CONGO: Advocacy Gets Results

On July 8, Human Rights Watch released “Covered in Blood,” a 57-page report documenting massive crimes against humanity and ethnic killings in the Congo province of Ituri. Exactly one week later, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in particular its northeastern province of Ituri, will be the new court’s most urgent investigative priority. The prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, used Human Rights Watch’s facts and figures about Ituri in making his announcement.