France indicts rebel leader for DR Congo war crimes

YAOUNDE, Cameroon

A former leader of a Congolese rebel group was indicted in France on Monday for his role in “crimes against humanity.”

Roger Lumbala, who was arrested in Paris last week, is accused of committing grave crimes in the DRC between 2002 and 2003, according to French prosecutors.

He was the leader of the Rally of Congolese Democrats and Nationalists (RCD-N), a political party and former rebel group backed by Uganda, during the 1998-2002 Congolese civil war.

The RCD-N has been accused in several UN reports of rape, summary executions, kidnappings, mutilations, and cannibalism in the DRC’s northeastern Ituri province.

“This is the first indictment in the context of a judicial procedure opened on the basis of the UN Mapping report regarding the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed between March 1993 and June 2003 in the DRC,” prosecutors said in a statement.

The report referred to in the statement was published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2010, focusing on the conflict in the DRC from 1993 to 2003.

It documented more than 600 serious crimes in eastern DRC that were attributed to armed groups, some of which were led by former leaders of political parties or top government officials.

The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in the DRC has welcomed the start of legal proceedings against Lumbala for facts documented in the report.