Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui

Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui (born 8 October 1970) is a colonel in the Congolese army and a former senior commander of the National Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI).

 

On 6 February 2008, he was arrested by the Congolese authorities and surrendered to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stand trial on six counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity. The charges include murder, sexual slavery and using children under the age of fifteen to participate actively in hostilities.

In December 2012, he was controversially acquitted of war crimes at Hague by Judge Bruno Cotte on the grounds that the prosecution had not proven beyond reasonable doubt that he was responsible for the crimes committed, a decision which led to criticism of the ICC.

He is also known as Mathieu Cui Ngudjolo or Cui Ngudjolo.

Personal Life

Ngudjolo was born on 8 October 1970 in Bunia, Ituri Province, in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A "poor farmer's son", he is believed to be of Lendu ethnicity and speaks Lingala, French, Swahili and Kilendu. He is married to Semaka Lemi and has two children.

From: www.wikipedia.org

Denis Mukwege

Denis Mukwege (born 1 March 1955) is a Congolese gynecologist. Working in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where he specializes in the treatment of women who have been gang-raped by Rwandan militia, Mukwege has probably become the world's leading expert on how to repair the internal physical damage caused by gang rape. He has treated several thousands of women since the 1998 Congo's war, some of them more than once, performing up to 10 surgeries a day during his 18-hour working days. He has described how his patients arrive at the hospital sometimes naked, usually bleeding and leaking urine and faeces from torn vaginas.

Early Life

Mukwege was the third of nine children born to a Pentecostal minister and his wife. He studied medicine because he wanted to heal the sick that his father prayed for, working at first in a rural hospital, then traveling to France to study gynecology, after seeing the complications of childbirth experienced by women in the Congo who had no access to specialist healthcare.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Laurent Nkunda

Laurent Nkunda (born February 2, 1967) or Laurent Nkundabatware, or Laurent Nkunda Batware, or as he prefers to be called The Chairman — is a former General in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is the former warlord (leader of a rebel faction) operating in the province of Nord-Kivu, sympathetic to Congolese Tutsis and the Tutsi-dominated government of neighbouring Rwanda. Nkunda, who is himself a Congolese Tutsi, commanded the former DRC troops of the 81st and 83rd Brigades of the DRC Army. He speaks English, French, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda. In early 2009, he was captured during a joint operation between the Congolese and Rwandese militaries.

Personal life

Nkunda has six children. Before joining the military, Nkunda studied psychology at Kisangani University then became a school teacher in Kichanga. He has claimed to admire leaders including Gandhi and George W. Bush.

Religious beliefs

Nkunda is an ordained Christian preacher and an ordained minister. He says that most of his troops have converted.[6] In the 2008 documentary Blood Coltan about the real costs of mobile phones, Nkunda proudly shows a button he wears that reads "Rebels for Christ." He claims to be a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. He also claims to receive help and guidance from American "Rebels for Christ" who visit the Congo spreading Pentecostal Christianity. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has disputed Nkunda's claims of affiliation.

Rwandan Genocide 1994–1995

During the Rwandan Genocide, the former psychology student traveled to Rwanda, joining the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) who were fighting against the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), the military of the genocidal Hutu-led government.

First Congo War 1996–1998

After the RPF defeated the FAR to become the new government of Rwanda, Nkunda returned to the DRC. During the First Congo War, he fought alongside Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who successfully overthrew Mobutu.

Second Congo War 2000–2003

At the outset of the Second Congo War, Nkunda joined and became a major in the Congolese Rally for Democracy also known as Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), fighting on the side of Rwandan, Ugandan, Burundian, and other Tutsi-aligned forces (the latter are a relatively small group in the DRC, numbering between half a million to a million, but are a significant military force who live just across the border from Rwanda).

Army career and rebellion 2007

In 2003, with the official end to war, Nkunda joined the new integrated national army of the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a Colonel and by 2004, he was promoted to General. However, he soon rejected the authority of the government and retreated with some of the RCD-Goma troops to the Masisi forests in Nord Kivu, where he raised the flag of rebellion against the government of Joseph Kabila (who had succeeded his father in 2001). Nkunda claimed to be defending the interests of the Tutsi minority in eastern Congo who were subjected to attacks by Hutus who had fled after their involvement with the Rwandan Genocide. This war has come to be known as the Kivu conflict.

Forming a government

In August 2007, the area under Nkunda's control lay north of Lake Kivu in Nord-Kivu in the territories of Masisi and Rutshuru. In this area, Nkunda established his headquarters by building necessary infrastructure and developing institutions of order. He established a political organisation known as the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).

2008 Nord-Kivu fighting

In fighting that began on 27 October 2008, known as the 2008 Nord-Kivu fighting, Nkunda leads Tutsi rebels who are opposing both the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo and United Nations forces of the 17,000 UN contingent in the country. It was reported that he was advancing on the city of Goma with the aim of capturing it, and the Congolese army claimed he was receiving aid from Rwanda.

The fighting has uprooted 200,000 civilians, bringing the total of people displaced by the Kivu conflict to 2 million, causing civil unrest large food shortages and what the United Nations calls "a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions."

In an interview with the BBC on November 10, 2008, Nkunda threatened to topple the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo if the President, Joseph Kabila, continues to avoid direct negotiations.

Human rights

Throughout the years Nkunda has come under scrutiny and been accused by a number of organizations of committing human rights abuses. Nkunda was indicted by the Congolese government for war crimes in September 2005.

According to human rights monitors such as Refugees International, Nkunda's troops have been alleged to have committed acts of murder, rape, and pillaging of civilian villages; a charge which Nkunda denies. Amnesty International says his troops have abducted children as young as 12 and forced them to serve as child soldiers.

In May 2002, he was accused of massacring 160 people in Kisangani, prompting UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson to call for his arrest following the abduction and beating of two UN investigators by his troops. He has claimed that the UN have ignored the widespread attacks on Tutsis in the region as they did during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.

Child soldiers

Nkunda strongly denies recruiting child soldiers, stating that as of 2005 he has demobilised 2,500 "young soldiers". His total army was estimated at 7,000–8,000 men.

Possible ouster

Nkunda may have been usurped in leadership by fellow general Bosco Ntaganda, who has become the new representative of the group. The two might have had a falling out over a massacre of civilians perpetrated by Ntaganda's forces.

Capture and arrest

Nkunda was arrested on 22 January 2009 after he had crossed into Rwanda. After unsuccessfully attempting to defeat the CNDP militarily, Congolese president Kabila made a deal with President Kagame of Rwanda to allow Rwandan soldiers into the DRC to uproot FDLR militants in exchange for Rwanda removing Nkunda. Rwandan officials have yet to say if he will be handed over to DR Congo, which has issued an international warrant for his arrest. A military spokesperson said he had been seized after sending three battalions to repel an advance by a joint Congolese-Rwandan force. The force was part of a joint Congolese-Rwandan operation which was launched to hunt Rwandan Hutu militiamen operating in DR Congo. Nkunda is currently being held at an undisclosed location in Rwanda.[24] A Rwandan military spokesman has claimed, however, that Nkunda is being held at Gisenyi, a city in Rubavu district in the Western Province of Rwanda.

On 26 March 2010, the Rwandan Supreme Court ruled that his case could only be heard by a military court, since the military had been responsible for his apprehension. Nkunda’s Defence had sought in vain to have his detention declared illegal and he has yet to be charged with a crime.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Joseph Kabila

Joseph Kabila Kabange (known commonly as Joseph Kabila, born June 4, 1971) is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2001. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. He was elected as President in 2006 and is standing for another term in the 2011 election.

Early life and education

Joseph Kabila Kabange was born on June 4, 1971 at Hewabora, a small village in the Fizi territory of the South Kivu province, in Eastern Congo. He is the son of long time rebel, former AFDL leader and president of the Congo Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Sifa Mahanya.

Guerrilla and army years

Following high school, Joseph Kabila followed a military curriculum in Tanzania, then at Makerere University in Uganda. In October 1996, Laurent-Désiré Kabila launched the campaign in Zaire to oust the Mobutu regime. Joseph became the commander of the infamous army of "kadogos" (child soldiers) and played a key role in major battles on the road to Kinshasa. The liberation army received logistical and military support from regional armies from Rwanda, Uganda, Angola and Zimbabwe. Following the AFDL's victory, and Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rise to the presidency, Joseph Kabila went on to get further training at the PLA National Defense University, in Beijing, China.

When he returned from China, Kabila was awarded the rank of Major-General, and appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 1998. He was later, in 2000, appointed Chief of Staff of the Land Forces, a position he held until the elder President Kabila's assassination in January 2001. As chief of staff, he was one of the main military leaders in charge of Government troops during the time of the Second Congo War (1998–2003).

Presidency

Joseph Kabila rose to the Presidency on 26 January 2001 after the assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila. As such Kabila became the world's first head of government born in the 1970s. He remained the world's youngest head of government until Roosevelt Skerrit became Prime Minister of Dominica in January 2004.

At age 30, he was considered young and inexperienced. He subsequently attempted to end the ongoing civil war by negotiating peace agreements with rebel groups who were backed by Rwanda and Uganda, the same regional armies who brought Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rebel group to power 3 years before. The 2002 peace agreement signed at the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Sun City, South Africa, which nominally ended the Second Congo War, maintained Joseph Kabila as President and head of state of the Congo. An interim administration was set up under him, including the leaders of the country's two main rebel groups as vice-presidents (two other vice-presidents were representatives of the civilian opposition and government supporters respectively).

On March 28, 2003, an apparent coup attempt or mutiny around the capital Kinshasa, allegedly on the part of members of the former guard of former president Mobutu Sese Seko (who had been ousted by Kabila's father in 1997 and died in the same year), failed. On June 11, 2004, coup plotters led by Major Eric Lenge allegedly attempted to take power and announced on state radio that the transitional government was suspended, but were defeated by loyalist troops.

In December 2005, a partial referendum approved a new constitution, and a presidential election was held on July 30, 2006 (having been delayed from an earlier date in June). The new constitution lowers the minimum age of presidential candidates from 35 to 30; Kabila turned 35 shortly before the election. In March 2006, he registered as a candidate. Although the new constitution stipulates that a debate be held between the two remaining candidates for the presidency, no debates took place and this was declared by many as unconstitutional.

According to widely disputed provisional results announced on August 20, Kabila won 45% of the vote; his main opponent, vice-president and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, won 20%. The irregularities surrounding the elections results prompted  a run-off vote between Kabila and Bemba which was held on October 29. On November 15, the electoral commission announced the official results and Kabila was declared the winner, with 58.05% of the vote. These results were confirmed by the Supreme Court on November 27, 2006, and Kabila was inaugurated on December 6, 2006 as the country's newly elected President. He named Antoine Gizenga, who placed third in the first round of the presidential election (and then backed Kabila in the second round) as prime minister on December 30.

Although Kabila registered as an independent, he is the "initiator" of the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), which chose him as their candidate to the election.

In response to accusations that sex crimes had been committed by the Congolese military, he pointed out that 300 soldiers have been convicted of sex crimes, although he admitted that is not enough.

Wedding

On June 1, 2006, after many wedding rumors were fueled by many in top positions in the country, the head of the Presidential Household, Ambassador Theodore Mugalu officially announced the wedding of the President to Olive Lembe di Sita. The wedding ceremonies took place on June 17, 2006. Kabila and his spouse have a daughter, born in 2001, named Sifa after Kabila's mother.

As President Kabila is Protestant (Anglican), and Ms Lembe di Sita is Catholic, the wedding ceremonies were ecumenical, and were therefore officiated by both the Catholic Archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Frederic Etsou Bamungwabi, and Pierre Marini Bodho – Presiding Bishop of the Church of Christ in Congo, the umbrella church for most Protestant denominations in the Congo, known within the country simply as "The Protestant Church".

From : www.wikipedia.org