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.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were planned across the US under the slogan “ICE, Out for Good” — referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is drawing growing opposition over its execution of Trump’s effort at mass deportations. The slogan is also a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot dead on Wednesday in her
RSS