Judges at the International Criminal Court are expected on Friday to unveil the first compensation awards to victims of war crimes, with lawyers estimating a 2003 attack on a Congolese village caused $16.4 million in damage.
Friday's order for reparations
for 304 victims of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga is set to be
a landmark step for the tribunal, set up in 2002 to prosecute the
world's worst crimes.
Katanga was
sentenced by the ICC to 12 years in jail in 2014, after being convicted
on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the
February 2003 ethnic attack on Bogoro village in Ituri province.
He
was accused of supplying weapons to his militia in the attack in which
some 200 people were shot and hacked to death with machetes.
Legal
representatives have estimated a minimum of $16.4 million in damages
was caused, and it may be as high as $24.7 million, even if the "victims
are not demanding this sum".
Katanga,
38, now on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo on other charges of
war crimes and insurrection in the mineral-rich Ituri region, is liable
to pay any compensation.
'Without real precedent'
The
judges could decide to order collective reparations for projects to
help the community as a whole, as well as individual damages to victims.
"It
may bring the prospect of some redress for the victims," said Pieter de
Baan, director of the Trust Fund for Victims, arguing it was important
to show justice "doesn't stop in the courtroom".
The
Trust Fund for Victims (TFV) is an independent body set up under the
ICC's founding guidelines, to support and implement programmes to help
victims.
Lawyers for the victims have set
out a detailed list of the possible reparations due, pricing everything
from the loss of a cow or a hen to the cost of rebuilding mud or brick
homes or how much a life is worth, or how much suffering being raped
caused.
"The reparations regime of the
court is without real precedent," said De Baan. "It's not science. It's
basically trying to reach an estimation of what the harm has been in
relation to the crimes."
If Katanga
cannot himself pay any reparations awarded then the TFV could decide to
dip into its funds, gathered from voluntary contributions from member
states.
But it only has $5 million
available, of which one million has been set aside for the case of
Thomas Lubanga. And under its guidelines, it can only help pay
collective reparations not any individual ones.
Reconciliation
The
case of Lubanga, another Congolese warlord sentenced in 2012 to 14
years for conscripting child soldiers in the DRC, was the first to see
some kind of ICC compensation awarded.
In
October, judges approved "symbolic reparations" to create a "living
memorial" to remember and raise awareness about child soldiers.
But a final decision on collective reparations for Lubanga's victims is still awaited.
The
Ituri region where the Bogoro massacre occurred has been riven by
violence since 1999, when clashes broke out that killed at least 60,000
people, according to rights groups.
Aid workers say they hope any reparations will go towards long-term projects such as building roads, health centres and schools.
"Given
that today the victims and the executioners are living together, we
must help people reach a real reconciliation," said Jean Bosco Lalo,
coordinator for the local group, the Ituri Civil Society.
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