Our group took it Anthem Award Gold Medal for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion categories were announced earlier this week. The documentary follows the complex proceedings that saw the DRC’s military court system prosecute Sheka in a landmark case watched around the world.
Watch the full UN Video documentary directed by Nathan Beriro below:
Read ours Featured story was published last July along with the release of the video:
For 96 hours, orders kept coming. In the end, 287 people were killed, 387 women and children were raped and 13 villages in eastern DRC were robbed of any sense of normalcy.
The trial of Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka is the most complex, high-profile case the court in North Kivu province has ever handled, and the proceedings and final verdict in 2020 are a compelling example of how Bring a war criminal to justice.
UN News took a closer look at a trial that provides an important case study for countries dealing with criminal justice around the world. The incident also demonstrates the importance of the support of United Nations peace operations for national security and justice institutions.
Residents of Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo protest against the capture by Goma’s M23 rebel group in 2012. (file)
Crimes: ‘On an unprecedented scale’
On July 30, 2010, armed members of Congo’s Nduma Défense (NDC) militia fanned out across 13 remote villages in resource-rich, restive Walikale, the largest territory in the North. Kivu, 150 km west of the provincial capital Goma.
Located in a vast equatorial jungle, the region has endured two decades of conflict, with countless armed groups fighting for control of lucrative mines, including those mining the main mineral tin. , cassiterite.
Mr. Sheka was 34 years old at the time – a former miner who had founded a year earlier what Goma’s chief military prosecutor called the “most organized” armed group in the region, with full units and brigades. , battalion and company – gave him orders.
In four days and nights, his new recruits discharged them.
“Sheka is no one,” said Nadine Sayiba Mpila, the lawyer representing the civil parties in the case. UN News. “Sheka committed crimes on a scale never before seen in the DRC.”
She described how his soldiers “would massacre people and put their heads on stakes and go through the streets of the village saying this is what awaits you if you don’t denounce what he called ‘enemy'”.
By August 2, 2010, armed militias had begun to completely occupy the villages.
Sheka (second from left) leads an armed group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. (document)
Arrest warrant: Wanted for war crimes
Those who could fled to safety. Some sought medical help from a nearby non-governmental organization (NGO).
Within two weeks, the survivors’ stories reached the authorities. Media reports headlined the attacks as “serial rape”. United Nations Mission in this country, MONUSCOsupport the deployment of a police team.
By November 2010, a case against the warlord was brought. Congolese authorities subsequently issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Mr. Sheka and the United Nations Security Council added him on its sanctions list.
With a mandate to protect civilians and support national authorities, MONUSCO launched Operation Silent Valley in early August 2011, helping people safely return to their villages.
‘There is no other choice but to surrender’
Mr. Sheka is now a fugitive. Also known as the Mai-Mai militia, the NDC continues to operate in the area alongside other armed groups.
Colonel Ndaka Mbwedi Hyppolite, Chief Prosecutor of the North Kivu Operational Military Court, which heard Mr. Sheka’s case, said: “Cornered from all sides, he is now weakened and unable to There is no other choice but to surrender.”
He turn yourself in on 26 July 2017 to MONUSCO, who turned him over to Congolese authorities, which have since charged him with war crimes, including murder, sexual slavery, child recruitment, looting and rape.
“It is time to tell the truth and face the consequences of the truth,” Ms. Sayiba said.
The trial of Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka. (document)
Trial: 3,000 pieces of evidence
Before the trial, United Nations peacekeepers helped build Mr. Sheka’s holding cells and the courtroom itself, where military court proceedings took place for two years, paused from March to June 2020 due to the start of the trial. COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting in November 2018, the court will consider 3,000 pieces of evidence and hear from 178 witnesses at 108 hearings.
Patient Iraguha, Senior Legal Advisor of TRIAL International in DRC, who helped authorities in the case, said their testimony played an important role, representing a “last resort.” of the prosecution to prove that a crime has been committed.
However, Congolese prosecutors said getting the victim to testify was a serious challenge.
During the trial, Mr. Sheka “approached several victims to intimidate them,” jeopardizing their readiness to appear in court. However, a joint effort involving the United Nations and partners such as TRIAL International changed that, Ms. Sayiba explained.
People displaced by fighting between M23 and the national armed forces set up camp in late 2012 on the outskirts of Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. (document)
Colonel Ndaka agreed and added that some rape victims also fear social stigma. Safeguards have been established, he said, and judicial authorities can collect evidence in collaboration with MONUSCO, which also trains the judiciary in international criminal law procedures , providing the court with enough knowledge to investigate the case properly.
“When the Congolese authorities had to go to the scene to investigate or listen to the victims, they were surrounded by a MONUSCO army,” he said. “Victims emerged thanks to support from our partners.”
MONUSCO and United Nations Judicial and Correctional Service provides technical, logistical and financial support throughout the investigation and trial process, empowering the country’s justice system to investigate and prosecute serious crimes while protecting victims.
Tonderai Chikuhwa, Chief of Staff Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflictrecalls hearing about the crime firsthand.
“The heartbreaking testimonies I heard from survivors in seven villages from Kibua to Mpofu in Walikale in 2010 were seared into my mind,” he wrote on his Twitter account. social media at that time.
The first witnesses to appear in court were the six children, whose victims will testify until July 2020.
“After her testimony to the jury, Sheka started crying,” Ms. Sayiba recalled. “The defendant’s tears were a response. I believe Sheka realized that he was now alone. He must take responsibility for his actions.”
The trial of Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka.
Verdict: Congolese justice ‘got it done’
On November 23, 2020, the Military Operations Court sentenced Mr. Sheka to life in prison.
“This marks an important step forward in combating the impunity of perpetrators of child recruitment and other serious violations,” the UN Secretary-General wrote about the case in a 2022 book. yours. report on children and armed conflict in DRC.
Yet in 2022, the country had the highest number of conflict-related sexual violence cases in the world, his Special Representative on the subject told the United Nations Security Council. last yearPresents the latest relevant information report.
“We must act urgently and with sustained determination to save the next generations from this scourge,” he said. Pramila Pattenadding that “many” of the women she met during her visit to the DRC last year “emphasised the daily risk of sexual violence when carrying out livelihood activities”.
She already has welcome Mr. Sheka’s verdict, calling this “a formidable example showing that no individual, no matter how powerful, can escape being held responsible for such violations.”
Indeed, the trial sent “a great message,” Ms. Sayiba said, adding that the verdict was “assurance to the victims, who can now see that their testimony was not in vain.” useful”.
For Colonel Ndaka, the verdict is “a source of pride for myself, for my country, for Congolese justice.”
Today, the United Nations continues to support efforts to end impunity in the DRC, including with assistance from the Organization of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. United Nations group of experts on the rule of law and sexual violence in conflict, and in the Central African Republic, Mali, South Sudan and other countries. In North Kivu, the Prosecutor’s Office expanded in June, with UN support, to the Goma Peace Court.
Mr. Sheka, now 48 years old, continues to serve his life sentence at a facility in the capital Kinshasa.
“The fact that Sheka was tried and convicted is proof that the rule of law exists and that you cannot go unpunished when you commit the most serious, heinous crimes,” Colonel Ndaka said. “The Congolese judiciary can do that, with will, determination and means. It could have done it and it did.”
