Sunday, January 28, 2007
THE HAGUE, Netherlands —
Prosecutors call Thomas Lubanga a Congolese warlord whose militias plucked children off the streets as they walked to and from school and forced them to fight and die in a brutal rebel conflict.His lawyer says he is an innocent patriot who sought to end plundering of resources and bring peace to his mineral-rich region.
On Monday, judges will decide whether Lubanga becomes the first war crimes suspect sent for trial at the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal.
"We believe it will be approved and then we're going to have a trial in the second part of 2007," the Hague-based court's top prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
Lubanga faces three charges of recruiting and using child soldiers in a conflict in the Ituri region of eastern Congo in 2002-2003. He faces a maximum life sentence if sent to trial and convicted.
Lubanga was arrested in March 2005 by authorities in Kinshasa as part of a crackdown aimed at restoring order to Ituri in the aftermath of the slaying and mutilation of nine U.N. peacekeepers there. A rival warlord has been arrested in Congo and charged in the peacekeeper killings.
Lubanga is the only suspect in the custody of the ICC, which was formally established in 2002 to prosecute suspects believed most responsible for atrocities around the world.
He also is the first person to be charged at an international court with using child soldiers and prosecutors intend the case to send a message around the world that arming and using children to wage wars will not be tolerated.
The United Nations estimates that some 300,000 child soldiers are involved in conflicts around the world.
"Using child soldiers is an international crime," Moreno-Ocampo said. "We will enforce it."
Human rights groups have welcomed the case, but criticized the court for not bringing more charges against Lubanga, the former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, known by its French acronym UPC.
Geraldine Mattioli of Human Rights Watch said the case against Lubanga was a milestone for victims of the conflict in Ituri.
"But these charges only begin to address the horrific acts committed by the UPC," she added. "If the ICC is going to have an impact on ending impunity in Ituri, the prosecutor must pursue more charges against Lubanga and target more perpetrators responsible for atrocities."
Thousands of people were killed in fighting that continued in Ituri even after the country's 1998-2002 civil war ended.
The judges will decide whether to confirm charges against Lubanga and order him to stand trial based on a preliminary hearing of evidence last November.
If the panel decides not to confirm the charges against Lubanga, he could go free or the judges could order prosecutors to provide more evidence against him or amend the charges.
At the hearing, prosecutors alleged that boys and girls _ some as young as 10 _ were snatched off the streets by armed men and forced into Lubanga's camps, where they were trained to handle firearms and frequently drugged with marijuana to calm their fears.
Three boys and three girls, one only 10 years old at the time, are cited in the charges. One 14-year-old girl was shot to death by Lubanga's forces after fleeing from a camp and being recaptured, a witness told the hearing.
But Lubanga's Belgian attorney Jean Flamme said his client was a man of peace who upset the Congolese government and opponents in neighboring Uganda by advocating sharing Congo's mineral wealth.
"The people of Congo are poor, but Congo is rich," Flamme told judges. "He wanted the wealth of the Congo to belong to the Congolese people."
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