In ICC, Congo warlord pleads not guilty to recruiting child soldiers
By Christa Case Bryant and Matthew Clark | 01.26.09
In the International Criminal Court (ICC) today, Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga pleaded not guilty today to charges of training child soldiers to kill ethnic rivals in his country’s 1998-2003 war.
Mr. Lubanga faced a blistering assault from chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on the opening day of his trial.
“Lubanga’s armed group recruited and trained hundreds of children to kill, pillage, and rape. Hundreds of children still suffer the consequences of Lubanga’s crimes,” said Mr. Moreno-Ocampo.
“They cannot forget the beatings they suffered, they cannot forget the terror they felt and the terror they inflicted. They cannot forget the sounds of the machine guns, they cannot forget that they killed. They cannot forget that they raped, that they were raped.”
Lubanga’s trial is a landmark of sorts – for the court, and for Africa. He was the first defendant charged and arrested by the court, which was created in 2002 by a multinational treaty. His initial appearance, in 2006, raised hopes in the international justice community that the world’s tyrants could no longer operate with impunity.
It’s also significant for Africa, where presidents, dictators, and warlords have gone largely unpunished for decades. Lubanga’s arrest, along with that of Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor, signals a possible end to that “era of impunity,” as former Monitor correspondent Abe McLaughlin dubbed it in a 2006 story.
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Meeting with a Hamas adviser in Gaza
By International Editor | 01.25.09
Reporters on the Job: Conscious of his personal security, Hamas foreign affairs adviser Ahmed Yousef met me and other international visitors at his brother’s house in Gaza. The sprawling house was not hit at all during the 22-day Israeli offensive.
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Iceland’s leaders fall (on yogurt?) and its government spoils
By James Hagengruber | 01.25.09
The global financial collapse appears to have brought down Iceland’s government.
The country’s minister of business affairs resigned Sunday, two days after the prime minister agreed to protesters’ demands for new elections (two years ahead of schedule).
As the Monitor’s Colin Woodard wrote last week, the protesters are furious over Iceland’s recent plunge from the world’s fourth richest nation – and the best in the world to live in, according to the United Nations – to global financial crisis roadkill. Its banks are ruined, the currency devastated, and one of the country’s closest allies recently named it a terrorist state.
“This has been very hard for the nation,” protester Rosa Eyvindardottir told Woodard.
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Citizen justice among indigent Bolivian communities
By Sara Miller Llana | 01.22.09
LA PAZ, BOLIVIA – Reporters on the Job: While reporting on Bolivia’s constitutional referendum, I found that one of the issues a lot of people have trouble with is that indigent groups will be able to carry out their own form of community justice if the referendum passes.
Yesterday I was up in El Alto, a neighborhood above La Paz, the capital. It’s a stronghold of support for the president and most of the people there are indigent.
Outside their stores, they hang scarecrows as a threat to anyone to not rob them. The people I was with told me there were also signs explicitly saying, “If you rob me, I will kill you.”
That’s kind of menacing, but people are saying that kind of thing will get worse if the referendum passes, because it enshrines the ability to use community justice, and it’s still not very well-defined what community justice means to them.
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Campaigning in Iraq
By Jane Arraf | 01.22.09
Reporters on the Job: My first experience covering voting in Iraq was the referendum held by Saddam Hussein a year before the US invasion asking Iraqis whether to give him another seven-year term. He didn’t do a lot of campaigning. In the 2005 national elections – Iraq’s first – I’d talk to candidates who were too afraid to give me their names.
But this provincial election is a different story. There are posters on concrete walls, banners on lampposts, even a hot-air balloon advertising a candidate. As for actual campaigning, as in the West, a lot of that consists of, “What can you do for me?” Iraqis are looking for projects in their communities, influence in government departments, and jobs, jobs, jobs.
In lieu of that, a gold-plated watch is always nice. That was the giveaway at one election rally for potential supporters (but not reporters). Here, unless they’re envelopes of cash, token gifts are generally considered good manners and not a bribe.
