Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts

Sunday, October 31, 2010

ICC - France arrests Rwandan rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana in Paris for war crimes committed in DR Congo’s Kivu province in 2009

ACTING on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), French police arrested Callixte Mbarushimana, vice-president of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), on Monday, 11 October 2010, in his Paris apartment. He stands charged of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in DRC in 2009.

The ICC alleges that Mbarushimana planned a series of crimes from his base in France with the intention of creating a humanitarian catastrophe, then extorting concessions of political power from the international community.

Almost two million people are internally displaced in eastern DRC’s Kivu provinces, in large part due to the activities of the FDLR.

Full story below.



Photo: Callixte Mbarushimana, seen here in 2004 (AFP)

Analysis: Rebel leader’s arrest just one step in fight against impunity in DRC
Source: IRIN - www.irinnews.org
Date: Thursday, 21 October 2010:
(LONDON) - The recent arrest in Europe of a senior Rwandan militia leader is a welcome step in the fight against impunity in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but real progress in the protection of civilians depends on the apprehension of commanders on the ground, according to analysts.

Acting on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), French police arrested Callixte Mbarushimana, vice-president of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), on 11 October in Paris. He stands charged of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in DRC in 2009.

Almost two million people are internally displaced in eastern DRC’s Kivu provinces, in large part due to the activities of the FDLR.

International and local human rights groups applauded Mbarushimana’s arrest which comes after a long and controversial military campaign to stamp out the Hutu-dominated group that formed in DRC after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

But they suggest impact on the ground - where a brutal campaign of murder and rape allegedly committed by FDLR soldiers has blighted the lives of civilians - will be minimal.

“It is clear from the latest military operations that the FDLR is weakened, and the arrest of individuals in Europe just weakens them even further,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“But will it stop them attacking civilians? I fear not. I think that we’ve seen in the past that it doesn’t have an immediate impact on behaviour on the ground, because there has been this division between the political movement [in Europe] and the military leadership in the field.”

Mbarushimana took over the FDLR’s political wing following the November 2009 arrests of FDLR President Ignace Murwanashyaka and his deputy Straton Musoni in Germany. They remain in German custody charged, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, with bearing command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by FDLR troops eastern DRC.

ICC allegations

The ICC alleges that Mbarushimana planned a series of crimes from his base in France with the intention of creating a humanitarian catastrophe, then extorting concessions of political power from the international community.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said the latest arrest could help demobilize the FDLR “After 16 years of continuous violence, this could be an opportunity to finally demobilize the group,” said ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo in a press release. “Their leaders are gone.”

But not everyone is convinced that FDLR will give up their fight so easily. Fidel Bafilemba, the eastern DRC field researcher for the Enough Project, says the soldiers on the ground care little for international warrants for European leaders. “Why should this [latest] arrest make a difference that the arrest of Ignace Murwanashyaka didn't make?” he said.

In fact, one of the most shocking incidents in DRC’s recent history occurred long after Murwanashyaka and Musoni were taken into custody - the rape of hundreds of women near Walikale in August, allegedly by FDLR soldiers and their Congolese Mayi-Mayi allies.

Many recent atrocities attributed to the FDLR have come in apparent response to the military campaigns against them by the Rwandan and DRC armies assisted by the UN peace-keeping force in DRC, known as MONUSCO (formerly MONUC).

“What I fear with FDLR is that they have shown when under military pressure they attack Congolese civilians,” said Van Woudenberg. “The recent rapes in Walikale are a prime example of the FDLR and their Mayi Mayi allies punishing Congolese people for their perceived support for these military operations against them.”

Independent DRC analyst Jason Stearns describes the military approach to date as clumsy and says it has worsened the humanitarian catastrophe in the east. He is also unconvinced that targeting Europe-based FDLR will stamp out the rebels.

“We should crack down on the diaspora, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that in the larger scheme of things it’s not going to be by any stretch of the imagination the key factor in dealing with the FDLR,” said Stearns, the former head of the UN Group of Experts on Congo. “There are other much more important issues to deal with than the diaspora.”

He believes that MONUSCO and others should be reaching out to the commanders on the ground who were not involved in the Rwandan genocide - many of whom are tired of life in the forest and the constant military pressure. “There has been relatively little outreach to them,” he said.

“We need to find out who the genocidaires [those who took part in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide] are in the FDLR, but we just don’t know. It’s hard to engage in this outreach to commanders if you are operating with this lack of information.”

DRC army accused of crimes against humanity Stearns proposes third country exile for FDLR members found not to be involved in violations of international law and who do not want to return to Rwanda.

“Powerful signal”

International Crisis Group’s central Africa senior analyst, Guillaume Lacaille, agrees that military offensives alone will not end the violence and that FDLR military leaders in the field should be given the opportunity to relocate, but within the DRC.

“Those who accept to leave the FDLR could be relocated in a western province of the Congo in exchange for disarmament, rather than accept immediate repatriation to Rwanda,” he said.

Lacaille, however, insists the arrest of Mbarushimana and the others is also an important part of the process of bringing peace to eastern DRC.

“It sends a powerful signal that directing from Europe a criminal group operating in Congo will have serious consequences,” he said. “In the past, leaders of armed groups were led to believe that they could operate safely from comfortable Western capitals. The ICC and the governments of Germany and France demonstrated clearly that it is not possible any more.”

Enough’s Bafilemba also sees the new ICC case as a positive step towards ending impunity in DRC, but expects more from the court. That means warrants for crimes committed by all sides in the conflict including the national army which this week came under pressure from Margot Wallstrom, the UN envoy on sexual violence in conflict, who accused its soldiers of murdering and raping villagers in Walikale.

Van Woudenberg, meanwhile, is calling on the Rwandan government to do its part in ending the violence.

“As long as the political space in Rwanda is not opened up to the Hutu, the problem of the FDLR will continue,” she said. The lasting solution to this problem of Hutu and their political space is Rwanda and Rwanda will need to open this political space.”

Rwandan President Paul Kagame responded to this oft-voiced view in his 6 October swearing-in speech that followed his 93 percent landslide victory in an August election:

“…That there is no political space … what do you mean? The political space is well and fully occupied by the people of this country. And if the people of this country has spoken in such numbers and freely, who are you to question anything they have said? Where do you come from? From Mars?” lc/am/cb
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A Win Against Impunity: Callixte Mbarushimana Arrested in Paris
Source: warcrimes.foreignpolicyblogs.com
Written by: Brandon Henander
Date: Tuesday, 12 October 2010. Excerpt:
[...] What many find most offensive is that Mbarushimana was a U.N. employee during the Rwandan genocide; he used that priviledge to further the genocide by identifying employees to be killed, identifying safe-havens designated by the U.N. and evacuation points to Hutu militias; and personally carried out genocidal murders himself. Up to a dozen eye witnesses have come forward testifying that Mbarushimana supervised killings of Tutsis during the genocide and/or pulled the trigger himself.

The ICTR failed to sign his indictment in 2001 alleging that his role in the genocide was not large enough to warrant prosecution in front of the special tribunal, even though he was implicated in over 30 murders and grossly abused his position as an international civil servant. Unfortunately he went on to help mastermind killings and other war crimes and crimes against humanity that rose to the level of severity worthy of consideration before an international criminal venue.
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Related Reports
  1. Court refuses to release Callixte Mbarushimana from detention


    Rwanda News Agency (registration) - 3 days ago
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

DR Congo: Germany arrests top Rwanda rebels FDLR leader Ignace Murwanashyaka & deputy Straton Musoni

Ignace Murwanashyaka, the leader of the FDLR rebel group, and his aide Straton Musoni were held on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Source: BBC News at 17:52 GMT, Tuesday, 17 November 2009. Copy:
Germany arrests top Rwanda rebels

Ignace Murwanashyaka, leader of FDLR rebel group

Mr Murwanashyaka has lived in Germany for several years

Police in Germany have arrested two Rwandan militia leaders on suspicion of crimes committed in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ignace Murwanashyaka, the leader of the FDLR rebel group, and his aide Straton Musoni were held on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

FDLR leaders fled to DR Congo after the Rwanda genocide in which some 800,000 people - mostly ethnic Tutsis - died.

The FDLR's presence in DR Congo has been at the heart of years of unrest.

The arrests come as UN peacekeepers continue to help the Congolese army battle the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda).

The operation has been underway since January but the FDLR remains active.

The FDLR is accused of funding its arms purchases by smuggling gold and other minerals from areas it controls in the North and South Kivu provinces, just across the border from Rwanda.

Mr Murwanaskyaka, 46, was arrested in the city of Karlsruhe, while 48-year-old Mr Musoni was held in the Stuttgart area, German prosecutors said in a statement.

The statement said that the pair were the leader and deputy leader of the FDLR.

"The accused are strongly suspected, as members of the foreign terrorist organisation FDLR, of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes," it said.

It added that "FDLR militias are believed to have killed several hundred civilians, raped numerous women, plundered and burned countless villages, forcing villagers from their homes and recruiting numerous children as soldiers".

'Brutal crimes'

Lobby group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has welcomed the arrests.

"Our research clearly indicates that Mr Murwanashyaka has a powerful influence over the FDLR militia who have deliberately targeted and killed hundreds of civilians in eastern Congo and that he is directly linked to the crimes," said HRW DR Congo expert Anneke Van Woudenberg.

EYEWITNESS
Mark Doyle, BBC News

There is no doubt that Ignace Murwanashyaka has had direct command and control over some of the illegal mining activities of Rwandan rebels operating in eastern DR Congo.

I know, because when I travelled in the area earlier this year with a BBC team, it was he who gave us permission to enter the rebel mining strongholds in the South Kivu region.

I had sought permission from rebel officers on the ground. All of these officers declined to give us permission to enter their area until Mr Murwanashyaka agreed.

It was a public relations gaffe on the rebels' part, however, because we managed to prove, despite rebel denials, that they were deeply involved in illegal mineral mining.

From rebel areas to beer can

"Mr Murwanashyaka's arrest on war crimes and crimes against humanity is a welcome step to bringing justice for these brutal crimes," she added.

Mr Murwanashyaka, an ethnic Hutu, has lived in Germany since before the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

He has always denied that his men, believed to number 5-6,000, were involved in the genocide and says they are fighting to bring democracy to Rwanda.

He was among 15 people whose assets were frozen by the Security Council in 2005 on suspicion of involvement in war crimes in Rwanda or DR Congo.

The FDLR's presence in eastern DR Congo has led to years of fighting in the region, and Rwanda's Tutsi-dominated government has twice invaded, saying it is trying to wipe them out.

Some FDLR leaders have been accused of involvement in the Rwandan genocide.

IGNACE MURWANASHYAKA
Ethnic Hutu, aged 46
Been in Germany since before Rwanda genocide
Denies charges his men are linked to genocide
Says fighting for democracy in Rwanda
Commands 5-6,000 men
FDLR said to smuggle gold from DR Congo to buy weapons
Accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity
Accused of killings, rape, looting and conscripting child soldiers in DR Congo

Congo gold 'still funding' rebels