BY MOSES SSERWANGA
The International
Criminal Court (ICC) has dropped arrest warrants against Raska
Lukwiya and Okot Odhiambo the two top commanders of Joseph Kony’s marauding Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
This is after the
Hague based court had in 2005 issued the
same arrest warrants against the notorious LRA war lords, Joseph Kony , Vicent
Otti, Lukwiya, Dominic Ongwen and Odhiaambo to answer charges for war crimes
and crimes against humanity committed in
northern Uganda .The arrest warrants were lifted after the judges
satisfied themselves with evidence that the dual were now deceased . This
is not to abandon the fact that the LRA bandits waged a bloody -vicious
war against a civilian population in northern Uganda for well over two decades
.
It is therefore,
rather unfortunate that the two LRA commanders did not live to face justice for
the horrendous crimes they committed while
they waged an unjustified , senseless war. And although they died with blood on
their hands, it would have been prudent for them to stand trial and answer for
the atrocities they committed . This is because the criminal enterprise and
shocking brutality of Kony and his cohorts is well documented .
They wrecked havoc- killing
and maiming hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians while displacing a
whole generation -that was confined and lived in protected camps for decades.
One of their killing fields was at Purengo where an estimated 30 people were
executed in 1989. Another estimated 400 civilians were massacred by the same
group in Lamwo county in Kitgum district .
The mayhem did not end
there nor did it spare little innocent girls when the LRA raided a girls school
- St. Mary’s College Aboke in Apac district on October 10,1996 and abducted 139
girls whom they took as sex slaves , enlisting others as child soldiers within their rank and file.
Kony and his LRA gangsters employed machetes and hoes to maim their victims;
chopping lips and ears of their captives. They forced the child soldiers to
fight and kill their own mothers, fathers and other relatives. Many of the lucky survivors will
never recover from the trauma visited upon them by the blood-soiled hands
of Kony and his commanders.
The Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court (often referred to as the International
Criminal Court Statute or the Rome Statute), the treaty that established the
International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted at a diplomatic conference in
Rome to specifically curtail war crimes and ensure that suspected war criminals
face trial at a court of competent jurisdiction .
. The statute, which
came into force on July 1, 2002 and has since been ratified by 110 countries
including Uganda, has drastically changed international criminal law as we have
come to know it. Under this law some far reaching precedents have been set and
one of those is that perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity
have no place to hide in the modern era.
War crimes and crimes
against humanity are now international in nature and this means that suspects can be picked from
anywhere in the world by any spirited individual or state to face justice .
While Dominic
Ongwen is now facing war crimes charges
at the Huage ,his bosses Joseph Kony and Vicent Otti are still on the run in the jungles of eastern Congo . The hunt for these men should continue and be brought
to justice to send an unwavering message that there will be no hiding place for
war criminals- today and in the future .
The writer is an advocate of the High Court of
Uganda and Media and Communications Consultant .
msserwanga@gmail.com
