In a diplomatic breakthrough, signatories to the 11-member International Conference on the Great Lakes have agreed to commit military officers suspected of crimes against humanity to The Hague.

The decision extends to heads of illegal, armed groups. It is expected to spark a renewed hunt for leaders of dissident groups that have found a safe haven in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The meeting in Kampala late last month was attended by representatives from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, DRC, Zambia, the Central African Republic, Sudan and the Republic of Congo.

The representatives said they would compile evidence for prosecution at The Hague and other international courts of all leaders of illegal armed groups and government forces suspected to have committed war crimes.  

“You can’t just say violence should stop and expect it to stop. You cannot use the argument of instability to justify impunity. We shall compile all evidence against those negative forces,” said ICGLR programme officer Nathan Byamukama.  

Rwandan and Ugandan forces have lately been working with their Congolese and Central African counterparts to track down rebel groups holed up in these countries.

Col Paul Dimassi, the Inspector General of the Central African Republic, said the country’s troops together with Ugandan forces are still hunting for Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel chief who fled to that country after a joint offensive scattered his group in the DRC last December.  

“Our troops are on the ground together with a joint force of Uganda, DR Congo and Sudan. The rebels are scattered around the country,” the CAR security chief said.  

Lusaka also renewed its commitment to track down genocide suspects who Rwanda complains are hiding in Zambia.  Lt-Col Emmanuel Sefu, deputy director of administration with Zambia’s Ministry of Defence, said they would provide more assistance to Rwanda.

“We’re ready to co-operate, although the last time Rwandan officials checked the refugee camps, they couldn’t identify any Interahamwe (elements of the late president Juvenal Habyarimana’s forces that committed genocide). But maybe they have mingled with our people in urban areas,” he said.

Meanwhile, implementation of the 2006 Nairobi pact on security, stability and development is still held up by the failure of Anglophone members to domesticate its provision.

Apart from Angola, all the other members have ratified the pact, which is the only regional framework that outlaws hosting of negative forces by partner states.

It comes into force the moment eight members accede to it.

Andre Samba, the ICGLR programme officer for peace and security, said they would interview victims of the conflicts to pin down both dissidents and military chiefs implicated in crime.

It is Mr Samba who solicited evidence against Jean-Pierre Bemba — leader of a militia known as the Movement for the Liberation of Congo during DR Congo’s civil war.

Bemba is already on trial at the International Criminal Court on charges that his troops committed atrocities in the CAR when he tried to help the then-president Ange-Felix Patasse to put down a coup attempt in 2002.  

Two other Congolese rebel leaders, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, are also on trial at the ICC.

Ignance Murwanashyaka, one of the Rwandan dissidents suspected of masterminding the 1994 genocide, was also arrested recently by German authorities.