Gen. Bosco Ntaganda. AFP PHOTO
Wanted Ntaganda surrenders, asks to be taken to ICC
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/World/Wanted-Ntaganda-surrenders--asks-to-be-taken-to-ICC/-/688340/1724212/-/vmtlcy/-/index.html
By Stephanie Aglietti
Posted Tuesday, March 19 2013 at 08:39
In Summary
According to UN investigators, Ntaganda has managed to amass
considerable wealth by running a large extortion empire in North
Kivu, running rogue checkpoints and taxing the area's many mines.
Ntaganda
asked to be sent to the ICC, the world's permanent independent war crimes
court, said US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
"I
can confirm that Bosco Ntaganda... walked into the US
embassy in Kigali
this morning. He specifically asked to be transferred to the ICC in The Hague," she told reporters in Washington.
Nuland's
comments confirm an earlier statement by Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise
Mushikiwabo that the rebel general had "presented himself" at the US embassy in Rwanda's capital.
Nuland
said that Washington
was in contact with the ICC and the Rwandan government, adding that the United
States "strongly (supports) the ICC and their investigation on the
atrocities committed in the DRC".
DR
Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said Sunday that Ntaganda had fled to
neighbouring Rwanda, which has been accused by Kinshasa and the United Nations
of masterminding, arming and even commanding M23 rebels in resource-rich east
of the vast country.
Ntaganda,
a former general nicknamed "The Terminator" and widely seen as the
instigator of the M23 group's rebellion against Kinshasa last year, is wanted by the ICC on
charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including rape, murder and
recruiting child soldiers.
Neither
Rwanda nor the United States are signatories to The Hague-based ICC's founding
document, the Rome Statute, and therefore would not be obliged to hand Ntaganda
over to the tribunal.
However,
his presence in the embassy raises thorny diplomatic issues for both Washington and Kigali.
Kinshasa earlier demanded that Kigali refuse to give asylum to the
Rwandan-born Ntaganda.
ICC
spokesman Fadi el-Abdallah told AFP late Monday that the court was trying to
confirm Ntaganda's surrender.
"If
this information is confirmed, the court will make the necessary arrangements
for the transfer of Ntaganda to The
Hague," he said, adding that "nothing
prevents a state which is not a signatory of the Rome Statute from cooperating
with the court on a voluntary basis."
Fighting
between the M23 -- mainly ethnic Tutsi army mutineers -- and Congolese forces
in the eastern province
of North Kivu has
displaced 500,000 people since last May, according to the UN refugee agency.
Over
25,000 Congolese fled to Rwanda,
according to officials in Kigali.
Mushikiwabo
on Sunday had scoffed at Kinshasa's claims that
Ntaganda had entered Rwanda,
but said that 600 fighters from the M23 had crossed into the country, including
its former political leader Jean-Marie Runiga.
Runiga
-- seen as loyal to Ntaganda -- has been fighting rivals within the M23 under
the group's military chief Sultani Makenga.
Kigali, which accuses Kinshasa of sheltering and supporting Rwandan
rebel groups thought to include perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, signed a
deal aimed at ending the crisis along with other regional countries last month.
That
accord aims to encourage the reform of weak institutions in the troubled former
Belgian colony and calls for countries in the region to stop interfering in
each other's affairs, but its signing coincided with a rupture within the M23.
Earlier
on Monday, Ugandan Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, mediator of talks between
the DR Congo government and the M23, said talks would resume in Kampala in one week,
following a delay caused by the vicious infighting between the rebel factions.
The
alleged atrocities the feared Ntaganda has been charged with were committed in
the Ituri region in the northeastern DR Congo in 2002-2003.
But
Ntaganda, who is believed to be in his 40s, is accused of having once again
recruited under-age fighters in the North Kivu
region during the rebellion last year.
According
to UN investigators, Ntaganda has managed to amass considerable wealth by
running a large extortion empire in North Kivu,
running rogue checkpoints and taxing the area's many mines.
Neighbouring
states have regularly been accused of meddling in the eastern DR Congo to gain
control of its valuable mineral
AFP
M23 rebels run out of ammunition, flee to Rwanda
http://www.inyenyerinews.org/politiki/m23-rebels-run-out-of-ammunition-flee-to-rwanda/
March 17, 2013
Several hundred fighters from the DRC’s M23 rebel group fled
to neighbouring Rwanda
on Friday and Saturday after heavy fighting with a rival faction.
“The soldiers and officers from DR Congo that have entered Rwanda have been disarmed and detained. Several wounded among them are receiving treatment with assistance from the Red Cross,” she said in a statement.
Among the fighters was M23′s ex-political leader Jean-Marie Runiga, whose faction has been fighting rivals loyal to the group’s military chief, Sultani Makenga, since March 9.
“I am here because the situation on the ground has worsened … I preferred to stay alive,” Runiga told journalists at the Nkamira transit camp in Rwanda. “For the moment I’m here because I can get asylum.”
Also in the group that fled is Baudouin Ngaruye, a top military commander of Runiga’s wing who has been under UN sanctions since November for his alleged role in a 2009 massacre and mass rape in eastern DRC.
“We fought and we ended up here because we ran out of ammunition,” Ngaruye told journalists in a Rwandan village close to the border. “It’s a tactical retreat so that our wounded can get treatment and so that we can put an end to this war between brothers.”
A Rwandan military spokesperson said the army was “handling [the refugees] under the international law, we disarmed them upon arrival and separated the fighters from civilians”.
The M23′s new political leader Bertrand Bisimwa meanwhile announced “an end to military operations” by the Makenga faction against Runiga’s supporters.
Fighting between army mutineers M23 and Congolese forces in the eastern province of North Kivu has displaced 500 000 people since May last year, according to the UN refugee agency.
Over 25 000 Congolese fled to Rwanda as a result of the renewed conflict last year, according to Rwandan officials.
Since the signature on February 24 of a UN-backed agreement aimed at restoring peace to eastern DRC, fighting has opposed Runiga’s wing of the M23 and the faction loyal to Makenga, also the target of UN sanctions for atrocities and rights abuses.
Makenga accuses Runiga of backing Bosco Ntaganda, an infamous rebel leader known as the “Terminator” who is sought on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court.
Makenga himself has remained loyal to Laurent Nkunda, Ntaganda’s predecessor at the head of an earlier rebel movement in the region, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).
Runiga for his part accuses Makenga of ganging up with DRC President Joseph Kabila to torpedo peace talks in Kampala.
After a brief lull, fighting between the two factions resumed on March 9 around Rumangabo, Makenga’s stronghold, and Kibumba, where Runiga had set up his headquarters.
Makenga’s camp said the heavy fighting of the past few days had allowed them to “neutralise” the Runiga faction and seize its territory.
They said their offensive also resulted in “some 20 officers and several hundred” fighters from the rival faction coming back to the pro-Makenga wing, and called on the remainder to do the same.
They said they were “ending their military operations”, one of the aims of which had been to catch Ntaganda and hand him over to the ICC.
They gave no information on Ntaganda’s whereabouts.
This latest round of fighting caused almost 12 000 people to flee their homes, the UN said.
The DRC army has been fighting the M23 since May in mineral-rich North Kivu.
The M23, made up largely of Tutsi Kinyarwanda speakers, says it is fighting for the full application of a March 23 2009 peace agreement that incorporated the CNDP rebels into the Congolese army.
UN experts have accused Rwanda and Uganda, which border North Kivu, of backing the M23. Both deny the charges.
Peace talks have been under way in Kampala since December but have made little progress. – AFP
