Uganda: ICC conviction of LRA commander provides overdue justice for victims of decades-long campaign of abuses
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4 Feb 2021
Following today’s International Criminal Court (ICC) conviction of Dominic Ongwen, a former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in northern Uganda, Seif Magango, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for East Africa, the Horn and Great Lakes, said:
“We hope this decision provides a measure of redress for the 4,000 victims who participated in the case and who can now receive reparations for their suffering.
“While this case is important, redress must extend to the thousands of victims of the LRA’s abductions, killlings and mutilations, who still have not seen justice for the harms they have suffered.”
Daily Monitor
Thursday February 04 2021
Margaret Labol, 50, who lost 15 family members and her husband, a Uganda People s Defence Force (UPDF) soldier, during the Lukodi massacre caused by the Lord s Resistance Army (LRA) in 2004, poses for a portrait in front of the memorial for the victims of the massacre in Lukodi, Uganda, February 3, 2021. PHOTOS/ AFP
Summary
The memory of LRA across much of northern Uganda is that of a group that abducted children as soldiers, pillaged villages for food and material possession and conscripted girls as sex slaves.
The LRA was founded three decades ago by former Catholic altar boy and self-styled prophet Kony, who launched a bloody rebellion in northern Uganda against President Yoweri Museveni.
Daily Monitor
Summary
On January 3 he slips into the hands of the Seleka Muslim outfits near Samouandja province in south east CAR.
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1975: Ongwen is born in the village of Coo-rom, Kilak County, Amuru District, northern Uganda.
1986: Rebellion in northern Uganda breaks out after NRA/M captures power.
1988: Ongwen is abducted on his way to school and thereafter placed in the hands of Vincent Otti, a senior LRA commander at the time.
1994: At the age of 14 he is moved to Sudan where he undergoes military training in Khartoum, and is tasked with overseeing field operations.
1998: He is promoted to the rank of Major.
Daily Monitor
Monday February 01 2021
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KAMPALA- The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague will this week deliver its verdict on Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel commander Dominic Ongwen on war crimes and Ugandans in northern region will watch a live stream.
Ongwen is facing 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in northern Uganda during the 20-year LRA insurgency that saw more than 100,000 people and over 1.8 million others displaced .
A panel of three justices; Bertram Schmitt, Péter Kovács and Raul Cano Pangalangan will read the judgment on Thursday.
Ongwen’s ICC trial started on December 6, 2016 and drew 69 prosecution witnesses.
Ongwen was known as one of the more ruthless commanders of the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). He is from northern Uganda. His family indicates that he was born in 1980 and that the rebel group abducted him on his way to school in 1990, when he was about 10. Senior LRA leaders gave him military training, and he eventually became an LRA commander.
After LRA forces left northern Uganda in 2005 and 2006, troops under Ongwen’s command repeatedly terrorized communities in Congo’s Haut Uele and Bas Uele districts. His troops were responsible for some of the LRA’s most vicious attacks in the following years, including the Makombo massacre in 2009, one of the worst during the LRA’s long, brutal history. Troops under Ongwen’s command killed at least 345 civilians and abducted another 250, including at least 80 children, during a four-day rampage in the Makombo area of northeastern Congo.