THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – The International Criminal Court on Thursday convicted a one-time child soldier who turned into a brutal commander of the infamous Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army for dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity, ranging from multiple murders to forced marriages.
Dominic Ongwen, who was kidnapped by the shadowy militia as a 9-year-old boy and turned into a child soldier and later promoted to senior leadership, is sentenced to life imprisonment for 61 crimes.
The appealed verdict outlined the horrors of the LRA’s attacks on displaced civilian camps in Northern Uganda in the early 2000s, and of Ongwen’s abuse of women forced into his “wives”. to be. Activists welcomed his convictions for crimes against women, including rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery.
Defense lawyers had argued that Ongwen was “a victim and not a victim and perpetrator at the same time”.
But Judge President Bertram Schmitt dismissed those arguments, saying, “This case is about crimes committed by Dominic Ongwen as a fully responsible adult, as commander of the LRA from the mid to late twenties.”
Schmitt described the reign of terror unleashed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, which was founded and led by one of the world’s most wanted war crimes suspects, Joseph Kony.
Female civilians arrested by the group were turned into sex slaves and warrior wives. The LRA turned children into soldiers. Men, women and children were murdered in attacks on internally displaced persons camps.
“Civilians were shot, burned and beaten to death,” Schmitt said when he described an attack in May 2004 on a camp in the Ugandan village of Lukodi, carried out by hunters commanded by Ongwen.
Kony promoted Ongwen to the rank of colonel after the attack.
Scores of Lukodi residents gathered around a portable radio to follow the course of events in The Hague. Some broke down in tears when the guilty verdicts came in, according to a local reporter on the spot.
Ongwen showed no emotion when the sentences were read in court. Normally, defendants are instructed to stand while the chairman reads the sentences. In Ongwen’s case, there were so many that he was allowed to stay put.
“The LRA has been terrorizing the people of Northern Uganda and its neighbors for more than two decades. An LRA leader has finally been called to account to the ICC for the horrific abuses victims have suffered, ”said Elise Keppler, associate director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program.
In response to the convictions, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, said her thoughts were on the victims of the atrocities committed by the LRA.
Bensouda acknowledged that Ongwen was once an LRA victim, but said he became “one of the top military leaders, passionately committed to the LRA cause with notorious brutality. As an adult, he was personally responsible for encouraging and committing the crimes he himself suffered as a child. As proven at trial, he was also a direct perpetrator of terrible sexual violence, including against young girls, some of whom had been forcibly ‘married’ to him. ‘
Delphine Carlens, a deputy director at the International Federation for Human Rights, said that his convictions for rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage and forced pregnancy are “ a great advance in the international recognition of the seriousness of such crimes and an important outcome of the the prosecutor’s policy on sexual and gender-based crimes. “
The Lord’s Resistance Army, which began in Uganda as an uprising against the government, has been accused of atrocities including mass killings, recruiting boys to fight and keeping girls as sex slaves. At the height of its power, the group was a notoriously brutal group whose members for years eluded Ugandan military forces in the bushland of Northern Uganda.
When military pressure forced the LRA out of Uganda in 2005, the rebels spread across parts of Central Africa. Reports over the years have claimed that Kony was hiding in the Sudan region of Darfur or in a remote corner of the Central African Republic, where LRA fighters continued to kill and kidnap during occasional raids on villages, and where Ongwen was killed in 2015. arrested.
Kony gained international notoriety in 2012 when US-based advocacy group Invisible Children shot a viral video highlighting the LRA’s crimes. By this time, the group had already been weakened by dropouts as it split into smaller, highly mobile groups. The Ugandan army estimated in 2013 that the group numbered no more than a few hundred fighters.
“Today’s verdict reminds us that the LRA chief leader, Joseph Kony, remains a fugitive who has been dodging justice for more than 15 years,” Keppler said, calling on countries to re-strive to support him. bring a court to the ICC “
Invisible Children said this week that 108 children abducted by the LRA are still missing.
Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, chairman of the northern Ugandan district of Gulu, told The Associated Press that there was “mixed reaction” among the locals.
Some were sad that Ongwen is in prison for years despite being the victim of the rebellion, he said, while many others cried to see children they no longer expect.
“There are so many children who remain missing. When something like this happens, it brings back painful memories, ”Mapenduzi said, referring to Unwanted’s conviction.
Mapenduzi said he has a cousin who was kidnapped in 1996, and the boy’s mother is still “screaming” his name, looking for him.
“From 1996 until now we don’t know if he is dead or alive,” said the official.
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Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda contributed.