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Witnesses Speak of MLC Plunder
Courts told that looted property that was too heavy to be carried away was destr
oyed.
By Wairagala Wakabi - International Justice - ICC
ACR Issue 287,
7 Feb 11
Two witnesses last week claimed that soldiers from the Movement for the Liberati
on of Congo, MLC, plundered and destroyed property belonging to civilians during
a looting spree in the Central African Republic, CAR.
The women, who both testified with face and voice distortion and were named only
as witnesses 81 and 82, told the International Criminal Court, ICC, that the so
ldiers belonged to the group founded by Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former vice-presi
dent of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.
They said that the soldiers grabbed all property that they could from homes in P
K12, a suburb of the CAR capital Bangui, before loading it on to boats and trans
porting it back to the DRC on the Oubangui river.
“They destroyed everything in the house,” witness 82 said. “My grandfather intervened
to stop them from breaking everything. They just pointed their weapons at him an
d started to gather all the things in the house and take them out."
She said that her grandfather was beaten with the butts of rifles when he protes
ted at the raid.
“My brother, who tried to stop them from taking the ducks, was beaten to death,” she
added.
She said that the soldiers destroyed household items which were too heavy for th
em to carry away, such as the refrigerator and television set.
According to her, the Congolese soldiers in her neighbourhood moved along with p
ush-carts which they loaded with looted property and transported to their camps.
Witness 81 also told the court how MLC soldiers had looted her home. She said th
at they took a mattress and two suitcases, one belonging to her child and the ot
her to her husband. She added that the soldiers also grabbed television sets and
other property from the home of her grandfather.
“[MLC troops] were supposed to come and help us, but unfortunately when they arriv
ed they started committing acts of violence against the population,” she said.
She told the courtroom that her family could do nothing to prevent the theft, si
nce the troops were armed.
“So as not to put our lives in danger, we had to let them do whatever they wanted
to,” she said.
At the opening of the trial last November, ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo sta
ted, “Bemba's troops stole from the poor people of one of the poorest countries in
the world.”
The prosecutor also said looted goods were stored in MLC bases, including in the
residence of MLC commanders, and that “together with their commanders, MLC soldie
rs organised the transportation of these pillaged items into the DRC”.
As well as having their identities protected, both witnesses were monitored by a
psychologist sitting in the court, while an official of the court's Victims and
Witnesses Unit, VWU, sat beside each of them to offer assistance.
Presiding Judge Sylvia Steiner said these measures were recommended after a psyc
hological assessment of the witnesses. She also told the lawyers that their ques
tions should be short and non-confrontational, due to the vulnerability of the w
itnesses and their low levels of literacy.
The witnesses also claimed that they suffered sexual abuse at the hands of MLC s
oldiers.
Witness 82 said she was raped by the soldiers in 2002, when she was just 12 year
s old. She added that the soldiers also raped her sisters and her grandmother, w
ho was pregnant at the time of the attack and lost her baby shortly after birth.
Witness 81 said that four MLC soldiers gang-raped her one week after she gave bi
rth, and dug defensive trenches in front of her house, where they stayed day and
night. They then obliged her to prepare their meals on a daily basis.
The ingredients of the meal were provided by the soldiers but the witness did no
t know where the soldiers got them from. She said she prepared meals for the sol
diers for two weeks before they moved from her home.
"But the soldiers [in the trenches] never entered your house, did they?" asked B
emba's lawyer Peter Haynes.
“No, they didn't enter the houses. They had everything with them outside and we di
d various sorts of work for them,” the witness replied.
Haynes then asked, “If anybody thought you were sleeping with these soldiers, they
were quite wrong, weren't they?”
The witness replied that it was only on the day the soldiers arrived at her home
that they raped her. "Afterwards, they no longer touched me," she said.
Eight witnesses have now called by the prosecution in the trial of Bemba, who ha
s denied all five charges against him stemming from his alleged failure to stop
or to punish his MLC troops as they committed crimes against the civilian popula
tion in CAR during 2002 and 2003.
His Congolese troops were in the country at the invitation of then president Ang
e-Felix Patassé, who faced an insurgency led by sacked army chief-of-staff Francoi
s Bozizé.
The trial continues this week.
Wairagala Wakabi is an IWPR reporter.