WUNRN
Women's Initiatives for Gender
Justice
GENDER REPORT CARD ON THE
ICC-INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT 2012
On 15 November 2012, the Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice launched
the Gender Report Card on the International Criminal Court 2012,
a Special Edition of the Gender Report Card on the International Criminal
Court, during the eleventh session of the ICC Assembly of States Parties in
The Hague. This Special edition marks ten years since the entry into force of
the Rome Statute, in 2002. The Gender Report Card 2012 provides the most
comprehensive gender analysis of the ICC currently available.
Attended by more than 110 delegates to the meeting of the Assembly of States
Parties (ASP), including the President of the ASP, Ambassador Tiina Intelmann,
the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, and the Registrar of the
Court, Silvana Arbia, the launch highlighted the major developments at the ICC
over the past 12 months.
The Gender Report Card 2012 reviews the key judicial decisions, the
issuance of arrest warrants and construction of charges from a gender justice
perspective. The Gender Report Card 2012 also examines the Court's
internal policies, recruitment and personnel statistics, its institutional
development, and the work of the independent bodies such as the Trust Fund for
Victims and the Office of the Public Counsel for Victims. It contains detailed
recommendations to the Court and the ICC Assembly of States Parties.
Direct Link to Full 300-Page Report: http://www.iccwomen.org/documents/Gender-Report-Card-on-the-ICC-2012.pdf
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Human Rights Watch
Prosecutor
Should Step Up Investigations in DR Congo Cases
(The Hague) – The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) acquittal on December
18, 2012, of a Congolese rebel leader on all charges should re-energize efforts
to prosecute others for atrocities in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
The three judges of Trial Chamber II of the International
Criminal Court found insufficient evidence to establish “beyond reasonable
doubt” that Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui was responsible for war crimes and crimes
against humanity during an attack on the village of Bogoro in the Democratic
Republic of Congo’s Ituri district, in February 2003. That attack was the
trial’s sole focus.
“The acquittal of Ngudjolo leaves the victims of Bogoro and other
massacres by his forces without justice for their suffering,” said Géraldine Mattioli-Zeltner,
International Justice Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch. “The
ICC prosecutor needs to strengthen its investigations of those responsible for
grave crimes in Ituri, including high-ranking officials in Congo, Rwanda, and
Uganda who supported the armed groups fighting there.”
Ngudjolo was the former chief of staff of the Front for National Integration
(FNI), an armed group largely made up of combatants from the Lendu ethnic
group. The FNI and their allies battled the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC),
a militia largely consisting of ethnic Hema combatants that was led by Thomas
Lubanga. Lubanga
was the first person to be tried at the ICC and was convicted in March of
recruiting and using child soldiers during the Ituri conflict.
Congolese authorities arrested Ngudjolo in the capital, Kinshasa, in February
2008 while he was undergoing military training following his official
appointment as a colonel in the Congolese army. In November 2009 his trial was
joined with that of Germain Katanga – the leader of an allied militia, the
Patriotic Force of Resistance in Ituri (FRPI) – which allegedly also
participated in the Bogoro massacre.
In the judgment, the judges found that the prosecution had failed to
demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that Ngudjolo was the leader of the Lendu
combatants at the time of the Bogoro attack in 2003. Given this finding, the
judges declined to examine whether Ngudjolo had taken part in a common plan to
conduct an attack on Bogoro. The judges stressed that their finding about
Ngudjolo's responsibility does not mean "that crimes were not committed in
Bogoro on 24 February, 2003 nor does it question what the people of this
community have suffered on that day."
“The newly elected prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and the court’s outreach unit
should explain the meaning of this decision, as well as next steps, to affected
communities in eastern Congo, particularly those who suffered at the hands of
FNI forces,” Mattioli-Zeltner said. “Given the judges’ comments on the
insufficient evidence produced during the trial, Bensouda, should speed up
efforts to improve investigative practices and prosecutorial policy.”
At last month’s ICC Assembly of States Parties session in The Hague, Bensouda
stated her commitment to improving investigations by the Office of the
Prosecutor.
The prosecutor has 30 days to appeal the judges’ decision to acquit Ngudjolo.
On November 21, 2012, the court decided to separate the cases of Ngudjolo and
Katanga, who were both accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for
the Bogoro massacre and to re-qualify the mode of liability under which Katanga
is held criminally responsible. Katanga’s defense has indicated it will seek to
appeal this decision. In light of these developments, a verdict against Katanga
is not expected for several months.
Evidence presented at the trial corroborated findings by Human Rights Watch
about the role of high-ranking military and political officials in Kinshasa and
in Uganda in providing strategic direction, and financial and military support
to the FNI and FRPI. In particular, the trial exposed a covert military
operation that began around September 2002, coordinated by the Congolese army
under a secret structure known as the integrated operational military command
(or EMOI). The secret structure planned military operations and provided
weapons, soldiers, and financial support to Congo’s allies in Ituri, including
the FNI and the FRPI, among others.
The Ituri conflict from 1999 to 2005 and subsequent other conflicts in eastern
Congo have also been marked by the participation of non-Congolese forces. Ituri
became a battleground involving Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo. These governments
provided political and military support to Congolese armed groups despite
abundant evidence of their widespread violations of international humanitarian
law. It is crucial for the ICC to
investigate those behind the armed groups in Ituri in order to bring
justice to Congo’s victims, Human Rights Watch said.
Current events in North Kivu have raised similar considerations. A rebellion by
the M23 group that began in April is backed by Rwandan military officials, who
have provided weapons, recruits, financing, and other types of direct military
support. The M23 has committed widespread war crimes. One of its leaders is Bosco Ntaganda,
wanted by the ICC since 2006 on charges of recruiting and using child soldiers,
as well as murder, pillage, and rape allegedly committed in Ituri in 2002-2003,
while he was Lubanga’s right-hand man.
“Militias in Ituri, such as Ngudjolo’s FNI, did not act alone – just as
Ntaganda’s M23 is not acting alone today in terrorizing the Congolese
population,” Mattioli-Zeltner said. “The ICC prosecutor should ensure that
justice is done by giving greater attention to senior officials who arm,
finance, and support abusive armed groups in eastern Congo.”
Ngudjolo’s case is the second to reach the judgment phase at the ICC, which
began operations in 2003. Another trial, related to the Central African
Republic, is under way. An additional trial is scheduled to start in 2013, in
relation to Kenya, and a hearing to confirm the charges against former Ivory
Coast president Laurent Gbagbo is set to start in February 2013.
Background
In the course of the armed conflict that afflicted the Ituri district of
eastern Congo between 1999 and 2005, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, a nurse by
profession, became a senior military leader in the ethnic Lendu armed group
known as the Front for National Integration (FNI), in 2003 holding the position
of military chief of staff. The fighting in Ituri between 1999 and 2005
resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom were
killed in ethnic massacres, the widespread rape of women and girls, torture,
and the forced recruitment of children. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were
forced to flee their homes.
In October 2003, Ngudjolo was arrested with the assistance of United Nations
peacekeepers in Bunia, Ituri’s capital, for the killing of a businessman linked
to a rival armed group. The government later accused Ngudjolo of war crimes for
a massacre committed by FNI troops in the town of Tchomia in May 2003 and
transferred him from Bunia to Makala prison in Kinshasa.
In 2005, after the downfall of some of the FNI’s top political and military
leaders, Ngudjolo helped to form a new armed group consisting of the remnants
of previous militia groups. The new group became known as the Congolese
Revolutionary Movement (Mouvement Révolutionnaire Congolais or MRC).
In mid-2006, Ngudjolo signed an agreement with the Congolese government for the
disarmament and integration of MRC forces under his command into the national
army. He also joined with the rank of colonel. No further investigations were
carried out into his involvement in grave human rights abuses. In November
2007, Ngudjolo left Bunia to pursue military training in Kinshasa, where he was
arrested in February 2008 in response to the ICC arrest warrant.
The FNI and its allied militia, the FRPI, received military and financial support
from Uganda, and from late 2002, from the Congolese government in Kinshasa as
it attempted to regain territory won by Lubanga’s militia, the Rwanda-backed
UPC. While Ugandan forces were in Congo in 2003, they carried out joint
military operations with the FNI and FRPI. In 2002 and 2003, the FNI and FRPI
also benefited from military training and support from a national rebel group,
the Congolese Rally for Democracy - Liberation Movement (Rassemblement
congolais pour la democratie - Mouvement de libération or RCD-ML), then led by
Mbusa Nyamwisi, who later occupied high-level political positions in Kinshasa,
including foreign affairs minister from 2007 to 2008.
The trial of Ngudjolo and Katanga started on November 24, 2009. They were
charged as indirect co-perpetrators on seven counts of war crimes and three
counts of crimes against humanity. The Office of the Prosecutor called 24
witnesses and the defense teams for Katanga and Ngudjolo respectively called 17
and 11 witnesses. The accused themselves appeared as witnesses – a first at the
ICC. Ngudjolo’s defense team rested its case on November 11, 2011, less than
two years after the start of the trial.