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	UN marks ‘Day of Disappeared’ with calls for action on Missing Persons by UN News   30 August 2006   Marking the International Day of the Disappeared, United Nations officials today voiced concern about the plight of persons who have been forced to go missing and called for action to help them.   The Geneva-based UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, which since its establishment in 1980 has submitted more than 50,000 individual cases to Governments in more than 90 countries, today issued a statement decrying the problem. “The Working Group is deeply concerned about the large number of reports of enforced disappearances that have been submitted over the past year. Many reports have been received of the disappearance of children and, in a few cases, of people with physical and mental disabilities.”   The five-member Group also called attention to threats against human rights defenders, relatives of disappeared persons, witnesses and legal counsel, and said that anti -terrorist activities “are being used by an increasing number of States as an excuse for not respecting the obligations of the Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Disappearance.”   Certain mechanisms aimed at promoting “truth and reconciliation” have given rise to the enactment of amnesty laws and the implementation of other measures that lead to impunity, the Group said.   Voicing concern that very few States have created a specific criminal offence of enforced disappearance, the Group urged States to treat all acts of enforced disappearance as offences under criminal law punishable by appropriate penalties. It also welcomed a draft treaty on the issue and recommended that the UN General Assembly adopt it.   Meanwhile in Kosovo, the Acting Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Steven Schook, took the occasion to call on all concerned to join together in efforts to determine the fate of persons still missing from the conflict in that province, where NATO troops drove out Yugoslav forces in 1999.   “As family members of persons missing from the conflict in Kosovo join voices with thousands of others across the world to mark the International Day of the Disappeared, resolving the issue of missing persons remains a top priority for us,” he said.   While considerable progress has been made in reducing the number of missing in Kosovo by half, approximately 2,300 persons are still physically unaccounted for, according to the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK).   Mr. Schook said UNMIK will continue to support the Kosovo Ministry of Justice in carrying out investigations of events of disappearance and more thorough searches for the unidentified.
	DR Congo rebel leader faces Child Soldier Charges by Reuters DR Congo   August 29, 2006   The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has formally charged a Congolese rebel leader over the use of child soldiers, in the first case it has heard since it was set up in 2005.   Thomas Lubanga, who was arrested last year, is accused of recruiting child soldiers and his trial is expected to begin in 2007.   But international human rights organisations have criticised the ICC, saying the area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) in which Lubanga"s organisation was operating saw 60,000 deaths in six years of fighting.   They argue that charges of murder, torture and rape should be brought against him.   Lubanga is charged with enlisting children as young as 10 and forcing them to fight in DR Congo"s civil war.   Prosecutors say he is the founder and leader of one of the Union of Congolese Patriots, the most dangerous militia in Ituri, in DR Congo"s north-east.   The charges against him relate to the period between July 2002 and December 2003, although the war in DR Congo began in 1998.   Child soldiers   The ICC will examine the prosecutors evidence, based on the cases of a representative six child soldiers, in September to decide whether it is sufficient for the trial to go ahead.   Up to 30,000 children were associated with the DR Congo"s armed groups during the height of the war.   The prosecutors indictment details how the children, who often joined the militia because of their desperate need for food or desire to avenge their murdered families, were subject to systematic military training and severe discipline.   Prosecutors say commanders urged the child soldiers to kill members of the Lendu ethnic group in Ituri without instructing them to differentiate between soldiers and civilians.   Human Rights Watch has said in a statement to the court that the charges do not go far enough, because Lubanga"s militia was responsible for much more.   "We believe that you, as the prosecutor, must send a clear signal to the victims in Ituri and the people of the DRC that those who perpetrate crimes such as rape, torture and summary executions will be held to account," the group said.   The ICC was set up as the first permanent global war crimes court to try individuals and it issued its first warrants last year for five leaders of Uganda"s Lord"s Resistance Army.   In Ituri, ethnic violence between the Hema and Lendu people and clashes between militia groups vying for control of mines and taxation have killed 60,000 people since 1999.
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