THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – The chief prosecutor of the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal said Wednesday he may investigate allegations of crimes against humanity for the massacre of thousands of civilians in Congo.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo said, however, he has rejected appeals to investigate allegations of war crimes by the United States or coalition forces in Iraq, because those complaints fell outside the jurisdiction of the newly created International Criminal Court.
The court, which came into existence on July 1, 2002, despite U.S. opposition, has received nearly 500 complaints from 66 countries.
Congo would be the first case examined in depth by the veteran Argentine prosecutor, and was the only one that qualified for the court’s jurisdiction, he said.
Moreno-Ocampo said up to 5,000 civilians have been killed in tribal wars in Congo’s Ituri province since the court started functioning.
Militias backed since 1998 by the governments of Uganda, Rwanda and by Congo itself engaged in widespread torture, rape and occasional acts of cannibalism, according to reports reaching the tribunal.
Congo’s full name is the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire.
The prosecutor said detailed allegations had come from nongovernment organizations of starvation, killings, untreated injuries and the transmission of HIV/AIDS through rape in Ituri.
Moreno-Ocampo said his first step would be to seek authorization from the court’s judges to launch an investigation and to ask for more information from the United Nations and other organizations about events in the province.
The court can only intervene if Congolese courts proved unable to deal with the crisis, he said.
A new government has just taken office in Congo, and it was unclear whether it would try to prosecute war criminals in Ituri.
“We selected Ituri because it is the most urgent case,” Moreno-Ocampo said. “It is the case in which we could prevent killings.”
He said the fighting appeared to be the result of “ethnic strife and of the struggle for local power, intertwined with national and regional conflicts,” and fueled by the exploitation of the area’s rich resources.
He also said companies in Africa, Europe and the Middle East could be investigated for illegal transactions that he linked to the atrocities.
“Companies who are doing illegal business and financing the crimes will know that we are following them,” he said.
Events in Iraq fell outside the court’s authority, Moreno-Ocampo said, since neither the United States nor Iraq is a party to the 1998 Rome Statute, the treaty that created the court.
He said a majority of the 499 complaints to the court in the past year concerned the war in Iraq, and 16 involved the actions of U.S. troops.
The Bush administration fiercely opposes the court, fearing politically motivated indictments against Americans.
Under the Rome Statute, the court has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed in any of the court’s 90 member countries, if that country cannot or will not prosecute suspects itself. Nonparty states can ask the court to intervene, as can the U.N. Security Council.
Among the 90 countries that ratified the treaty is the entire European Union and many U.S. allies, including Canada and Australia.
AP-ES-07-16-03 1202EDT
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