Gender Report Card on the International Criminal ... - YWCA Canada

OTP Situations and Cases
On 21 February 2011, a special mobile gender
justice court convened by the Government of the
DRC 587 sentenced Lieutenant-Colonel Mutware
Daniel Kibibi of the FARDC to 20 years in prison
for mass rape as a crime against humanity in
relation to the New Year’s Day attack in Fizi,
South Kivu, during which more than 60 women
were raped. During the trial held in the town of
Baraka, South Kivu, from 10 to 20 February, 49
victims/survivors came forward to testify about
the rapes and other forms of sexual violence
committed during the attack.
While this is not the first trial in which members
of the Congolese army have been convicted
for rape and other forms of sexual violence, 588
Lieutenant-Colonel Kibibi is the first FARDC
commanding officer and the first military figure
within the DRC to have been charged with
crimes against humanity for sexual violence
acts. During the same trial, ten other FARDC
soldiers were tried for rape as a crime against
humanity, of whom three were sentenced to 20
years imprisonment and five were sentenced to
10 to 15 years. One soldier was acquitted and
one, a minor, was referred to a juvenile court.
587 Funded by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
(OSISA) and the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), and
implemented by the American Bar Association Rule of
Law Initiative, the special mobile gender justice court
aims at making justice accessible to victims/survivors
living in remote areas of South Kivu, eastern DRC, and
complement ICC prosecutions of sexual and genderbased
crimes in the province. The special mobile gender
court focuses on cases of rape and sexual violence but
can also try other crimes. According to OSJI, since the
beginning of the project in October 2009, 186 cases have
been heard, of which 115 were rape cases. Of these, 94
resulted in convictions. See ‘Trial of DRC soldiers accused
of mass rape in Fizi opens tomorrow in special mobile
gender court’, OSISA Media Advisory, 9 February 2011,
available at , last visited on 31 October 2011.
588 For example, in October 2010, 13 FARDC soldiers were
sentenced for rape in the Walungu area, South Kivu, by
a military court. ‘DRC Mobile Court a Sign of Hope’, IPS,
8 March 2011, available at , last visited on 25 October 2011.
According to a Women’s Initiatives’ partner in
South Kivu, the state’s attorney had requested the
judges to sentence five of the defendants to death
and the remaining six to 30 years imprisonment.
Although the last death sentence in the DRC
was carried out in January 2003, 589 the death
penalty is still provided for by the Congolese
justice system under which the mobile gender
justice courts operate. This has raised concerns
amongst some groups regarding compliance with
international human rights standards. However,
it should be noted that the death penalty has not
been utilised in any of the sentencing decisions
of the mobile gender courts. It has also been
reported that each of the victims in the case will
receive 10,000 USD as compensation from the
DRC Government, although to date there has not
been any indication from the Government about
the timing or mode of payment.
Kibibi was a former member of the CNDP, 590 a
rebel group integrated into the Congolese Army
(FARDC) following the signing of the 23 March
2009 Goma Agreement between the Congolese
Government and the CNDP. The UN co-sponsored
peace agreement called for the integration of
CNDP militia members into the FARDC without
specifying a vetting mechanism, nor ensuring the
necessary retraining of the former rebels prior to
their integration into the regular army.
589 ‘DRC Death Penalty Debate’, IWPR, 31 January 2011,
available at ,
last visited on 25 October 2011.
590 The CNDP was created in 2006 by Laurent Nkunda, a
former senior officer of the rebel group Congolese Rally
for Democracy. Nkunda has been in the custody of the
Rwandan armed forces since January 2009. General Bosco
Ntaganda, for whom there is an outstanding ICC Arrest
Warrant as discussed below, served as chief-of-staff of the
CNDP troops under Nkunda. He split with Nkunda prior to
his arrest. Ntaganda declared that the CNDP faction now
under his control would fight together with the Congolese
regular army (FARDC) and the Rwandan Army against
the Hutu FDLR militia. Ntaganda continues to hold a
high-ranking position within the FARDC. See Women’s
Initiatives for <strong>Gender</strong> Justice, ‘A dramatic start to the year’,
Women’s Voices e-Letter, March 2009, available at .
147