As the trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba gets underway, political analysts will go into overdrive about what the case means for the fragile peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition, many will see this as a crucial test of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) ability to deliver justice in a region whose politics is inextricably linked to bloodshed and instability. 

For those of us who support the notion — as articulated in the founding principles of the Court — that there can be no peace without justice and even for those with an ideological commitment to the Court, it is difficult to deny that there are a number of problematic elements in the case against Bemba. The primary problem is that he is standing trial alone: the former President of the Central African Republic, Ange-Félix Patassé, who invited Bemba’s rebels into the country in 2002, remains uncharged despite that fact that no less than the deputy prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, has indicated that “he is a co-perpetrator of Bemba.” In the CAR, the victims of the 2002-2003 battle between the current president Francois Bozizé, and then president Patassé, wonder why a foreigner is standing trial while their own countryman has escaped the long arm of the ICC. 

On the other side of the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, victims in Ituri province, where the Banyamulenge terrorized the population between 2002 and 2006, wonder why Bemba is only being charged for the crimes that took place in the CAR. For those in Ituri who want to know what happened to their loved ones and why, justice will remain elusive – even if Bemba is successfully prosecuted in this case.

And of course at the political level, DRC’s President, Joseph Kabila, continues to be dogged by claims that Bemba’s referral had more to do with politics than justice, that his popularity ensured that he would find his way to The Hague when others who have perpetrated serious crimes remain at large, and that the Prosecutor is either haplessly incompetent, or willingly playing into the hands of African politicians. 

Yet beneath all the commentary and the legal acrobatics that will continue to surround this case, there are a number of important facts that must be kept in mind by people committed to peace and democratic progress in the Great Lakes region. Jean-Pierre Bemba does not deny that he and his troops were in the CAR at the time that the atrocities were committed. He does not deny having controlled a rebel army. He does not even deny that his troops committed atrocities, which could be defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instead, his defense rests on the idea that he was not the commander in charge, and therefore did not know and/or was powerless to stop the atrocities.

It is a defense that will certainly ring hollow, not only for the victims of the crimes he is alleged to have committed, but for all survivors who have been caught in the crossfire between dangerous and powerful men. 

In May this year, I travelled to South Kivu to meet with people in the Congo whose lives over the last decade have come to be defined by rape and murder. Among all my memories of that visit, one is particularly vivid. I sit in an unlit room with two colleagues, talking to staff of a project that we fund – a legal clinic at the famous Panzi Hospital. They tell us about the new Sexual Violence Act that has just been passed and about how they use it as a tool not only for justice, but to educate their far-flung communities about rape and the abuse of women. We have heard these words before, in dozens of projects around southern Africa. We nod appreciatively. We are aware of the context, of the war that has raged across the Kivus since 1998. But this does not feel all that different from any poor community, anywhere else in Southern Africa. They tell us about the tapes they have made, which play on loud speakers on certain days advertising their services, and they begin to tell us about the many women who have come forward. They cite the progress they have made in Uvira, and a particularly articulate young man, who has led the group discussions until now, suddenly begins to cry. His mouth is stretched open, and he is heaving. He cannot help himself. He is surprised and embarrassed but he doesn’t know what else to do. He begins, through his sobs, to describe what he has seen and then stops himself – for his own sake as well as ours. It is an utterly unrehearsed moment of grief; wide and gaping. My colleagues and I are Africans, just like him. Ostensibly, this should help us to understand better. But as he calms himself, I am ashamed: I will never understand what he has seen.

The project lawyer breaks the silence and begins to talk about the workshops they run. She has experienced enough of these meetings to know that we are expected to go back to Johannesburg with facts and figures. And so, in a practical manner, she begins to rattle off numbers, taking us back into terrain that we can navigate: over a thousand women reached with workshops, seven hundred have come forward for counseling, one percent have pursued cases. I want to cry but I feel silly. “Why such a low figure?” we ask, stupidly.

She is patient with us: “Because the perpetrators are not known. And those who are will simply come back.” “So what do you do with all these women who cannot take their cases forward?” we ask. “We train them about justice.” Her responds lacks irony. I look at her, and she continues. “And always, we tell them about the ICC. That is the best part of the training we give them.” Now it is impossible not to cry. “Why? What has the ICC got to do with their lives?” we ask. “It is our hope,” she says. She is not an idealistic Westerner. She is a Congolese woman, a legal assistant, who speaks four languages, and works in one of the most difficult jobs in the world. “One day, the ICC will come and hear their stories. One day then, the rape will stop.”

Whether or not this is true, it matters that some survivors believe it. It matters immensely that as the Bemba trial begins this week, it is the victims and survivors of the CAR, and those in the Congo, in Sri Lanka, in Colombia, whose perpetrators will one day stand trial, who take center stage; politicians be damned.

Sisonke Msimang is the Executive Director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. She is a specialist in civil society movements and women’s rights.