A Congolese warlord accused of conscripting child soldiers who had lived as an international fugitive for years surrendered to the United States Embassy in Rwanda on Monday and asked to be transferred to the International Criminal Court, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said.
The move marks a major advance in efforts to prosecute Bosco Ntaganda, who had become a symbol of impunity in Africa as he played tennis and lived in an upscale villa in eastern Congo despite the international warrants for his arrest.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that Ntaganda walked into the U.S. Embassy in Kigali on Monday and asked to be transferred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands. She said the U.S. was consulting with the Rwandan government.
“We want to facilitate that request,” she said. “We strongly support the work that the ICC is doing to investigate the atrocities committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And we are going to continue to work with the ICC on this matter.”
Canadian_Coat said:
I'll be interested to see why it is he has turned himself in
I could not care less about someone who commits crimes against humanity such as genocide and any number of human rights abuses.
A more important question to ask might be "why has the world permitted this?"
You're not at all curious about the details of his surrender? Seems like knowing the circumstances might yield clues about how to get the other warlords to turn themselves in, or at least create a more complete picture of what's happening.
The answer to your question is complex. Other countries have stepped in many times to interfere with the Congo and it has never so far turned out well for the Congolese.
i, for one, am very interested in why this guy decided to come in, particularly now. The title of "warlord" means he was at the very top of the mountain, unbeholden to anyone. What would cause someone like that to voluntarily submit themselves to the ICC? Is he sick? Did his army get wiped out and this was his bolt-hole?
Coyote_ said:
i, for one, am very interested in why this guy decided to come in, particularly now. The title of "warlord" means he was at the very top of the mountain, unbeholden to anyone. What would cause someone like that to voluntarily submit themselves to the ICC? Is he sick? Did his army get wiped out and this was his bolt-hole?
mydogfarted said:
I'm going to say serious illness, like cancer. Something he knows he can't get proper care for in Congo, but will get in custody.
This is pretty much why I'm interested. Generally a person who know's they can't be touched, living well off (at the cost of killing others), doesn't just say "ok, I want to go to jail now."
Thistle said:
The answer to your question is complex. Other countries have stepped in many times to interfere with the Congo and it has never so far turned out well for the Congolese.
for instance: genocide in the modern world? offer a rough guess of how many places on earth have genocide happening right now as we discuss this individual showboat has-been.
I completely understand people who feel nothing about cultivating child soldiers and deliberately pursue violating international definitions of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
this tv show might enlighten this CE dialogue about why he turned himself in.
Thistle said:
The answer to your question is complex. Other countries have stepped in many times to interfere with the Congo and it has never so far turned out well for the Congolese.
I like complex discussions.
for instance: genocide in the modern world? offer a rough guess of how many places on earth have genocide happening right now as we discuss this individual showboat has-been.
Well, you're more than welcome to start threads about the topics you do care about. Coming into a thread just to say you don't care about the subject of the thread is kind of a waste of time though. I'm interested in this guy and why he turned himself in and what that means or doesn't mean for the region. You're not really adding anything to this complex discussion by saying it doesn't matter why he turned himself in. You could at least explain why you consider him irrelevant.
I completely understand people who feel nothing about cultivating child soldiers and deliberately pursue violating international definitions of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
Really? Because I'm not sure I understand them at all. I feel understanding their motives and the context of their actions might help the world prevent situations like what's happening in the Congo, though.
Can you tell us a little bit about the TV show you posted?
The simplest, but by no means only, explanation floating around for his change of heart is that he may have preferred a European jail cell to an African coffin. For the past few weeks, there has been infighting within Ntaganda's rebel group, the so-called M23, and this Saturday his faction suffered a crushing defeat. He was a marked man.
Other close observers of the region speculate that the Rwandan government also wanted him dead.
"[Bosco] knows all of the secrets," said Laura Seay, a professor at Morehouse College and a blogger on the Great Lakes region. "He knows who funded what, how things were backed, and if he decides to go to The Hague and tell the truth, it's going to make Rwanda look very bad."
Rwandan President Paul Kagame is widely believed to be playing a critical role in inciting violence in eastern Congo to profit from the region's vast mineral wealth.
Seven counts of war crimes: enlistment of children under the age of 15, conscription of children under the age of 15, using children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities; murder, attacks against the civilian population, rape and sexual slavery, and pillaging; and
Three counts of crimes against humanity: murder, rape and sexual slavery, and persecution.
Having spent time in Working in Uganda, next to the DRC, I get super stoked to see this in the news. We need to see more of it but the US doesn't really recognize the ICC and they're work unfortunately.
BeardedRev said:
Having spent time in Working in Uganda, next to the DRC, I get super stoked to see this in the news. We need to see more of it but the US doesn't really recognize the ICC and they're work unfortunately.
I'd love to read anything else you have to say on the subject. What kind of work were you doing there?
The simplest, but by no means only, explanation floating around for his change of heart is that he may have preferred a European jail cell to an African coffin. For the past few weeks, there has been infighting within Ntaganda's rebel group, the so-called M23, and this Saturday his faction suffered a crushing defeat. He was a marked man.
Other close observers of the region speculate that the Rwandan government also wanted him dead.
"[Bosco] knows all of the secrets," said Laura Seay, a professor at Morehouse College and a blogger on the Great Lakes region. "He knows who funded what, how things were backed, and if he decides to go to The Hague and tell the truth, it's going to make Rwanda look very bad."
Rwandan President Paul Kagame is widely believed to be playing a critical role in inciting violence in eastern Congo to profit from the region's vast mineral wealth.
This is the first reason that popped in my head. He's about to lose his number 1 spot and if he's going to go down, he's going to take as many people with him as he can.
WaPo rounds up some of the theories on why he surrendered. Most of them are variations on "his backers turned on him and he wasn't going to be able to hold it together much longer, so he jumped while he still had a few cards to play."
Any word on what's happened to his organization since he stepped down? Did someone else take the throne? Has it broken into factions? Has it just started to dissolve? The fallout of a power vacuum like he just created is worth studying.
Canadian_Coat
Brockville, ON
September 2008
MAR 18, 2013 07:46 PM