Bogoro Attack Allegedly Targeted Tribal Alliance

A witness told the International Criminal Court, ICC, last week that alleged Congolese warlord Germain Katanga launched an attack on the Ituri town of Bogoro in order to scupper a tribal alliance that excluded his own tribe.

Continuing his testimony from the previous week, the prosecution witness, a former commander in the Ugandan armed forces, testified with face and voice distortion.

He told the court that the February 24, 2003 attack on the mainly Hema-populated village had been carried out to weaken an alliance between the Lendu and Hema people, which Katanga’s own Ngiti tribe was not part of.

The witness recalled that the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups had been strengthening their political ties during that period. The Front for Integration and Peace in Ituri, FIPI, which brought the two ethnic groups together under a single political umbrella, had been established at the end of 2002.

He said that during several encounters with Katanga in late 2003, he heard the alleged militia leader boast of military triumphs in Ituri as “a sign to the people….to understand that [the FIPI] would suit the Lendu but not the Ngiti”.

Katanga was “really proud of that exploit” and happy with the results of the assault on Bogoro, continued the witness, adding that a similar motive lay behind an attack on the village of Mandro, not far from the provincial capital of Bunia, which occurred just days after the Bogoro attack.

Katanga is standing trial before the ICC along with Mathieu Ngudjolo. Both men are charged with three counts of crimes against humanity and seven counts of war crimes, including the use of child soldiers, murder, pillaging, sexual slavery and rape.

Katanga was allegedly the commander-in-chief of the Patriotic Forces of Resistance of Ituri, FRPI, while Ngudjolo is said to have led the Nationalist and Integrationist Front, FNI.

The two men are accused of planning the attack on Bogoro in order to secure the route between Bunia and the Ugandan border.

However, Ngudjolo’s reaction to the Bogoro strike was markedly different from that of his co-defendant, according to the witness.

The witness - who claimed to have also served with the FRPI - said that Ngudjolo had shown remorse for his actions during a meeting at the Mango Hill hotel in Kampala, between May and June 2004, when another militia group, the Revolutionary Movement of Congo, MRC, was created.

The witness said that Ngudjolo expressed regret for killing so many Hema people, which he claimed to have done mistakenly.

Ngudjolo’s declaration surprised the witness. “He was converted,” the witness said. “He was no longer the person I knew before.”

The witness also claimed that Katanga led the attack on Mandro but not the one on Bogoro, which was masterminded by someone he referred to as “Commander Dark” – a man previously identified during the trial as an FRPI commander.

The witness added that Ngudjolo commanded his forces to root out members of the Hema tribe in Bogoro in the February 24 attack.

The trial continues this week.

Anjana Sundaram is an IWPR contributor in The Hague.