HAGUE, The Netherlands (AP) – The International Criminal Court on Thursday convicted a child soldier who became a brutal commander of the famous Ugandan rebel group, Lord’s Resistance Army, of dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which they range from multiple murders to forced marriages.
Dominic Ongwen, who was kidnapped by the shadows of the militia when he was a 9-year-old boy and transformed into a child soldier and later rose to a high leadership position, faces a maximum life sentence after of being convicted of 61 crimes.
The appeal, which can be appealed, described the horrors of LRA attacks on displaced civilian camps in northern Uganda in the early 2000s, and of Ongwen’s abuses of women who were seen forced to be his “wives”. Activists welcomed her convictions for crimes against women, which included rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery.
Defense attorneys had argued that Ongwen was “a victim and not a victim and an perpetrator at the same time.”
But incumbent Judge Bertram Schmitt rejected those arguments and said, “This case is about crimes committed by Dominic Ongwen as a fully responsible adult, as an LRA commander between the mid and late 1920s.”
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.
The civilian women captured by the group became sex slaves and wives for the combatants. The LRA turned the children into soldiers. Men, women and children were killed in attacks on IDP camps.
“Civilians were shot, burned and beaten to death,” Schmitt said while detailing a May 2004 attack on a camp in the Ugandan village of Lukodi carried out by Ongwen-led fighters.
Kony promoted Ongwen to the rank of colonel after the attack.
A lot of Lukodi residents gathered around a portable radio to follow the proceedings in The Hague. Some broke down, crying, when the guilty verdicts came in, according to a local journalist.
Ongwen showed no emotion as the verdicts were read in court. Defendants are usually ordered to appear while the presiding judge reads the verdicts. In Onwen’s case, there were so many that he was allowed to sit.
“The LRA has terrorized the people of northern Uganda and its neighboring countries for more than two decades. Finally, an LRA leader has been responsible to the ICC for the terrible abuses suffered by the victims,” he said. dir Elise Keppler, Associate Director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program.
In reaction to the convictions, International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said his thoughts were with the victims of the LRA atrocities.
Bensouda acknowledged that Ongwen was a victim of the LRA, but said he became “one of the highest military leaders, fervently committed to the LRA cause with infamous brutality. As an adult, he was personally responsible. to encourage and commit against others the same crimes he himself suffered as a child. As demonstrated in the trial, he was also a direct perpetrator of terrible sexual violence, including young girls, some of whom were ” married “by force to him.”
Delphine Carlens, deputy director of the International Federation for Human Rights, said Ongwen’s convictions for rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage and forced pregnancy are “a breakthrough in the international recognition of the seriousness of these crimes and an important result of the prosecutor’s policy on sexual and gender-based crime. “
The Lord’s resistance army, which began in Uganda as an anti-government rebellion, is 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 remarkably brutal outfit, whose members for years eluded Ugandan forces in the jungle of northern Uganda.
When military pressure forced the LRA to leave Uganda in 2005, the rebels dispersed to parts of central Africa. Reports over the years have claimed that Kony was hiding in the South African region of Darfur or in a remote corner of the Central African Republic, where LRA fighters continued to kill and kidnap in occasional raids on villages and where Ongwen went be arrested in 2015.
Kony became known internationally in 2012 when U.S. advocacy group Invisible Children made a viral video highlighting LRA crimes. At that time, the group was already weakened by defections, as it was divided into smaller and very mobile groups. The Ugandan army estimated in 2013 that the group comprised no more than a few hundred fighters.
“Today’s verdict recalls that LRA chief leader Joseph Kony remains a fugitive who has evaded justice for more than 15 years,” Keppler said, urging nations to return to justice in the ICC “.
Invisible Children said this week that 108 children abducted by the LRA remain missing.
Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, president of Gulu’s North Ugandan district, told The Associated Press that there were “mixed reactions” among local people.
Some were sad that Ongwen was facing years in prison despite being a victim of the insurrection, he said, while many others were crying over children they do not expect to see again.
“There are so many children who can’t be found. When something like this happens, it brings back painful memories, ”Mapenduzi said, referring to Onwen’s conviction.
Mapenduzi said he has a nephew kidnapped in 1996 and the boy’s mother still “calls” his name for a few days looking for him.
“From 1996 until now, we don’t know if he is dead or alive,” the official said.
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Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, contributed the information.