Is the ICC Prosecutor Ignoring Sexual Violence in the DRC?

As I have noted before, human-rights groups have consistently and justifiably criticized the ICTR for failing to take seriously the systematic sexual violence committed against women during the 1994 genocide. Similar criticisms are now being leveled at the ICC regarding its investigation of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo:

Congolese activists have launched an appeal at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute those in their country who use rape as a weapon of war.

“Why does the ICC judge (militia chief) Thomas Lubanga for enrolment of child soldiers, but not for committing sexual crimes?” said Chouchou Namegabe, who represents 50 human rights groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

“This comes as a real shock for Congolese women,” she said from the court’s home in The Hague on the occasion of Human Rights Day on Monday.

[snip]

Congolese NGOs accuse all sides of using “systematic rape” against women aged from three months to 90 as a war tactic to intimidate the enemy, and are demanding the ICC enlarge its investigations to include sexual violence.

Namegabe told the story of a woman living near Bukavu who was raped by seven Hutu militiamen in front of her five children and her husband.

They then killed her husband and forced her eldest son to rape her, before forcing her to eat the flesh of her dead children and using her as a sex slave.

“The women do not dare to go into the fields any more for fear of being raped, and those who are raped are thrown out by their husbands, and they cannot tend to the needs of their families any more,” added Kamuntu.

“The consequences are terrible: rural exodus, poverty and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases,” she warned. “The trivialisation of rape is terrifying, as women represent 70 per cent of the victims of conflict in the DR Congo,” International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) President Souhayr Belhassen said in Paris.

To be sure, the Prosecutor is investigating the situation in the Central African Republic, where sexual crimes against women significantly outnumber killings. Moreover, he has charged Germain Katanga with, inter alia, the war crime of sexual slavery.

That said, there is no question that sexual violence against women has reached epidemic proportions in the DRC. Human Rights Watch:

During five years of armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, or Congo), tens of thousands of women and girls1 were raped or otherwise subjected to sexual violence. Victims whose cases Human Rights Watch documented were as young as three years old. In a number of cases men and boys were also raped or sexually assaulted. The World Health Organization investigated the incidence of rape in the two provinces of South Kivu and Maniema and in the two cities of Goma (North Kivu province) and Kalémie (Katanga province) and concluded that some forty thousand persons had been raped.

Combatants of most armies and armed groups in eastern Congo committed acts of sexual violence both before and after the establishment of the transitional government. Alleged perpetrators include fighters of the former rebel movements, the RCD-Goma, the MLC, and RCD-ML, and soldiers of the former national army, the FAC, now all supposedly part of an integrated Congolese army. Perpetrators also include combatants of local armed groups, Mai Mai (groups resisting outside control), Burundian and Rwandan Hutu armed groups, and the ethnically-based UPC and FNI based in Ituri. Civilian and military judicial authorities and leaders of armed groups rarely punished perpetrators of these crimes. On occasion military commanders and the heads of armed groups seem to have encouraged the use of sexual violence as a way to terrorize civilians.

Given these statistics, it is more than a little unsettling that the ICC’s first trial will focus exclusively on the recruitment of child soldiers. After all, there is substantial evidence that Lubanga himself is responsible for crimes of sexual violence (and other serious crimes, such as murder) — evidence that has been brought to the Prosecutor’s attention, obviously with no effect. Here is part of a letter FIDH sent to him in July:

According to estimates by the United Nations, in the past six years more than 60,000 people have been slaughtered in Ituri alone. This reality requires that those responsible for the most serious crimes are brought to justice. As you are aware, the UPC, which Mr. Lubanga led, has committed numerous other serious crimes in Ituri including murder, torture and sexual violence. For example, in February-March 2003, UPC militias carried out a large-scale military operation called “Chikana Namukono” against the villages located between Lipri and Nyangaraye. The operation, a veritable manhunt, resulted in the killing of at least 350 persons and the complete destruction of 26 localities.

We are disappointed that nearly two years of investigation by your office in the DRC has not yielded a broader range of charges against Mr. Lubanga. Charging those responsible for the most serious crimes committed in Ituri – including, but not limited to Mr. Lubanga – with representative crimes for which there is a strong evidentiary basis is crucial for the victims of these crimes and for ending the culture of impunity in the DRC and in the Great Lakes region. We believe that the failure to include additional charges in the case against Mr. Lubanga could undercut the credibility of the ICC in the DRC.

The fact that Katanga is charged with more serious crimes, including sexual slavery and murder, compensates somewhat for the inadequate charges against Lubanga. But there is still the issue — which I have discussed before — that the Prosecutor has expressed little interest in prosecuting government soldiers for their crimes. Such selective prosecution is particularly troubling given that, as noted above, sexual violence against women is committed by government soldiers no less often, and no less systematically, than by the rebels.

One hopes that the Prosecutor will listen to the Congolese NGOs. As FIDH notes, the credibility of his investigation may well hang in the balance.