ICC set for first monetary awards to war crimes victims

Judges at the International Criminal Court are expected on Friday to unveil the first compensation awards to victims of war crimes, with lawyers estimating a 2003 attack on a Congolese village caused $16.4 million in damage.

Friday's order for reparations for 304 victims of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga is set to be a landmark step for the tribunal, set up in 2002 to prosecute the world's worst crimes.

Katanga was sentenced by the ICC to 12 years in jail in 2014, after being convicted on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the February 2003 ethnic attack on Bogoro village in Ituri province.

He was accused of supplying weapons to his militia in the attack in which some 200 people were shot and hacked to death with machetes.

Legal representatives have estimated a minimum of $16.4 million in damages was caused, and it may be as high as $24.7 million, even if the "victims are not demanding this sum".

Katanga, 38, now on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo on other charges of war crimes and insurrection in the mineral-rich Ituri region, is liable to pay any compensation.

- 'Without real precedent' -

The judges could decide to order collective reparations for projects to help the community as a whole, as well as individual damages to victims.

"It may bring the prospect of some redress for the victims," said Pieter de Baan, director of the Trust Fund for Victims, arguing it was important to show justice "doesn't stop in the courtroom".

The Trust Fund for Victims (TFV) is an independent body set up under the ICC's founding guidelines, to support and implement programmes to help victims.

Lawyers for the victims have set out a detailed list of the possible reparations due, pricing everything from the loss of a cow or a hen to the cost of rebuilding mud or brick homes or how much a life is worth, or how much suffering being raped caused.

"The reparations regime of the court is without real precedent," said De Baan. "It's not science. It's basically trying to reach an estimation of what the harm has been in relation to the crimes."

If Katanga cannot himself pay any reparations awarded then the TFV could decide to dip into its funds, gathered from voluntary contributions from member states.

But it only has $5 million available, of which one million has been set aside for the case of Thomas Lubanga. And under its guidelines, it can only help pay collective reparations not any individual ones.

- Reconciliation -

The case of Lubanga, another Congolese warlord sentenced in 2012 to 14 years for conscripting child soldiers in the DRC, was the first to see some kind of ICC compensation awarded.

In October, judges approved "symbolic reparations" to create a "living memorial" to remember and raise awareness about child soldiers.

But a final decision on collective reparations for Lubanga's victims is still awaited.

The Ituri region where the Bogoro massacre occurred has been riven by violence since 1999, when clashes broke out that killed at least 60,000 people, according to rights groups.

Aid workers say they hope any reparations will go towards long-term projects such as building roads, health centres and schools.

"Given that today the victims and the executioners are living together, we must help people reach a real reconciliation," said Jean Bosco Lalo, coordinator for the local group, the Ituri Civil Society.