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Central Africa: Former Congolese Vice President Faces Trial
Jean-Pierre Bemba was a rebel leader from 1998 to 2003 and vice President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) before being defeated in the presidential election in October 2006 by Joseph Kabila.
He was arrested in Brussels in May 2008 by the Belgian police, under an international mandate of the ICC, and was referred in July 2008 in The Hague where he has been imprisoned. Trial has began in the Dutch capital, against Jean-Pierre Bemba as a military chief on the charges’ basis of two crimes against humanity and three crimes of war committed, between 2002 and 2003, in the Central African Republic (CAR), By Bemba and his rebel-troops, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), at the request of the country’s then-President Ange-Felix Patassé to fight a rebellion led by the country’s former army chief of staff, Francois Bozizé, who is now president. Bemba is standing front of the International Crime Court (ICC) as a Congolese Senator, according to which he has been elected, in January 2007, and still holding and enjoying his title. No attempt has been initiated to deprive his leadership, and he continues, from abroad, to reign as the MLC’s “Godfather”, the main opposition party in the Congolese parliament. Some of his supporters still believe if ever he comes back to Kinshasa, it would be a triumph, and he could be their candidate for the upcoming Congolese presidential, announced for November 2011. But this prospect is already undermined, because the ICC has stated that the trial would last for several months.