Trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo:

Alleged founder of Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) and the Forces patriotiques pour la libération du Congo(FPLC); Alleged former Commander-in-Chief of the FPLC, since September 2002 and at least until the end of 2003. Alleged president of the UPC.

Charges:

1. Enlisting and conscripting of children under the age of 15 years into the FPLC and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the context of an international armed conflict from early September 2002 to 2 June 2003.
2. Enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 years into the FPLC and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the context of an armed conflict not of an international character from 2 June 2003 to 13 August 2003.

Links

• The International Criminal Court
• Case information sheet
• International Justice Tribune
• The Lubanga Trial at the International Criminal Court
• Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (TRIAL)

 

The trial of ex-Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo resumed last week at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The founder and former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots was a key player in the Ituri conflict and stands accused of using child soldiers.

By Hélène Michaud, Goma

It is 5 pm when I enter the compound: dozens of radiant young girls, gathered with their toddlers, are ready to return home after a day at school. Most of them are single mothers, ex-child soldiers in Ituri’s bloody civil war.

Lost youth
In a small office nearby, Yolande tells me how she became a soldier against her will at the age of 13. While attempting to flee the advancing militia with her parents, she was raped by a soldier who then took her as his “wife”. Her “husband” taught her how to wield guns, pistols and automatic rifles and took her out to pillage neighbouring villages. She was forced to shoot people, she said, “otherwise he would kill me.”

In all, around 13,500 children were enrolled in the Ituri militia. Of the 5,500 girls, 70% are now child mothers.

For some, former child soldiers are victims of war, for others, they are criminals. In their communities, they are viewed with suspicion. “They accuse us for everything bad that happens. When there’s pillaging in the villages and neighborhoods, it is us. Anything bad is us.”

Trust Fund for Victims
The girls are unaware that the school rehabilitation program in which they take part is supported by the ICC that has put three former Iturian warlords on trial in The Hague.

“Until all the damages sustained by the victims are made good, the justice we seek to achieve is just half done,” explains ICC President Sang-Hyun Song.

Although the ICC’s Trust Fund for Victims has been criticised for being ineffectual, it provides financial assistance to 16 projects in the DRC. It does this discretely because in the region anyone associated with the victims can be suspected of siding with one of the militia.

Yolande’s main grudge against the militia is that they robbed her of her childhood during her three years in capitivity. “They destroyed the children because they taught them to do adult things. Who can imagine a child who rapes an old lady, who rapes his mother?”

One day, Yolande’s parents came to fetch her, but when her “husband” threatened to beat her up before their eyes, they gave up. When she became pregnant at age 14, he gave her a choice: “Either you put on your uniform and come and fight, or you go home.” Yolande chose to return home.

Yolande and other girls who returned home pregnant were not welcomed “as a child should be welcomed”, as she puts it. Her parents insisted she go back to the father of her child, but her brother, seeing how traumatised she was, said: “Let her give birth to the child first.”

At peace
Yolande’s parents refused to accept her daughter because in their culture, babies born out of rape are considered a curse to the family.

Since Yolande’s return to school, her parents’ attitude has improved. Yolande, now 19, hopes to pursue her studies and dreams of becoming a mathematician.

As for the warlords who are on trial in The Hague, “they should be jailed,” she says, “once in prison they can’t fight anymore.” And the man who raped her and took her as his “wife”? He should go to prison too, “because it was he who destroyed my life.”

“Salam,” she replies in Swahili, when I ask how she feels after telling her story for the first time. “She feels at peace in her heart,” says the interpreter.

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