The International Federation for Human Rights, while lauding the announcement on May 22 by Luis Moreno Ocampo, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) that an investigation would be opened in the Central African Republic (CAR), did not hide a certain irritation: "It was necessary to wait for the Central African State's referral in December 2004 [...], .the CAR Court of appeals decision in April 2006 - which confirmed the incapacity of Central African tribunals to try those responsible for the most serious crimes [...], and finally the request for explanations on the slowness of the analysis carried out by the office of the Prosecutor on the situation in CAR, made by the judges of the Pretrial Chamber III of the ICC, for the Prosecutor to finally respond to the hope that independent justice will attempt to break the cycle of impunity." Two and a half years of "preliminary analyses," which included only one onsite visit, finally managed to convince the office of the ICC, according to its press release, that "the peak of violence and criminality occurred in 2002 and 2003" in the CAR, during which "civilians were killed and raped; and homes and stores were looted," and, above all, that "the rape of civilians was committed in numbers that cannot be ignored under international law." Following Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Darfur, the CAR is the fourth investigation to be opened by the ICC [IJT-47].