“Terminator” Gets 30 Years for Crimes in DRC

Bosco Ntaganda, the “Terminator” of Rwanda and DR Congo, has been handed a 30-year sentence by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ntaganda was found guilty on 18 counts including murder, rape, the use of child soldiers and sexual slavery.

This is a landmark judgement from the ICC, being the longest sentence handed down by the court since its inception in 2002, and the first time the court has recognised sexual violence as a crime, and the use of rape as a weapon of war.

But who is the man that became known as the “Terminator”, and what led him to where he is today?

Ntaganda was born in Rwanda in 1973 but fled to DR Congo at a time when ethnic Tutsis, of which he is one, were persecuted by Hutus during what has become known as the Rwandan Genocide.

He alternated between fighting for rebel groups and both the Rwandan and Congolese armies, establishing himself in the region of Ituri, in north-eastern DR Congo.

In 2006 Ntaganda was indicted by the ICC for the alleged recruitment and use of child soldiers in combat whilst heading a militia group in Ituri.

He led a group of Tutsi rebels into the town of Kiwanja, near to the Ugandan border, in 2008, and oversaw the systematic rape and murder of over 150 innocent civilians, in what has become to be known as the Kiwanja Massacre.

Despite this, in 2009 he was accepted into the Congolese army and promoted to the rank of General, before defecting in 2012 to start the now infamous rebel group M23.

Internal conflict within the M23 group is thought to have led Ntaganda to hand himself in at the US Embassy in the Rwandan capital Kigali, where he requested a transfer to the Hague to stand trial, just one year later.

The conviction has been heralded by activists, not least Human Rights Watch, who’s deputy director in Africa Ida Sawyer, said the sentence “sends a strong message that even people considered untouchable may one day be held to account”.

Ntaganda has appealed his conviction, arguing he was a “soldier, not a criminal”.