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The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains a theater of ongoing military operations and massive human rights abuse several years into its first democratically-elected regime since independence. One of the key challenges facing the DRC today is the question of how the country will address the human rights atrocities of its recent past to establish a foundation for peace and security, the rule of law and respect for human rights to prevail in the future.

Background

National elections in 2006 capped a decade of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo that began with Laurent Desire Kabila’s 1996-1997 campaign to liberate then-Zaire from the repressive rule of Mobutu Sese Seko. While large-scale fighting officially ended with the signing of a peace agreement in 2002, violence has continued unabated in numerous local conflicts in the country’s east.

The wars in eastern Congo have been described as the deadliest since World War II; an estimated 5.4 million deaths have occurred in Congo between August 1998 and April 2007, mostly as a result of war-induced deprivation and exposure.

All sides to the conflict have committed flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, including targeting civilians for murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, forced displacement, recruitment of child soldiers and abduction of civilians. A state of near impunity exists for perpetrators.

ICTJ Activity

ICTJ is engaged in a two-year program to lay the essential groundwork for an informed national debate in the DRC on how best to face this record of massive human rights abuse. To this end, ICTJ is advising on the following mechanisms for Congolese society to pursue in order to achieve accountability and peace for the DRC’s future:

Criminal Prosecutions: To break the cycle of impunity, the Congolese national judicial system must be reinforced to prosecute those responsible for major human rights atrocities. ICTJ is working with the Ministry of Justice and major international donors pursuing judicial sector reform to achieve that goal. This involves raising awareness about the appropriate national legal framework for prosecuting international war crimes in the domestic legal system, including the prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes. Having developed recommendations for amending the Rome Statute implementation bill currently pending before the Congolese parliament, ICTJ is engaged in an advocacy campaign to promote the adoption of this legislation.

ICTJ has undertaken an evaluation of the military court system and its experience to date with international crimes trials. As a result, ICTJ has developed a report with recommendations and is collaborating with Congolese actors to promote reform of relevant texts governing the military justice system.

ICTJ also raises awareness of the role the International Criminal Court (ICC) and international justice can play to a broad-ranging strategy to fight impunity and establish accountability for past crimes in the DRC.

Truth-seeking: Mechanisms that establish a historical record of past human rights atrocities and enforce measures of accountability and responsibility are an important complement to judicial prosecutions. ICTJ played a critical role in observing and denouncing the severely flawed Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which operated during the Congolese transition from July 2003 through February 2007.

ICTJ continues to build civil-society capacity for documenting and archiving past human rights violations. To this end, ICTJ convened a meeting of international members of the Documentation Affinity Group with leading Congolese human rights advocates to discuss documentation and archiving strategies. ICTJ also invited experts from Benetech to train and advise select civil society actors on the Martus software and improved methods of securing human rights documentation and generating analysis from human rights databases. ICTJ also provided advice and support to the Human Rights and Justice Mapping exercise undertaken by the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), playing a critical facilitating and liaison role between the Justice Mapping team and Congolese civil society actors.

Institutional Reform: ICTJ advocates for and advises initiatives seeking to reform the various security services. ICTJ organized several training programs in 2009 of leading civil society actors to raise awareness of the links between transitional justice and security system reform (SSR), particularly police reform. ICTJ is engaged in ongoing advocacy on army and police reform, seeking to infuse a justice-sensitive approach to SSR by advocating for the identification and removal of past human rights abusers from the army, police and other security forces and create ongoing accountability mechanisms in these sectors.

Reparations and Memorialization: ICTJ supports victims’ right to reparations and promotes local, national and international reparations initiatives. This includes advocating for the enforcement of the International Court of Justice’s decision holding Uganda liable to pay the DRC reparations for the human rights and humanitarian law violations illegally perpetrated by Ugandan armed forces on Congolese soil. ICTJ convened an initial workshop on memorialization in March 2008 and is assessing further local initiatives to create memorials for victims of mass atrocities.

Gender: Rape and sexual violence are endemic to the ongoing conflict in the DRC. Ending impunity for these crimes must be addressed. ICTJ is committed to promoting the inclusion of the special needs and concerns of women and girl victims in the national dialogue on justice and accountability.

ICC Prosecutions and the DRC

While ICTJ promotes national efforts to prosecute war crimes in Congolese courts, international justice through the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a welcome complement to break the cycle of impunity.

In 2004, the Congolese government invited the ICC to investigate and prosecute war crimes that have occurred in the DRC since July 1, 2002. ICTJ supports the ICC’s work to prosecute serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the DRC but has encouraged the ICC to improve its outreach and information dissemination in the DRC. ICTJ continues to monitor the impact of the ICC prosecutions in the DRC and to advocate for a national dialogue on transitional justice to establish additional mechanisms to combat impunity for past crimes committed in the DRC.

The ICC has issued four arrest warrants concerning the conflict in the Ituri district of the DRC, for the following suspects:

• Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, alleged leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) and commander-in-chief of its military wing, the Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo (FPLC). Lubanga was transferred to ICC custody in 2006The court accused Lubanga of enlisting and conscripting child soldiers from September 2002 to August 2003.
• Germain Katanga, alleged commander of the Force de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI) and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, alleged former leader of the Front National Intégrationiste (FNI). The ICC joined the cases of these two suspects and began its trial against them for multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in November 2009.
• Bosco Ntaganda, alleged former deputy chief of the general staff of the FPLC and alleged former chief of staff of the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP). The ICC unsealed an arrest warrant for Ntaganda on charges focusing on recruitment of child soldiers during the Ituri conflict in 2002-2003. Although the DRC government previously requested the UN peacekeeping mission’s assistance in the arrest, Ntaganda remains at large.

In addition to the four ICC cases concerning the Ituri conflict in the DRC, the ICC has arrested another Congolese suspected war criminal for crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) -- a conflict with regional dimensions:

• Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, leading Congolese opposition figure, president of the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC), senator and former vice-president. Bemba was arrested in Belgium in May 2008 on an ICC arrest warrant charging him with war crimes committed in CAR in 2002-2003. Bemba was transferred to ICC custody in The Hague in July 2008 and his trial at the ICC will begin in April 2010.

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(Updated February 2010)