Congolese

Standing before the International Criminal Court on Tuesday for the first time, Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda denied he was guilty of a long list of wartime crimes. Ntaganda faces charges of forcing children to fight as soldiers and indirectly perpetrating murder, rape, attacks on civilians and other crimes against humanity. He was officially informed of the charges against him at the hearing Tuesday in the Hague. The warlord said he was not guilty before a judge interrupted and told him he did not yet need to enter a plea.

Standing before the International Criminal Court on Tuesday for the first time, Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda denied he was guilty of a long list of wartime crimes. Ntaganda faces charges of forcing children to fight as soldiers and indirectly perpetrating murder, rape, attacks on civilians and other crimes against humanity. He was officially informed of the charges against him at the hearing Tuesday in the Hague. The warlord said he was not guilty before a judge interrupted and told him he did not yet need to enter a plea.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- In his seven years on the run from international justice, Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda became a symbol of the International Criminal Court's impotence. Now the court, which lacks a police force to arrest those it has indicted, will have an unexpected opportunity to demonstrate its relevance in Ntaganda's case. The warlord-turned-general-turned-warlord, who launched last year's rebellion in Eastern Congo, shocked everyone when he walked into the U.S. embassy in the Rwandan capital of Kigali on Monday and asked to be handed over to the ICC to stand trial.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- In his seven years on the run from international justice, Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda became a symbol of the International Criminal Court's impotence. Now the court, which lacks a police force to arrest those it has indicted, will have an unexpected opportunity to demonstrate its relevance in Ntaganda's case. The warlord-turned-general-turned-warlord, who launched last year's rebellion in Eastern Congo, shocked everyone when he walked into the U.S. embassy in the Rwandan capital of Kigali on Monday and asked to be handed over to the ICC to stand trial.

The United Nations refugee agency protested to Rwandan President Paul Kagame over his government forcing home 1,500 Congolese refugees in recent days. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers said refugees "must be able to make a free and informed decision." Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace pact July 30 aiming to end a devastating conflict estimated to have killed more than 2 million people. But both sides have accused the other of violating the deal.

A decade ago, Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen started working on the script that would become "War Witch," a film about a girl in sub-Saharan Africa who is kidnapped by rebels, conscripted as a child soldier and forced to commit horrific acts of violence. Around the same time, Rachel Mwanza was abandoned by her parents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at age 6, living with her grandmother for a time and then fending for herself on the streets of Kinshasa, the capital. Nguyen was finally able to put his film into production in 2011 and cast Mwanza in the title role.

GOMA, Congo - These days, the U.N. force deployed to protect the city's population from rampant militias is not particularly popular. Residents complain that the peacekeepers last month should have prevented Rwanda-backed M23 rebels from taking over the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Some even assert that their country would be better off without the international force, known as MONUSCO, which at $1.4 billion a year is the U.N.'s most expensive peacekeeping mission, and the most controversial.

GOMA, Congo - It was not the bullet lodged in the officer's gut, or the botched operation he'd had in a field hospital, that made the case so difficult for doctors in a Goma hospital. It was trying to save the life of a Rwandan officer injured in the recent Congolese battle for the eastern city when Rwanda's government insisted it wasn't involved in the Goma fighting. Doctors were convinced the officer would die if he wasn't sent home to Rwanda, where he could get better medical care.

GOMA, Congo - It's an ungainly beast of a machine: a wooden bicycle with handlebars like great bull's horns, two runtish wooden wheels, a chunky frame like a squashed triangle and no pedals. There's no seat either, just a kneepad fixed to the frame, made from a spongy Chinese flip-flop. The Congolese chikudu looks like it rolled right off the pages of a child's drawing book and onto the rutted roads of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Uzima Bahati, 18, was a child himself when he became a chikudu operator.

Government soldiers and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo have committed serious human rights abuses, including mass killings, arbitrary executions, rape and torture, a U.N. report said. The report said elements of the Congolese army and national police were responsible for many serious violations from July to November. It said rebels "perpetrated serious human rights abuses with impunity."

A decade ago, Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen started working on the script that would become "War Witch," a film about a girl in sub-Saharan Africa who is kidnapped by rebels, conscripted as a child soldier and forced to commit horrific acts of violence. Around the same time, Rachel Mwanza was abandoned by her parents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at age 6, living with her grandmother for a time and then fending for herself on the streets of Kinshasa, the capital. Nguyen was finally able to put his film into production in 2011 and cast Mwanza in the title role.

A few years ago, Rachel Mwanza was fending for herself on the streets of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; this week, the 16-year-old actress will be in attendance at Hollywood's biggest night. Mwanza, star of the film "War Witch," has been granted a visa to travel to the U.S. and Canada to attend various award shows, including the Academy Awards, where the Canadian production is nominated for best foreign-language film. (The film is in French and Lingala.) "War Witch," directed by Kim Nguyen, tells the story of Komona (played by Mwanza)

GOMA, Congo - It's an ungainly beast of a machine: a wooden bicycle with handlebars like great bull's horns, two runtish wooden wheels, a chunky frame like a squashed triangle and no pedals. There's no seat either, just a kneepad fixed to the frame, made from a spongy Chinese flip-flop. The Congolese chikudu looks like it rolled right off the pages of a child's drawing book and onto the rutted roads of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Uzima Bahati, 18, was a child himself when he became a chikudu operator.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo - On Nov. 19, armed men from a rebel group called the M23 were looking for a prominent civil society leader in a village outside Goma, a provincial capital in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. He'd been in hiding for several weeks after receiving text messages threatening him for his public denunciations of M23 abuses. When the rebels didn't find him, they shot his colleague, killing him. The next day, the M23 - fighters who had integrated into the Congolese army in 2009 but mutinied earlier this year - took control of Goma.

GOMA, Congo - These days, the U.N. force deployed to protect the city's population from rampant militias is not particularly popular. Residents complain that the peacekeepers last month should have prevented Rwanda-backed M23 rebels from taking over the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Some even assert that their country would be better off without the international force, known as MONUSCO, which at $1.4 billion a year is the U.N.'s most expensive peacekeeping mission, and the most controversial.

GOMA, Congo - It was not the bullet lodged in the officer's gut, or the botched operation he'd had in a field hospital, that made the case so difficult for doctors in a Goma hospital. It was trying to save the life of a Rwandan officer injured in the recent Congolese battle for the eastern city when Rwanda's government insisted it wasn't involved in the Goma fighting. Doctors were convinced the officer would die if he wasn't sent home to Rwanda, where he could get better medical care.

Lawmakers in the Democratic Republic of Congo approved an amnesty for nearly two dozen illegal armed groups as part of a peace deal to end fighting in the east. The law, which pardons acts of war and insurgency, applies to Congolese rebels and militias in North and South Kivu provinces, where about 1 million people have been displaced by fighting since late 2006. The amnesty is part of a deal that helped end months of fighting between Tutsi insurgents, government troops, and pro-government militia in North Kivu.

Sporadic gunfire and explosions echoed around the town of Kiwanja as Congolese rebels fought pro-government militiamen for a second day, forcing thousands to flee. A cease-fire was holding elsewhere, however, and diplomats scrambled to assemble a regional peace summit Friday in Kenya. As insurgents loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda searched houses in Kiwanja, artillery fire boomed in the hills nearby, and rebels told journalists to leave. In the nearby village of Mabenga, a Belgian journalist working for a German newspaper was kidnapped by militiamen late Tuesday, along with his assistant and three rebel fighters, said local official Gilles Simpeze.

A rebel leader accused of leading a brutal attack on a Congolese village nearly a decade ago was acquitted Tuesday by the International Criminal Court, which said prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mathieu Ngudjolo was responsible for the mass rapes and murders that devastated the town. The decision was widely seen as a setback for war crimes prosecutors who already face steep obstacles in persuading witnesses to come forward and testify. It is the second verdict ever handed down by the court, which earlier convicted former warlord Thomas Lubanga of using child soldiers in the same Congolese conflict.

Re "Congo rebels thrive on fear and chaos," Dec. 11 The article about the situation in Congo reveals the alarming truth about Rwanda's exploitation of eastern Congo's natural resources and the unspeakable sexual violence being committed against Congo's women. The Times was right to focus on the weak, corrupt and wholly ineffective Congolese government and on neighboring Rwanda and Uganda as the primary perpetrators in eastern Congo. What is not mentioned is the contributing role that the United States has played in the region.