 Soldiers arrested a warlord accused of years of atrocities in eastern Congo, where U.N. officials say rival militias have created the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis, the government said Tuesday. Security officials arrested Thomas Lubanga late Saturday in the capital, Kinshasa, government spokesman Henri Mova Sakanyi said.
| "Stick 'em up, Tom! The jig's up!" |
Lubanga, who heads the Union of Congolese Patriots, is being held at Kinshasa's notorious Makala prison, Sakanyi said.
"What's that? A hatbox?"
"That's your cell." |
Lubanga is the latest of several militia chiefs arrested recently as Congo's struggling government and U.N. peacekeepers attempt to bring order to lawless Ituri province, where ethnic militias terrorize and prey on the local population.
Fighting between ethnic Hema and Lendu militias in Ituri has killed more than 50,000 people since 1999 and left 600,000 homeless, aid groups say. In clashes between Lubanga's Hema militia and Lendu militia and tribespeople, fighters on both sides have been accused of killings, decapitation, torture, rape and forced labor.
Thousands are dying in Ituri every month, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said last week, calling it the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis. For several years, the tall and reedy Lubanga was a feared warlord around Bunia, Ituri's capital. Often flamboyant, he danced on tabletops during news conferences and was protected by twitchy children — some as young as 10 — carrying Kalashnikov rifles. "Now Thomas Lubanga is in the judge's hands," Sakanyi said. He declined to say when a trial would be scheduled.
"It could be awhile. They're questioning him."
"How long is 'awhile?' Gimme a wild guess."
"400 years?" |
Lubanga moved from Bunia a year ago to establish his militia as a political party in Kinshasa, from where authorities accuse him of directing his fighters. Last month, Lendu militia ambushed and killed nine U.N. peacekeepers who were protecting thousands of residents displaced by fighting. The bodies of the Bangladeshi peacekeepers were then mutilated, U.N. officials said. Four days later, police arrested Lendu warlord Floribert Ndjabu and two army generals from his militia in the killings. The generals were given army posts in January as part of a power-sharing agreement to end the war.
| Now they live in concrete hatboxes... |
The following day, peacekeepers killed as many as 60 Lendu militiamen after they said their patrol was fired upon as it shut down a militia camp. U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Ituri have continued to aggressively close the camps and have disarmed hundreds of mostly teenage gunmen in recent months.
"Drop the gun, laddy, or we'll perforate yez!"
"Ain't nobody takin' my gun... Ow! He hit me!" |
The United Nations and international community also have pressured Congo's government to crack down on the militias.
| "Yeah, right. Half our country's overrun with people who eat pygmies, and we're supposed to 'crack down'?" |
Congo became a battleground for six nations during a 1998-2002 war that killed some 50,000 people directly and another 3 million through strife-induced hunger and disease. While relative calm has been restored to the rest of the country, marauding gunmen continue to kill, rape and pillage at will in the east. During the war, both Hema and Lendu militias were armed and trained by neighboring Uganda and Rwanda, who used the fighters to wrest control over the mineral-rich territory. The United Nations and human rights groups say Uganda continues to feed guns and ammunition over Congo's porous and isolated borders. |