On 21 June 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced former Congolese rebel leader and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba to 18 years in prison for human rights violations committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2002-2003 by fighters of his Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) rebel group. Commentators and news outlets widely welcomed it as a landmark ruling, with one commentator even hailing Bemba’s trial as “the ICC’s greatest success to date”. Such enthusiasm is understandable, as the trial set some important precedents for the ICC and demonstrated the Court’s ability to apprehend and successfully complete the trial of a high-level politico-military leader. Following the debacle of ICC cases against Uhurru Kenyatta and William Ruto in Kenya, and the never-ending wrangles around the outstanding ICC arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, this was a much needed boost. In addition, Bemba’s conviction is significant because it reaffirmed the doctrine of command responsibility, which establishes that leaders can be responsible for crimes committed by their troops even if they did not themselves directly engage in such acts. This ruling also constitutes the ICC’s first ever conviction for sexual and gender-based violence.
But the enthusiasm with which outside commentators met Bemba’s conviction contrasts sharply with the muted responses I observed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While his MLC party unsurprisingly denounced the ruling as unfair and politicized, the more general response seemed to be one of indifference. A number of factors help explain this, such as the fact that Bemba was not tried for crimes committed in the DRC and that many people lost interest over the course of what has been a very long trial process. In addition, the announcement of the verdict was drowned out by more immediate day-to-day concerns, such as the depreciation of the Congolese franc, the drastic rise of Internet costs, and the looming political instability sparked by highly contested presidential elections.
