Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times is reporting that Bosco Ntaganda, a Congolese rebel general accused of massacring civilians and building an army of child soldiers, turned himself in to the American Embassy in Rwanda on Monday, saying he wanted to be sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ntaganda is considered to be one of Africa’s most wanted men, because of his leadership of the rebel group M23 and other rebel groups resulting in the murder of scores of people in order to gain footing in the Congo’s lucrative mineral trade.
Gettleman writes:
“According to prosecutors at the I.C.C., Mr. Bosco was one of the worst of Congo’s brutal rebel leaders. In the first set of charges against him, filed in 2006, prosecutors said he extensively used ‘children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities’ while he was a rebel commander in 2002 and 2003. Though the United States is not a member of the court, the Obama administration has indicated support for it.
Last year, prosecutors expanded the allegations, accusing Mr. Bosco of spearheading civilian massacres and using rape and murder as a way to ethnically cleanse certain areas of Congo. Mr. Bosco has hopscotched from rebel army to rebel army, and in 2008, human rights groups said he oversaw the slaughter of scores of civilians in the eastern Congo town of Kiwanja, where residents were pulled out of their homes and shot in the head in front of their families.”
Ntaganda is referred to as “The Terminator” because of his brutal forms of violence.
This story is developing. Read more at The New York Times.
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