighters, many are
questioning whether it should have been voted on at all..."

ii. "UN Sexual Misconduct Allegations Won't Go Away," by Taylor Toeka
Kakala in Goma and Lisa Clifford in The Hague (IWPR), 12 September
2008, http://www.iwpr.net/?apc_state=hfrfacr346657&l=en&s=f&o=346697 <http://www.iwpr.net/?apc_state=hfrfacr346657&l=en&s=f&o=346697>

"Soldiers implicated in abuses have been sent back to India, but
locals say prostitution remains rife at peacekeeping base....The
United Nations confirmed last month that an internal investigation had
uncovered credible evidence that members of an Indian unit stationed
in North Kivu province `may have engaged in sexual exploitation and
abuse'.

...The Congo peacekeeping force has been beset with bad publicity in
recent years, with 140 cases implicating soldiers in prostitution or
sexual abuse recorded in 2004-06.

News that the Indian contingent was accused of abusing young girls
came to light last month after an investigation by the UN's Office of
the Internal Oversight Services.

With no power to prosecute, the UN has handed details of the
allegations to the Indian authorities, who are responsible for the
troops they contribute to the peacekeeping mission, and will decide
whether to pursue the case further...."

iii. "Five Activists Win Human Rights Watch Awards: Honored for
Courage in Exposing Abuse and Seeking Justice," Human Rights Watch, 15
September 2008,
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/15/global19810_txt.htm <http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/15/global19810_txt.htm>

"Five brave and selfless advocates of human rights from Burma, Congo,
Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan have been awarded the
prestigious 2008 Human Rights Defender Awards, Human Rights Watch said
today. All five have been persecuted and threatened for their work...
Mathilde Muhindo, who works to stop the use of rape as a weapon of war
in Democratic Republic of Congo...'Women and children are paying
dearly for the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo,' said Mathilde
Muhindo. `Sexual violence in eastern provinces should be seen in its
proper contexts - a war within a war. A war against women.'

Muhindo, once a member of Congo's parliament, works to support rape
victims in South Kivu, in eastern Congo, which has been ravaged by
armed conflict for over 10 years, up to today. She draws attention to
the widespread and systematic use of sexual violence by government
troops and armed groups - including sexual slavery, gang rape and
mutilation - and to the disastrous consequences for the victims.

As director of the Olame Centre, a nongovernmental women's rights
organization, Muhindo provides urgently needed psychological and
practical assistance to victims of abuse and empowers women to fight
against pervasive discrimination and sexual violence. To address the
crisis - tens of thousands of women and girls have been raped - she
also founded a parliamentary committee to investigate rape as a weapon
of war.

In partnership with Human Rights Watch and other groups, Muhindo has
pressed the European Union, the United States, and others to address
ongoing atrocities in eastern Congo. She led a coalition of local
women's organizations that advocated successfully for a comprehensive
law on sexual violence. Muhindo has faced death threats for her work,
but refuses to be silenced. Human Rights Watch honors Muhindo for her
unfaltering dedication to the safety, health, and rights of eastern
Congo's most vulnerable, and often forgotten, women."

iv. "Interactive radio for justice," by Eric Beauchemin (Radio
Netherlands Worldwide),19 Septembre 2008,
http://www.rnw.nl/internationaljustice/icc/DRC/tswi-080919-radio-justice <http://www.rnw.nl/internationaljustice/icc/DRC/tswi-080919-radio-justice>

"Radio continues to be one of the most effective technologies when it
comes to promoting human rights in war zones. This is particularly
true for Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, has been at
war for most of the past decade. The warring parties signed a peace
agreement six months ago, but the east of the country continues to be
plagued by violence.

One local radio programme is trying to raise awareness about human
rights, justice and reconciliation. Interactive Radio for Justice, as
it's called, records questions from ordinary people and then puts them
to DRC authorities or representatives from the International Criminal
Court that is carrying out investigations into serious human rights
abuses in the area.

The radio station has set up six listening groups. People get together
to listen to the programmes and discuss their questions on justice.
The station tries to send journalists to these meetings on a regular
basis to record questions for the programme. But the area is so vast
that they aren't able to send a journalist to every meeting, says the
program's director Wanda Hall.

`So when people want one of their questions to be addressed on the
programme, they send us an SMS with the question. We then send a
journalist to record their question'.

The station's staff sorts out all the questions and decides who the
most senior official would be to answer each question. Interactive
Radio for Justice works on the principle that every question recorded
gets an answer on air. The power of the programme is that everyone
gets to hear the authorities' answer and this gives it legitimacy.

The questions they receive vary widely, says Wanda Hall. `They deal
with local, national and international justice questions as well as
human rights and civil liberty issues. For example, must the victim of
sexual violence provide a medical certificate to the prosecutor in
order to make a complaint? Or must victims wait until the end of the
trial to receive reparations from the ICC?...'"

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CICC's policy on the referral and prosecution of situations before the
ICC:

The Coalition for the ICC is not an organ of the court. The CICC is an
independent NGO movement dedicated to the establishment of the
International
Criminal Court as a fair, effective, and independent international
organization.

The Coalition will continue to provide the most up-to-date information
about the
ICC and to help coordinate global action to effectively implement the Rome
Statute of the ICC. The Coalition will also endeavour to respond to basic
queries and to raise awareness about the ICC's trigger mechanisms and
procedures, as they develop. The Coalition as a whole, and its
secretariat, do
not endorse or promote specific investigations or prosecutions or take a
position on situations before the ICC. However, individual CICC
members may
endorse referrals, provide legal and other support on investigations,
or develop
partnerships with
local and other organizations in the course of their efforts.

Communications to the ICC can be sent to:

ICC
P.O. box 19519
2500 CM the Hague
The Netherlands