DIE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – The International Criminal Court on Thursday convicted a one-time child soldier who turned into a cruel commander in the infamous Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, for dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity. murders on forced marriages.
Dominic Ongwen, who was abducted as a 9-year-old boy by the shadowy militia and turned into a child soldier and later promoted to a senior leadership corps, is sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of 61 offenses.
The verdict, which can be appealed, set out the horrors of the LRA’s attacks on camps for displaced people in northern Uganda in the early 2000s, and of Ongwen’s abuse of women who were forced to be his ‘wives’. . Activists welcome his convictions for crimes against women, including rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery.
Defense attorneys argued that Ongwen was a “victim at the same time and not a victim and offender.”
But Judge-President Bertram Schmitt rejected these arguments, saying: “This case is about crimes committed by Dominic Ongwen as a fully responsible adult, as a commander of the LRA in his mid to late 20s.”
Schmitt describes the reign of terror unleashed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, which was founded and led by one of the world’s most sought after suspects in war crimes, Joseph Kony.
Female citizens captured by the group were turned into sex slaves and women into fighters. The LRA made children soldiers. Men, women and children were killed in attacks on camps for displaced people.
“Citizens were shot, burned and beaten to death,” Schmitt said when he outlined an attack on a camp in the Ugandan village of Lukodi in May 2004 by fighters led by Ongwen.
Kony promoted Ongwen to the rank of colonel after the attack.
Numerous residents of Lukodi gathered around a portable radio to follow the proceedings in The Hague. Some broke down crying when the convictions came in, according to a local journalist at the scene.
Ongwen showed no emotion when the verdicts were read out in court. Defendants are usually ordered to stand up while the presiding judge reads out the verdicts. In Ongwen’s case, there was so much that he was allowed to sit.
“The LRA has been terrorizing the people of northern Uganda and its neighbors for more than two decades. “Finally, one LRA leader at the ICC was held responsible for the horrific abuse suffered by victims,” said Elise Keppler, co-director of the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda responded to the convictions, saying she was thinking of the victims of WRA atrocities.
Bensouda acknowledged that Ongwen was once an LRA victim, but said he had grown into one of the most senior military leaders, notoriously committed to the LRA case. As an adult, he was personally responsible for the encouragement and committing of the crimes he himself suffered as a child. As proved during the trial, he was also a direct perpetrator of horrific sexual violence, including against young girls, some of whom were ‘married’ to him by force. ‘
Delphine Carlens, deputy director of the International Federation for Human Rights, said Ongwen’s conviction for rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage and forced pregnancy “is a major step forward in the international recognition of the seriousness of such crimes and an important consequence of the prosecutor’s policy on sexual and gender-based crimes. ”
The Lord’s Resistance Army, which started in Uganda as a rebellion against the government, is accused of atrocities, including massacres, recruiting boys to fight and keeping girls as sex slaves. At the peak of its power, the group was a notoriously brutal outfit whose members for years evaded Ugandan forces in the bushveld of northern Uganda.
When military pressure forced the LRA out of Uganda in 2005, the rebels spread across parts of Central Africa. Over the years, reports have claimed that Kony hid in the Darfur region of Sudan or in a remote corner of the Central African Republic, where LRA fighters continued to kill and kidnap in occasional attacks on villages, and where Ongwen was arrested in 2015.
Kony became internationally infamous in 2012 when the American law firm Invisible Children made a viral video highlighting the crimes of the LRA. By that time, the group was already weakened by deviations because it splintered into smaller, very mobile groups. The Ugandan army estimated in 2013 that the group would have no more than a few hundred fighters.
“Today’s ruling is a reminder that LRA chief Joseph Kony is still a fugitive who has evaded justice for more than 15 years,” Keppler said, calling on nations to stand up for him again. to abandon 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 there were ‘mixed reactions’ among local people.
Some were saddened that Ongwen faces years in prison, even though he was a victim of the uprising, he said, while many others cried over children they would not see again.
‘There are so many children who are not accountable. If something like this happens, it brings back painful memories, ‘Mapenduzi said, referring to Ongwen’s conviction.
Mapenduzi said he has a nephew who was abducted in 1996, and the boy’s son is still “screaming” his name and is looking for him.
“From 1996 until now, we do not know if he is dead or alive,” the official said.
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Associated Press author Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, reported.