Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo was once a business tycoon, a warlord, a vice-president - and currently still has a seat in DR Congo’s senate. But from Monday he may take his seat in the dock as the most high profile war crimes suspect at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Prosecutors say he bears responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic (CAR), whose citizens are closely following the controversial process.

By Thijs Bouwknegt

Bemba stands trial for ordering his Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) militia to rape, murder and plunder in the CAR. “The Bemba case is always alive for the people of the CAR,” says Sylvie Panika, editor in Chief of Radio Ndeke-Luka in Bangui, which broadcasts the programme Justice for all. “People have suffered so much that they are waiting for this ICC trial. They are waiting for the outcome.”

Bemba got involved in the CAR in 2002 when President Ange-Félix Patassé asked him to help fight a rebellion by then-General François Bozizé. During the brutal conflict that unfolded all sides committed large-scale human rights violations against civilians. Bemba’s troops - better known in the CAR as Banyamulengue - left the country in March 2003. Bozizé took power after a coup while Pattasé went into exile in Togo.

While Central Africans “hope that Bemba will be condemned,” Panika adds that everybody wishes that Bemba’s “accomplices” will also be judged by the ICC. “Bemba didn’t come to the CAR on his own,” she explains. “Without these people, I don’t see how the Bemba trial can be held. Bemba is likely to say that these people called him in. They should be present at the trial in order to give answers to the questions of the ICC and the Central Africans.”

Until now, Bemba is the only person to go to trial for atrocities committed in the CAR. Human rights organisations have criticised ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo for only indicting Bemba and not going after Central African suspects. Critics have also called it a “missed opportunity” that court prosecutors did not charge Bemba with any crimes his MLC forces allegedly committed in the DRC’s Ituri region.

Bemba, 48, spent his childhood in Brussels, Kinshasa and the northern Congolese border town of Gbadolite. After studying business in Brussels, he soon managed to become one of the richest men in the DRC in the 1990s when he was former President Mobutu Sese Seko’s personal assistant. But following the 1997 takeover by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the multi-millionaire fled to Uganda where President Yoweri Museveni helped him create his rebel group. In just a few months, the group captured and controlled parts of northern DRC during the 1998-2003 civil war and made Gbadolite its headquarters.

Bemba laid down his weapons in 2003 and was elected one of the four vice-presidents within the Congolese transitional government until he put himself forward for the presidential election in 2006. He lost the run-off against Joseph Kabila but was elected senator in January 2007. Relations between him and Kabila soured, culminating in clashes between the army and Bemba’s militia later that year. Bemba fled to Portugal, and was arrested a year later in Brussels.

It took almost three years for the case to go to trial. Bemba’s lawyers contend that the case is politically motivated in order to remove him from future elections. They have tried to challenge the admissibility of the case, arguing that in 2004 a Bangui court decided not to start proceedings for the same crimes. ICC Appeals judges, however, last month paved the way for the trial to start citing orders from both Bangui’s Appeals Court and Court of Cassation who had ruled that the case should be referred to the ICC.

As Bemba goes to trial, the CAR’s former enemies Bozizé and Pattassé have entered the stage of a new battle as both stand candidate for January’s polls.

(Additional reporting by Vincent Kanza)

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