Global court seeks arrest of Congo's "Terminator"

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of a fourth Congolese militia leader known as "the Terminator", who is wanted for conscripting child soldiers, the court said on Tuesday.

Bosco Ntaganda, 35, is the chief of staff of renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) which is fighting in the violence-ravaged North Kivu province in Congo's east.

He is also a former associate of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga whose trial at the ICC is due to start on June 23.

"We count on all concerned states, authorities and actors to contribute to his arrest and surrender him to the court," prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in a statement, adding that Ntaganda was accused of conscripting child soldiers.

"He must be stopped if we want to break the system of violence. For such criminals, there must be no escape. Then peace will have a chance. Then victims will have hope."

Three months after Democratic Republic of Congo's government signed a peace deal with rebel and militia groups in the violent east, humanitarian workers report insecurity is still badly hampering their efforts to help thousands of displaced people.

Along with Lubanga, two other Congolese militia leaders are in detention at the ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes court set up in 2002. The court is also investigating war crimes in Uganda, Sudan and the Central African Republic.

The court said in a statement Ntaganda was previously deputy chief of the general staff of the FPLC military wing of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) led by Lubanga.

"He is alleged to have committed war crimes of enlistment and conscription of children under the age of 15 and of using them to participate actively in hostilities," it said.

The court said it had decided to unseal the arrest warrant against Ntaganda that was originally issued in 2006 because it no longer believed it might endanger witnesses.

"UNSPEAKABLE CRUELTY"

The prosecution said he had since moved from Ituri to North Kivu, where he joined Nkunda's CNDP. Nearly a half million North Kivu residents fled on-and-off fighting throughout 2007.

"The CNDP is one of the groups against which there are credible reports of serious crimes committed in the two Kivu provinces including sexual crimes of unspeakable cruelty," it said.

The prosecution said it expected more applications for arrest warrants in the coming months and years in relation to its ongoing investigation into crimes committed in the Kivu region and into those who financed the militias.

U.N. agencies suspended some relief operations in the North Kivu province last week as renewed fighting threatened refugee camps and food distribution despite a January peace deal.

The conflict in the eastern province has raged on long after the official end of a 1998-2003 war. The fighting pits Congolese Tutsi insurgents against Rwandan Hutu FDLR fighters and also involves the army and other militia groups. It has its roots in neighboring Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which Hutu militants slaughtered around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Experts say 5.4 million people have perished in Congo's 1998-2003 war and the resulting humanitarian disaster, most from hunger and disease linked to the conflict. The continuing crisis in the vast, former Belgian colony, makes it the world's most deadly conflict since the Second World War.

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