Lubanga’s name is not as quickly recognizable as Joseph Kony’s, because of the Kony 2012 viral video that educated nearly 80 million people on the atrocities of Kony’s rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). But like Kony, Lubanga has the blood of many Congolese on his hands and is one of the most infamous present-day recruiters of child soldiers.
Lubanga was the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), a rebel group implicated in ethnic massacres, torture, and rape in the Ituri district of northeastern Congo. There, government armies and numerous armed militias, often divided along ethnic lines, fought for the region’s lucrative gold mines and trade routes – and the resulting money, guns, and power. More than 60,000 civilians were killed.