Central African Republic rebels found guilty of war crimes by International Criminal Court
Former Central African Republic soccer federation president Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona and Alfred Yekatom, a rebel leader known as 'Rambo,' were found guilty of their involvement in atrocities including murder, torture and attacking civilians. The court sentenced Ngaïssona to 12 years, and Yekatom to 15 years.
The charges stem from their roles as senior leaders in a militia known as the anti-Balaka, which engaged in bitter fighting with the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel group in 2013 and 2014.
The interreligious violence left thousands dead and displaced hundreds of thousands. Mosques, shops and homes were looted and destroyed.
Anti-Balaka forces 'attacked localities with Muslim civilians, killing and dislocating many of them,' Presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt said, reading out the verdict in The Hague.
Malick Karomschi, president of the Muslim Organization for Innovation in the Central African Republic, a nongovernmental organization that supports victims of sexual violence, said that he's glad that justice has been served.
'We feared the worst — that they would be acquitted so the fact that they were found guilty is already a good thing.' Karomschi told The Associated Press.
The pair maintained their innocence during the trial, which opened in 2021. It was the first case at the global court to focus on the violence that erupted after the Seleka seized power in the Central African Republic in 2013.
The country has been mired in conflict since rebels forced then President Francois Bozize from office. Anti-Balaka militias fought back, also targeting civilians and sending most of the Muslim residents of the capital, Bangui, fleeing in fear.
The trial of an alleged Seleka commander, Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, is ongoing.
Last year, judges at the court unsealed another arrest warrant in the investigation. According to prosecutors, Edmond Beina commanded a group of about 100-400 anti-Balaka fighters responsible for murdering Muslims in early 2014.
Separate proceedings against Beina and five others at a specially-created court are slated to begin in the Central African Republic on Friday.
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Jean-Fernand Koena contributed to this report from Bangui, Central African Republic.
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These woes stem both from the sharp increase in unemployment of the region's miners and – as noted by Aronson in his testimony and in a New York Times op-ed he wrote -- the sharp reduction in mining company planes that also brought food and medicine to the region that occurred after U.S firms left. A study in the Journal of Law and Economics in 2016 found that the mandate from the Dodd-Frank provision increased infant mortality in the affected Congo regions by at least 143 percent. And the warlord situation didn't improve and in fact may have worsened because of the Dodd-Frank provision. An October report to Congress from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found 'no empirical evidence that the rule has decreased the occurrence or level of violence in the eastern DRC, where many mines and armed groups are located.' The GAO also found that 'the rule was associated with a spread of violence, particularly around informal, small-scale gold mining sites, … since gold is more portable and less traceable than the other three minerals.' The poverty and violence that soared due to Dodd-Frank's effects also gave China the perfect entry point into the Congo region. With limited options, the DRC government agreed to China's offers over the past 15 years of building infrastructure in return for granting China access to its minerals. Now, as China has failed to deliver promised infrastructure improvements, the DRC is looking for a new deal with the U.S that will focus on boosted security and trade rather than aid. But any such deal will likely fail as long as Dodd-Frank's burdens on U.S. companies accessing the minerals continue. As the GAO notes, the rule's near-insurmountable burden – that 'many mines are located in remote, potentially insecure areas, and coordinating teams to visit and inspect them is difficult' – remains standing as a trade barrier. Fortunately, the Dodd-Frank provision allows the president to waive its mandate for two years if he deems such a waiver to be in the interest of national security. President Trump, as part of his goal of U.S. resurgence, must make use of this waiver to reduce China's influence and increase U.S. access to the region's minerals. Then, he should call on Congress to end this trade barrier by repealing Dodd-Frank's Section 1502. It's time for the president and Congress to remove this backdoor tariff from Dodd-Frank that puts China first and the U.S. and DRC last. John Berlau is Senior Fellow & Director of Finance Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of the book George Washington, Entrepreneur: How Our Founding Father's Private Business Pursuits Changed America and the World.
