Rape was rampant among the Congolese armed forces and militia groups, an expert on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) told judges on Thursday. Roberto Garreton, a Chilean lawyer and former United Nations special enjoy on human rights in the DRC, said that soldiers in the DRC are “allowed to do whatever.” Even in…
A witness in the Thomas Lubanga trial on Friday said children were rounded up from the streets of Bunia and conscripted into the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia. The children ranged from eight- to 15-years-old, he said. Bunia is the largest town in the Ituri region of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and…
Thomas Lubanga was the minister of defense and commander-in-chief of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), a witness said on Thursday. As UPC president, Lubanga appointed the group’s ministers and broadcasted their names on the local radio station, he said. Once the group took control of Bunia, Lubanga named himself the defense minister. “So, he…
An attempt by a rich family in Bunia to drive ethnic Lendu from their land sparked the Ituri region’s bloody ethnic conflict, according to testimony on Wednesday. Continuing his testimony from the previous day, a former political leader in Ituri told the Lubanga trial that the Savo family, ethnic Hema who were financial backers of…
The Thomas Lubanga trial resumed on Tuesday with a former political leader in the Ituri region telling the court that Uganda trained hundreds of Congolese fighters, including children, who later served in Lubanga’s militia. The witness also said Lubanga sold beans at Bunia market before he became a spokesperson for Hema ethnic militias, and later…
The violence in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo went beyond economics and ethnicity, historian Gerard Prunier told the court on Friday in the continuing trial of accused militia leader Thomas Lubanga. Responding to a question from Judge Elizabeth Odio Benito, Prunier said the conflict began as an economic one, but quickly…
While renegade leader Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) top the list of Ugandans indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), some suggest that the ICC needs to look more closely at Uganda’s earlier role in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Indeed, it is becoming increasingly possible that Ugandans could eventually appear…
Thomas Lubanga on trial at the International Criminal Court. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is the first person to be tried by the International Criminal Court. A former rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lubanga is accused of conscripting, enlisting, and using child soldiers. More
Search This Site
Archive
Useful Links
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative License.
