Les conflits armés en République démocratique du Congo à l’aune du droit

Christian NTAMULENGA Kabati
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Christian NTAMULENGA Kabati: Universite libre des Pays des Grands Lacs (ULPGL), BUKAVU, Congo

Les Cahiers du CEDIMES, 2024, vol. 19, issue 4, 82-102

Abstract: The sophistication of military arsenals, the pride, the hegemonic and warlike ambitions of statesmen caused terrible armed conflicts which caused the perpetration of atrocities, notably crimes against humanity, the crime of genocide, war crimes, crime against peace, which emerged from the codification of the time and which were unanimously stigmatized, being qualified as unacceptable by and for the human race. Curiously, they are still oftenly committed around the world in full view of everyone, by the leaders of warmongering states and their accomplices, who consider war as a means of continuing their imperialistic policy. This is the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where mass crimes were committed during the so-called “First African World War” but which remained largely unpunished. The trivialization to which this impunity could lead is dangerous because it ends up suggesting and representing to the individual and collective conscience such serious, cruel and barbaric behavior as simple details of history thanks to a sort of prostitution of words, it obscures the special protection that criminal law provides to the human person against the most dramatic attacks. Yet there will be no lasting peace on this earth as long as human rights are violated with impunity anywhere on the planet. All these heinous crimes threaten the hard core of human rights which are part of “jus cogens” which must be respected at all times. All these harms caused to the Congolese people deserve reparation, the crimes which were perpetrated in the D.R.C. are scandalous and deserve, in order to avoid a bad precedent, exemplary repression. But the national justice system is somehow inoperative and finds itself limited in its actions. As for the International Criminal Court (ICC), it is limited in relation to its temporal jurisdiction, hence the need to examine the requirements for the creation of an ad hoc international criminal tribunal for the Congo which can focus on serious crimes or massive violations of international humanitarian law committed during two major Congo wars (1996-97 and 1998-2002); while other extra-judicial mechanisms such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be able to deal with crimes committed before 1996.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.69611/cahiers19-4-05

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