Attention my fellow Americans. You can now stop calling the French “weak-kneed ninnies,” “sissy pants,” or the ever-popular “frogs” because today, they arrested a man thought to be linked to both the 1994 Rwandan genocide and recent mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s ballsy, if you ask me. In other reports French President Nicolas Sarkozy grew a wee bit taller today … we kid.
However, this is nothing to kid about. In a press release the International Criminal Court said that Mbarushimana is charged with “five counts of crimes against humanity (murder, torture, rape, inhumane acts and persecution) and six counts of war crimes (attacks against the civilian population, destruction of property, murder, torture, rape and inhuman treatment).” It’s safe to say whether he’s convicted of all charges or not, no one’s sad to see this man off the streets.
Mbarushimana serves as the executive secretary of a group called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the group consists of those former Rwandan army members and members of the radical militia Interahamwe who participated in the Rwandan genocide. According to Bloomberg, it was formed after the Hutu/Tutsi conflict in Rwanda boiled over to the Congo. Their attackers fled to eastern Congo, preying on the Congolese population. In a sick way, one genocide wasn’t enough for them.
“It’s an important blow, not a fatal blow, but an important blow against the FDLR,” Major Sylvain Ekenge, spokesman for the Congolese army operations against the rebels, said to Bloomberg reporters. “This is what we’ve all been asking for, because they’re a foreign force and they get financing from foreign countries.”
The FLDR president, Ignace Murwanashyaka, was arrested a year ago in Germany. He’s still awaiting trial. Both men are suspected to have participated in the murders of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda, but the ICC was only created in 2002, so they’ll only be accountable for their FDLR crimes in the Congo. Still, we’re breathing a sigh of relief after hearing this news.
Photo by babasteve via Flickr.