The Popular Front for Justice in the Congo (French: Front populaire pour la justice au Congo, or FPJC) is an armed group operating in the south of Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where it has participated in the Ituri conflict. It formed in September 2008 from a splintering of the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri (FRPI) and coalescing of other armed actors, including combatants from the Nationalist and Integrationist Front, who had resisted national disarmament campaigns.[1][4][5] The group has expressed opposition to a 2006 attempt to resolve the Ituri conflict, which granted amnesty to former participants in the conflict.[6] In 2011, the group was estimated to have no more than 100 members.[3] Whereas the FRPI was closely linked to the Ngiti ethnolinguistic group, the FPJC incorporated members of more varied ethnic backgrounds.[5]
In October 2008, the FPJC clashed with Congolese government forces near Bunia in Ituri District, displacing thousands of local residents[6] before it was pushed back by government troops and MONUSCO, the United Nationspeacekeeping mission in the DRC. In March 2009, the FPJC launched attacks on villages southeast of Bunia, which were followed by counterattacks from the FRPI.[7] The UN Refugee Agency blamed fighting between the rebel groups for the displacement of more than 30,000 Congolese in Ituri.[8] Government forces launched an operation in 2010 to repel the FPJC and other rebel groups operating in Ituri and to relocate at-risk populations.[3] An early leader of the FPJC, Sharif Mandu, was arrested on September 2, 2010, in Arua, a town in western Uganda. Another FPJC leader, Jean-Claude Baraka, was arrested around the same time.[1] The arrest of Mandu was followed by a power struggle between his lieutenants. David Mbadu took control after his rival Cobra Matata, a former FPRI commander and briefly the FPJC leader, disappeared for a time.[2] Matata surrendered to military forces in November 2014 and was arrested in January 2015.[9]
In 2011, FPJC combatants stole national election materials from voter registration centers in Ituri, though did not otherwise block voter registration.[2] The UN reported that the group has engaged in abductions and forced recruitment of adults and children.[10] A resolution of the European Parliament in 2010 accused the FPJC, along with other armed groups active in eastern Congo, of "causing, either directly or indirectly, thousands of deaths, unbearable suffering, poverty and internally displaced people (IDPs) every month."[11] In 2011, custody of Sharif Manda was transferred to the International Criminal Court to have Manda testify as a witness in the case against Germain Katanga, the former FPRI leader accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.[12]
↑ "European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2010 on failures in protection of human rights and justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo". ResolutionNo. P7_TA(2010)0350ofOctober 7, 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
The Second Congo War began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year after the First Congo War, and involved some of the same issues. The war officially ended in July 2003, when the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power. Although a peace agreement was signed in 2002, violence has continued in many regions of the country, especially in the east. Hostilities have continued since the ongoing Lord's Resistance Army insurgency, and the Kivu and Ituri conflicts.
The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO, an acronym based on its French name, is a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which was established by the United Nations Security Council in resolutions 1279 (1999) and 1291 (2000) of the United Nations Security Council to monitor the peace process of the Second Congo War, though much of its focus subsequently turned to the Ituri conflict, the Kivu conflict and the Dongo conflict. The mission was known as the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo or MONUC, an acronym of its French name Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en République démocratique du Congo, until 2010.
The Nationalist and Integrationist Front is a rebel group active in the Ituri conflict in Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo, associated with the Lendu ethnic group. The FNI has fought against ethnic Hema and is blamed for the ambush and murder of nine United Nations peacekeepers near the town of Kafe in February 2005. FNI political leader Floribert Ndjabu was arrested by Congolese authorities, while military head Etienne Lona turned himself in.
The Ituri conflict was a major conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in the Ituri region of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While the two groups had fought since as early as 1972, the name 'Ituri conflict' refers to the period of intense violence between 1999 and 2003. Armed conflict continues to the present day.
Operation Artemis, formally European Union Force (EUFOR) Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a short-term European Union-led UN-authorised military mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Ituri conflict. ARTEMIS is considered the first military operation led by the EU, the first autonomous EU operation, the first rapid response mission of the EU, first operation outside Europe, first operation applying the principle of the framework nation and first example of "relay operation", conducted in cooperation between the EU and the United Nations. The deployment of EUFOR troops quickly decreased the conflict's intensity. It marked the first autonomous EU military mission outside Europe and an important milestone in development of the European Security and Defence Policy.
The Union of Congolese Patriots is a political and militia group in Ituri, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, formed towards the end of the Second Congo War. It was founded by Thomas Lubanga in 2001 and was one of six such groups that sprung up in the mineral-rich Ituri region on the border with Uganda in the Ituri conflict. The UPC supported and was primarily composed of the Hema ethnic group.
Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is a convicted war criminal from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the first person ever convicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). He founded and led the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and was a key player in the Ituri conflict (1999–2007). Rebels under his command have been accused of massive human rights violations, including ethnic massacres, murder, torture, rape, mutilation, and forcibly conscripting child soldiers.
Congolese history in the 2000s has primarily revolved around the Second Congo War (1998–2003) and the empowerment of a transitional government.
The Revolutionary Movement of the Congo was a coalition of rebel groups involved in the Ituri Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which was active between approximately 2006 and 2007.
The Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri is a Bunia-based armed militia and political party primarily active in the south of the Ituri Province of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Ngiti, or South Lendu, is an ethnolinguistic group located in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ngiti speakers call their language Ndruna. In 1991, the Ngiti numbered 100,000 located in the Irumu territory south of Bunia. During the Ituri conflict, the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri was formed as a Ngiti militia group and political party.
Germain Katanga, also known as Simba, is a former leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI), an armed group in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On 17 October 2007, the Congolese authorities surrendered him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stand trial on six counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity. The charges include murder, sexual slavery, rape, destruction of property, pillaging, willfull killing, and directing crimes against civilians, to name a few.
The Kivu conflict began in 2004 in the eastern Congo as an armed conflict between the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the Hutu Power group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has broadly consisted of three phases, the third of which is an ongoing conflict. Prior to March 2009, the main combatant group against the FARDC was the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). Following the cessation of hostilities between these two forces, rebel Tutsi forces, formerly under the command of Laurent Nkunda, became the dominant opposition to the government forces.
Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui is a colonel in the Congolese army and a former senior commander of the National Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI).
The assault on Bogoro, which occurred on February 24, 2003, was an attack on the village of Bogoro in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Front for Patriotic Resistance of Ituri (FRPI). The attackers allegedly went on an "indiscriminate killing spree", killing at least 200 civilians, imprisoning survivors in a room filled with corpses, and sexually enslaving women and girls. Two rebel leaders, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, have been charged by the International Criminal Court with war crimes and crimes against humanity over their alleged role in planning the attack.
Laurent Nkunda is a former General in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is the former warlord operating in the province of Nord-Kivu, sympathetic to Congolese Tutsis and the Tutsi-dominated government of neighbouring Rwanda. Nkunda, who is himself a Congolese Tutsi, commanded the former DRC troops of the 81st and 83rd Brigades of the DRC Army. He speaks English, French, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Lingala and Kinande. On January 22, 2009, he was put under house arrest in Gisenyi when he was called for a meeting to plan a joint operation between the Congolese and Rwandan militaries.
The Dongo conflict was a minor conflict centered in the town of Dongo, on the left bank of the Ubangi River in Sud-Ubangi District, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Violence initially broke out in late October 2009 after a local dispute over fishing rights. This destabilised the region and led to a spiral of violence, and an exodus of civilians attempting to flee from the fighting. By December 2009, this conflict was one of the biggest conflicts of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) and the United Nations; more than 168,000 people had fled their homes, many of them crossing into the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. An intervention by the Congolese army and MONUC brought the conflict to an end by 13 December 2009.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1484, adopted unanimously on 30 May 2003, after recalling previous resolutions on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Council authorised Operation Artemis in Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province, amid the deteriorating security situation in the area.
The International Criminal Court investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the Second Congo War and its aftermath, including the Ituri and Kivu conflicts. The war started in 1998 and despite a peace agreement between combatants in 2003, conflict continued in the eastern parts of the country for several years. In April 2004 the government of the DRC formally referred the situation in the Congo to the International Criminal Court, and in June 2004, prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, formally opened an investigation. To date, arrest warrants have been issued for:
Cobra Matata is a former leader of the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri (FRPI) and Popular Front for Justice in Congo (FPJC) militias active in the Ituri conflict in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was previously a member of the D.R. Congo armed forces (FARDC), having integrated in 2007 before deserting to reconstitute a rebel group in 2010. In November 2006, Matata had agreed to disarm in exchange for amnesty. In the FARDC, Matata attained the rank of colonel or general. The International Criminal Court classified Matata as Ngiti.
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