There is a point where numbers merge with the real and the surreal. Its relevance and impact seem abstract and incomprehensible.
One million displaced since August 2008, 5 million killed over the past years. 300,000 women and girls raped and brutalized. 17,000 UN soldiers, the UN’s largest peacekeeping mission. And yet after all this suffering, only four will stand trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Of those four, only one is currently under prosecution. A first for the ICC.
It is the DR Congo, that interminable conflict and conflicts whose history is rooted in King Leopold’s “humanitarian” exploits and slavery to thirty years of Mobutu’s kleptocracy and the west’s lust for primary resources. For those interested, I recommend Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost, a haunting narration of human misery and madness.
In 1897, writes Hochschild, a British shipping-company employee Edward Morel realized a grave injustice. Boats from the Congo, packed with ivory and rubber, were unloaded at Antwerp and then stuffed with weapons for the return.
“I have stood on that quay in Antwerp and seen the rubber disgorged from the bowels of the incoming steamer. To my fancy there was mingled with the sound of musical chimes of the old cathedral tower another sound , a sigh breathed in the gloomy Equatorial forest by those from whose anguish this wealth was wrung.’
It is an astonishing image and an astonishing remark, just as true today as it was then.
In a letter from my friend and Congolese journalist Faustin Chongombe (which I posted here), he describes the humiliation he feels as his fellow country men queue for biscuits. Behind them, the lush green verdure of Congo’s fertile country wracked with the sound of intermittent gunfire.
Meanwhile, Thomas Lubanga, former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, is finally standing trial at the Hague. Dressed in a smart suit and tie, he claims to have fought for the greater good of his people, to protect the resources in the Ituri region from greed.
He then “recruited” hundreds of children to fight his cause. This was in 2003. Arrested six years ago, Lubanaga’s trial date is testimony to the long drawn out legal battles that plague the court and its lack of explicit international support.
The ICC needs greater mobility and a stronger mandate. It has no police force. It depends on the “good” will of participating countries for funding, investigations, and intelligence writes Nick Grono , deputy-president of the International Crisis Group. Its hands are tied. Notice how the ICC won’t prosecute the “elected” ruling elite of present-day DRC, only its warlords and rebels.
Lubanga’s trial will further test the court’s already weakened position. Hopefully, justice will prevail. Hopefully, there will be an end to this madness.
