Congo war crimes case should not derail peace -U.N.
By Joe Bavier
KINSHASA, April 30 (Reuters) - A Congo rebel group rejected on Wednesday an international court indictment of their military chief for war crimes but a senior United Nations official said the dispute should not derail a three-month-old peace deal.
The International Criminal Court said on Tuesday it was seeking the arrest of Jean Bosco Ntaganda, the military commander of renegade General Laurent Nkunda's Tutsi insurgency in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province.
Ntaganda, known as "the Terminator", is wanted for recruiting child soldiers, the ICC prosecutor said.
"We do not agree with the ICC," Nkunda's spokesman Rene Abandi told Reuters. He said the leadership of Nkunda's CNDP rebel group was meeting to decide how to react to the court's decision to indict Ntaganda.
The CNDP (National Congress for the Defence of the People) was one of 20 rebel and militia groups which signed a Jan. 23 peace deal with Congo's government aimed at ending years of conflict in the east of the mineral-rich former Belgian colony.
On Tuesday, Abandi criticised the ICC warrant for Ntaganda as "counter-productive", raising fears it could act as a major disincentive for Congolese rebel and militia fighters to come out of the bush and disarm under the peace accord.
The top U.N. official in the Congo, Alan Doss, said he believed the court's move should not endanger the peace process.
"Mr. Bosco is being sought for acts committed in Ituri (province) before he became a member of the CNDP. The arrest warrant does not mention the CNDP or Mr. Nkunda. It is linked to his (Ntaganda's) past acts, not what's happening now," said Doss, head of the U.N. mission in the Congo (MONUC).
MONUC, which helped broker the January peace deal and has a 17,000-strong peacekeeping presence in Congo, will help Congolese authorities to enforce the warrant if asked, he said.
In seeking Ntaganda's arrest, the ICC prosecutor's office also said there were credible reports that the CNDP was involved in "sexual crimes of unspeakable cruelty".
The east Congo peace deal foresees an amnesty for rebels like Ntaganda and Nkunda for acts of rebellion, but this does not cover war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Ntaganda is a former associate of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga whose trial at the ICC -- the new court's first -- is due to start on June 23. Lubanga is also accused of recruiting child soldiers and sending them to fight.
The warrant against Ntaganda relates to his role as deputy chief of the military wing of Lubanga's Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), which is accused of sending child soldiers to fight in Ituri district in 2002-2003.
Ntaganda, who fought on the side of Rwandan-backed rebels when war broke out in Congo in 1998, returned to his native province of North Kivu in 2006, where he joined Nkunda's CNDP. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/) (Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Robert Woodward)
