The Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
had already referred the matter to the ICC in 2004, which opened an investigation and handed down three final convictions for crimes committed in the east of the country, which had been plagued by armed violence for nearly 30 years.
The jurisdiction was seized again this year by Kinshasa, which targets in particular the M23 ( "March 23 Movement" ), a rebellion, supported by Rwanda according to numerous sources, which has seized parts of territory in North Kivu. In June, the ICC prosecutor announced his intention to carry out a "preliminary examination".
It is necessary to "clarify" whether this second referral concerns "a new crime or the continuum of crime already denounced", declared Mr. Niang during a presser, at the end of a three-day visit to the DRC. "We are assessing the situation," he said.
Questions from journalists then revolved around when prosecutions would be initiated. "Our approach cannot be yours, the conclusion cannot come before the investigations," noted the deputy prosecutor.
Then, questioned about the slowness of the procedures and the limited impact of the ICC's action "especially when we place ourselves on the side of the victims", Mr. Niang replied: "I must humbly agree with you". "What we are doing is far, very far from being enough, neither in terms of pace nor in terms of impact. "