For første gang nogensinde er en krigsherre dømt for at benytte børnesoldater – og nu vil børnene have kontant godtgørelse for deres ødelagte ungdom fra den internationale krigsforbryderdomstol.
LONDON, 10 April 2012 (IRIN) – Motorcycles, school fees (skolepenge), counselling, cash (rede penge): Thomas Lubanga’s `kadogo’ (child soldiers) know what reparations (erstatning/godtgørelse) they want from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Less clear is what a cash-strapped tribunal can offer damaged children taken from their families and forced to fight in a brutal ethnic conflict in northeastern DR Congo (former Zaire).
“They expect something that will really help them to heal, to help them to recover from the loss of their childhood, their education,” said Bukeni Waruzi, an expert on child soldiers and the programme manager for Africa and the Middle East at NGO Witness.
“When a child is recruited, the minute he gets in the camp, he is not the same as before. It does not take 10 years for a child to become a child soldier, it takes two days maximum, and the mind is changed. How do you repair that?”
Lubanga was convicted in March on three charges of recruiting and using child soldiers in the military wing of his Union of Congolese Patriots in 2002 and 2003. His ICC trial heard that children as young as nine served as fighters and bodyguards.
It was the ICC’s first-ever verdict, and the court is now heading into unfamiliar legal territory as judges must now decide on reparations for Lubanga’s victims.
Reparations never awarded before
No other international criminal tribunal has ever awarded reparations, but under ICC rules, those who have suffered injury or harm from a crime for which someone is convicted could receive restitution (erstatning), compensation or rehabilitation.
“The judges will decide on Lubanga’s sentence, this is first step,” said Paolina Massidda, principal counsel of the ICC’s Office of the Public Counsel for Victims, which provides support to victims including legal representation.
Under the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, court-recognized victims are given lawyers and allowed to participate throughout a trial, including questioning witnesses.
“It is possible then for the court to start reparations proceedings, but there is no clear established procedure which is the reason why the judges are asking participants [in the case] to provide observations, among other things, on whether reparations should be awarded collectively or on an individual basis, to whom and how harm could be assessed (til hvem og hvordan har har lidt overlast).”
Collective/symbolic reparations
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95257/DRC-Thorny-issue-of-reparations-for-Lubanga-s-victims
