06-21-2016, 05:32 PM
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Congolese politician Jean-Pierre Bemba was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the International Criminal Court on Tuesday for heading a 2002-03 campaign of rape and murder in neighboring Central African Republic.
Bemba, a former Democratic Republic of Congo vice-president, is the first person that the global war crimes court has held directly responsible for his subordinates’ crimes.
Judge Sylvia Steiner said troops from the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), which Bemba directed, had acted with “particular cruelty” when they rampaged through the neighboring country in support of then-president Ange-Felix Patasse.
One victim had described how, still a virgin, she had been raped in front of her father while other soldiers held the father at gunpoint.
“After the attacks, some parents found their daughters lying on the ground crying and bleeding from their vaginas,” Steiner said, describing as an aggravating circumstance the fact that victims had been “particularly defenseless.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jean...74?section=
Sure it's disgusting. It happens, and it is inexcusable anywhere.
Bemba, a former Democratic Republic of Congo vice-president, is the first person that the global war crimes court has held directly responsible for his subordinates’ crimes.
Judge Sylvia Steiner said troops from the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), which Bemba directed, had acted with “particular cruelty” when they rampaged through the neighboring country in support of then-president Ange-Felix Patasse.
One victim had described how, still a virgin, she had been raped in front of her father while other soldiers held the father at gunpoint.
“After the attacks, some parents found their daughters lying on the ground crying and bleeding from their vaginas,” Steiner said, describing as an aggravating circumstance the fact that victims had been “particularly defenseless.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jean...74?section=
Sure it's disgusting. It happens, and it is inexcusable anywhere.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.