By Patrick Ilunga, KINSHASA DR
Congo
Former Congolese President Joseph Kabila could be in trouble after victims of his alleged misdeeds lodged a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing him of killing or torturing their relatives.
The complaint, filed on September
16, also targeted senior government officials in his regime, including Emmanuel
Ramazani Shadary, a presidential candidate he supported in 2019 but who lost
the election to Felix Tshisekedi.
Mr Shadary was minister for
interior and security.
The complainants are relatives of
victims of the 2016-2017 clashes between civilians and Congolese police and
army officers in Kasai Central and Kasai provinces.
The victims of what is commonly
referred to as the Kamuina Nsapu rebellion, which started in 2016, have asked the
ICC prosecutor to investigate in order to convict "executioners and
accomplices, but also to recognise the victims' right to compensation".
They say Kasai was the scene of war
crimes and crimes against humanity for two years.
They allege that Kabila did not
investigate the atrocities despite calls made to political and judicial
authorities.
The group first lodged a complaint
in 2019 with the Congolese army via the higher military auditorate of Kasai but
was unsuccessful.
“Our association decided and filed
this complaint against Joseph Kabila with the office of the prosecutor of the
ICC in The Hague on behalf of 20,000 victims of the said crimes,” said Mhyrhand
Mulumba, head of the association.
Families of victims of Kamuina
Nsapu particularly fault Kabila for "not having taken substantial measures
to stop the aforementioned crimes in time, protect the victims and bring the
perpetrators and accomplices to justice ".
Among those accused is Kalev
Mutond, head of the intelligence services in Kabila’s regime, who is now on the
run.
Kabila’s allies, however, have
denounced the move to file a complaint with the ICC.
“Before you go to the ICC, you have
to prove that the state did not want to take any action against the
perpetrators," said Ferdinand Kambere, deputy permanent secretary of the
PPRD, the party of the former head of state.
The rebellion began in 2016 as a
local dispute over the nomination of a customary chief in Kasaï Central, before
the agenda morphed into a bid to replace the Kabila regime.
But with time, spurred by the
Congolese military’s heavy-handed response to the rebellion, this escalated
into an all-out uprising against the government led by Nsumbu Katende.
Katende was later convicted of
committing war crimes.
The Kamuina Nsapu rebellion eventually
died down in 2019 after President Felix Tshisekedi came to power. He is
considered a “son of the Kasaï”, and many of the rebels decided to lay down
their arms.
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