The Special Criminal Court of the Central African Republic will issue this coming Monday its first verdict of the trial on the crimes that occurred during the second civil war that broke out in 2012, when Muslim militias of Séléka rose up against the then president François Bozizé only to end up engaged in an all-out conflict against the so-called anti-balaka self-defense militias, predominantly Christian.
The trial involves three alleged leaders of the Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation militias or 3R movement, accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity following the massacre of 46 civilians in the villages of Koundjili and Lemouna, in the north of the country, in May 2019, despite the cessation of hostilities in force at the time.
The defendants, Issa Sallet Adoum, Ousman Yaouba and Tahir Mahamat, will hear the verdict of this UN-backed hybrid tribunal, which began its work four years ago to judge the extremely violent period of fighting that erupted almost a decade ago and is still raging in the country despite the peace agreement signed in early 2019.
The 3R movement emerged in 2015 with the initial purpose of defending pastoralists of the Muslim Peul ethnic group in the midst of clashes between Seleka and anti-balaka. However, the following year organizations such as Human Rights Watch, specialized in monitoring the international Human Rights situation, began to denounce a real spectrum of atrocities committed by the militias in their areas of operation.
HRW denounced, for example, the massacre of at least 50 civilians in the sub-prefectures of Bocaranga and Koui between November 21 and 27, 2016, as well as some twenty rapes of women and girls. The group has denied any involvement in these attacks, 3R spokesmen assured HRW.
Similarly, the group has assured that the three accused for the killings of Koundjili and Lemouna «were not acting on orders from the commanders» and assured that the movement abides by the letter of the conditions of the Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation signed by the group in February 2019. The movement has also never declared any links with the Séléka militias.
The CAR special court is also competent to judge crimes committed during the first civil war in CAR which broke out in 2004 after Bozizé’s rise to power between the government and the rebels of the Union of Democratic Forces for Regroupment (UFDR), one of the direct precedents of the second armed conflict led by the Séléka and Anti-balaka.
