On April 11, 2006, the Court of Cassation in Central African Republic (CAR) acknowledged that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction to try the primary perpetrators of the violent acts that accompanied General François Bozizé's first putsch attempt in October 2002. Bozizé finally took power during a successful coup d'état in March 2003 and was later elected president in spring 2005.

In its decision, the Court of Cassation ruled that the national court system in Central African Republic lacked jurisdiction to try the five people that the current government accuses of being the main perpetrators of the numerous cases of murder, rape, destruction and looting that occurred during the failed putsch in October 2002. The five suspected perpetrators are: former president Ange-Félix Patassé, currently in exile in Togo; the current vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Jean-Pierre Bemba, who as head of the Liberation of Congo Movement (MLC) militia allegedly helped Patassé quash the October 2002 rebellion in exchange for money; Chadian-Central African militia leader Martin Koumtamadji, a.k.a. Abdoulaye Miskine, head of the Presidential Security Union (USP) and also a Patassé supporter in 2002; Patassé's former driver Victor Ndoubabé, who most likely died during the March 2003 coup; and former French police officer Paul Barril, who lead Patassé's close protection guard in 2002.

"These people are outside the country," noted the Court. "The Central African government [is] unable to find [them] and to have them arrested. The only way to prevent impunity is to seek international cooperation. The International Criminal Court offers the best chances of finding and punishing perpetrators of the most serious crimes."

This appeal to implement the principle of complementarity, which is so dear to the universal court, prompted the ICC's prosecutor to analyze the Central African situation with renewed zeal. Up until then, Luis Moreno Ocampo had of course acknowledged receipt of the December 22, 2004 letter in which the Central African government asked him to look into all the crimes committed in the CAR since the ICC began operating on July 1, 2002. However, it took the prosecutor almost a year to send a team of four analysts to Bangui at the end of November 2005 to assess the admissibility of the evidence relating to the crimes committed in October 2002 that the Central African authorities had provided in support of this letter and to ensure that there would be cooperation.

The file that the Central African government gave to the court is primarily based on a report from the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) dated February 2003. The FIDH report states that Jean-Pierre Bemba is responsible for war crimes, in particular "hundreds of rapes," as well as the murders and looting committed by his "Banyamulenge" militia against the civilian population of the northern neighborhoods of Bangui between October 27 and November 2, 2002-the day Bemba came "to address his troops" in Bangui. Abdoulaye Miskine has been designated as being responsible for the USP's "massacre" of "180 Chadian farmers" at a cattle market 13 km to the north of the capital on the road to Bouali on October 30 and 31, 2002. Ange-Félix Patassé's responsibility has been invoked as being Bemba and Miskine's superior during these operations.

According to Nganatouwa Goungaye-Wanfio, a lawyer appointed by the Central African government to prepare the case file submitted to the ICC and also president of the Central African League of Human Rights, "The most important point in our submission [to the ICC] is the massive rapes of women committed especially by the MLC soldiers." He says there are at least 500 cases of sexual violence. On the basis of witness testimony, death certificates, medical records and precedent from the September 2, 1998 ruling by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the Jean-Paul Akayesu case, he uses the terms "crimes against humanity" and even "genocide" insofar as, according to him, "the MLC people received orders to systematically attack such and such a category of the population." Bernadette Sayo confirms these statements. President of the Organization for Compassion and the Development of Families in Distress (Ocodefad), an NGO founded in December 2004 to assist rape victims, Sayo says her association has registered 1,045 people who were traumatized by the atrocities in Bangui in October 2002 - women who were raped, men who were sodomized, shot, etc. She has also recorded "radio messages" that she submitted to the ICC. According to her, certain "ethnic groups and neighborhoods were specifically targeted - people from the North, from General Bozizé's ethnic group" *ed. note: the Gbaya+.

Thus, a whole host of accusations are being made against Jean-Pierre Bemba, a candidate in the upcoming July 30 presidential elections in the DRC; whereas he had been led to believe - temporarily - that he was sheltered from prosecution in the Congolese case. "Back when the DRC approached the ICC in spring 2004," explains Honoré Musoko, former analyst at the office of the prosecutor, "Bemba was sometimes mentioned in our internal meetings. In 2004, the Court seriously contemplated trying him for the massacres in Mambasa (Ituri) at the end of 2002. But Ocampo wanted to avoid disrupting the Congolese peace process by indicting him. In addition, the office of the prosecutor was not able to gather enough evidence to implicate him in the Ituri crimes." It would thus appear that the Court is not the one "pushing" the Central African file. Rather, it is the local political figures who, drawing inspiration from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's use of the ICC to quell the rebellion by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) once and for all, are using the international court's investigations for domestic political purposes. The Central African Court of Cassation's ruling, for example, was made just one month after the Bangui government officially acknowledged that it was at war with three political-military rebel groups, including the Alliance for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (APRD), led by Abdoulaye Miskine from neighboring Sudan, with the approval, if the support, of Khartoum.

Just when the ICC is also dealing with the Darfur situation, Chadian President Idris Déby, who provided military support for Bozizé in his attempt to take power in 2003, also "accused" Sudanese President Omar El Béchir a few months ago of orchestrating the destabilization of the governments in N'Djamena and Bangui using the Janjaweed militias. Finally, "the Central African Court of Cassation's referral of the matter to the ICC was not innocent," says a source close to the UN Mission in the Congo (MONUC), speaking on condition of anonymity. "DRC President Joseph Kabila and François Bozizé have been meeting regularly for several months. Credible sources report that the Congolese president allegedly financed part of Bozizé's election campaign. It is therefore not surprising that the DRC's current strong man is doing his part to disgrace Jean-Pierre Bemba, one of Kabila's main contenders in the upcoming presidential election. It's a classic 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' in the region."

Victim associations are trying to organize themselves in response to this collusion of regional interests. According to Sayo, one of Central Africans' main fears is "to see the ICC take so long to act that Bemba has a chance of becoming president of the DRC one day." Even though the Rome Statute does not provide for immunity for Heads of State in office, "what would happen with the proceedings?" To try and rule out this perspective, Sayo is endeavoring to meet with other NGOs representing victims of other African conflicts. According to her, "the problems and causes of violence are basically similar everywhere in Central Africa. This is why I have proposed to the Congolese, the Sudanese, the Burundians, the Chadians, etc. that we establish a victims' platform so as to highlight commonalities in the nature and perpetrators of the violence suffered. Together, we will be able to better push our cases before the ICC."