The DRC will face Rwanda in a new trial on February 12, 2025 before the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, a jurisdiction under the African Union. This trial is part of a series of international judicial initiatives aimed at highlighting the violations perpetrated by Rwanda and its president, Paul Kagame, on Congolese soil.
Unlike the trial held on September 26, 2024 before the Court of Justice of the East African Community (EAC), which focused on specific regional disputes, this new hearing is part of a broader process. It aims to take responsibility for decades of aggression, systematic plundering of natural resources, sexual violence, and massacres suffered by the Congolese populations.
Samuel Mbemba, Deputy Minister of Justice in charge of international litigation, who announced it, mentioned the unprecedented scope of these legal proceedings.
“For decades of aggression against our country, the plundering of our minerals, the rape of our children and women, and the massacres of our people; never have Rwanda and Paul Kagame been prosecuted through real trials at all levels as we see now. These are not the usual criticisms that we were used to in the past. There are three trials underway today,” he said.
This trial illustrates a clear desire on the part of the DRC to mobilize international bodies to put an end to the impunity that Rwanda typically enjoys in the context of conflicts in the East. By relying on the jurisdiction of the African Union, this process seeks to open a new path for the recognition of the rights of the affected peoples and to move towards another body, the International Court of justice
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