The Democratic Republic of Congo’s war lord, General Bosco Ntaganda, surrended himself to the US Embassy in Rwanda. BBC reported: “The state department said he had asked to be transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
This surrender is not the direct result of military action of the Congolese government, but a military defeat of elements loyal to Ntaganda against those loyal to Sultani Makenga within the rebel group M23, due in part to power struggle and tribalism. The M23 rebel group started as a mutiny when the government of Congo tried to arrest Ntaganda in April 2012, but failed.
A resident of Goma in eastern DRC who asked to remain anonymous told Africa Faith and Justice Network that “The confusion within M23 that led to Ntaganda’s surrender is a result of his victims’ cries and people’s prayers answered in the face of a government and an international community which has been unable to protect the people of North, South Kivu and Ituri provinces against Ntaganda and his men for more than a decade.”
Ntaganda has been wanted by the International criminal Court since 2006. In 2009 his troops were integrated within the Congolese national army as part of the deal that officially ended the Rwandan proxy rebel group, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) previously led by Laurent Nkunda. The Rwandan government has refused to hand Laurent Nkunda over to the government of Congo to face justice.
If handed over to the ICC, Bosco will be the 4th person after Thomas Lubanga, Matheux Ngudjolo, and Germain Katanga to be transferred to the Hague over crimes committed in the DRC since its invasion by Rwandan and Ugandan forces in 1996.