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06/23/2004:

"ICC to Probe Congo Crimes in First Investigation"

Wed Jun 23, 2004 02:28 PM ET
By Emma Thomasson Reuters article

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court has opened its first investigation, into crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo including rape, torture and the use of child soldiers, it said Wednesday.

"The opening of the first investigation of the ICC is a major step forward for international justice," Luis Moreno-Ocampo, ICC chief prosecutor, said in a statement.

Prosecutors will investigate crimes committed in Congo since July 2002 when the court's statutes came into force, noting that thousands of deaths by mass murder and summary execution had been reported in the country since that date

Well it is either curious or completely appropriate that a situation that inaction by the UN (Rwanda) is what set recent mess in Congo in motion, and that THIS is waht the ICC chooses to go for first. Does Kofi Annan's inaction on Rwanda before he was Sec. General constitute a war crime?