The UN and rights groups are accusing the main leaders of the mutiny in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Nord-Kivu province of serious rights abuses and trafficking in natural resources.
General Bosco Ntaganda, known as "Terminator", is accused by the Kinshasa government of being behind the three-month-old mutiny, but he has never publicly assumed that role, which officially goes to Colonel Sultan Makenga.
Ntaganda has been wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2006 for allegedly enlisting child soldiers. According to Human Rights Watch, he again recruited minors at the start of the mutiny in April, when troops loyal to him deserted the army, which they had joined under a 2009 peace pact.
Ntaganda was chief of general staff of the ethnic Tutsi National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) when this rebel force massacred at least 67 people at Kiwanja in Nord-Kivu on November 4 and 5, 2008.
Human Rights Watch also accuses him of being behind about a dozen murders and arbitrary arrests in 2010, when he was the DR Congo army (FARDC) number two in charge of operations against militia forces in the east.
His name frequently comes up in UN reports for his alleged involvement in the trafficking of gold, precious minerals and tropical hardwoods.
Colonel Sultani Makenga is the official head of the mutineers' M23 Movement, named for the accords integrating former CNDP rebels into the army, signed on March 23, 2009.
He held third place in the hierarchy of power in the CNDP, and is also accused of enlisting child soldiers, as well as being implicated in the Kiwanja massacre.
He is also accused of killing 14 civilians of the Hutu and Nande ethnic groups at Buramba in March 2007, when he was a member of the Congolese army.
Colonel Baudouin Ngaruye is accused of playing a role in a massacre at Shalio in Sud-Kivu province in April 2009, when a unit of the FARDC, comprising mainly ex-CNDP forces, killed or left missing 139 Hutus and raped about 40 women, of whom several were mutilated.
Colonel Innocent Zimurinda is also believed to have been involved in the Kiwanja and Shalio massacres, as well as recruiting child soldiers.
According to a UN report, he embezzled taxes imposed on charcoal production in the Virunga National Park in Nord-Kivu and in other zones, for his own benefit and that of Bosco Ntaganda.
Colonel Innocent Kaina stands accused of many crimes and human rights abuses committed in the northeastern Ituri region in the first years of this century, when he and Ntaganda were members of a militia led by Thomas Lubanga, who has been convicted of enlisting child soldiers and was sentenced last Tuesday to 14 years in prison.
Arrested in 2006 by Congolese authorities, Kaina was freed early in 2009. He has been accused of profiting from the illegal exploitation of mines in Nord-Kivu province.
All these officers have been cashiered from the army for their part in the mutiny. – Sapa-AFP
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