The de facto deputy commander of UN-backed military operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) is a warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, UN experts said.
General Bosco Ntaganda, a rebel who joined a peace deal ending a Tutsi-led rebellion earlier this year, has been indicted by the world court but plays a senior role in operations now being carried out against Rwandan Hutu rebels.
Dynamics have changed dramatically in DR Congo this year, with traditional foes DR Congo and Rwanda launching joint operations, but human rights experts have rounded on the UN peacekeeping force for not challenging Ntaganda’s new role.
“The Group has obtained a document that corroborates General Ntaganda’s role as de facto deputy commander [of the Congolese army],” the UN panel of experts said in an interim report seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
As well as the document, the experts said they had testimonies from senior army commanders and sources close to the former CNDP rebel militia confirming that Ntaganda was deputy commander despite another officer being officially nominated.
The UN peacekeeping mission has vowed not to take part in any operation of which Ntaganda is part, but it maintains it can continue supporting the current operations as Kinshasa has reassured it that the former rebel is not involved.
Attacks on the Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels, some of whom took part in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and have since been at the heart of much of the DR Congo’s violence, have helped improve Congo-Rwanda relations and ended the once powerful CNDP rebellion.
Analysts say the rebels have maintained or recovered much of the territory they lost, around 250,000 people have been displaced and Human Rights Watch (HRW) this week accused the army of war crimes in the process.
A UN Security Council delegation visiting Congo this week handed a list of the names of five army officers it wants the government to arrest for raping women as young as 14.
But the list, seen by Reuters, did not include Ntaganda, who is known as “The Terminator” and is accused of recruiting children to fight in the ranks of rebels he has led.
“Commitments by the government to arrest army officers responsible for rape is a step in the right direction,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, HRW’s senior Africa researcher.
“But failing to add Bosco Ntaganda to the list is baffling. It undermines international justice and puts at risk the people of eastern Congo, who may face further abuses at his hands,” she said.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS