The Hague, Netherlands (AP) – The International Criminal Court on Thursday convicted a child soldier who became a brutal commander of the notorious Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, for dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity, ranging from several murders to forced marriages.
Dominic Ongwen, who was kidnapped by the obscure militia as a 9-year-old boy and transformed into a child soldier and later promoted to a senior leadership post, faces the maximum sentence of life in prison after being convicted of 61 crimes.
The sentence, which can be appealed, 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 who were forced to be his “wives”. Activists hailed his convictions for crimes against women, which included rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery.
Defense lawyers argued that Ongwen was a “victim and not a victim and perpetrator at the same time”.
But President Judge Bertram Schmitt dismissed those arguments, saying: “This case is about crimes committed by Dominic Ongwen as a fully responsible adult, as an LRA commander in his 20s.”
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 civilians captured by the group were turned into sex slaves and wives for the fighters. The LRA turned children into soldiers. Men, women and children were killed in attacks on IDP camps.
“Civilians were shot, burned and beaten to death,” said Schmitt while detailing a May 2004 attack on a camp in the village of Lukodi in Uganda, carried out by fighters commanded by Ongwen.
Kony promoted Ongwen to the post of colonel after the attack.
Dozens of Lukodi residents gathered around a portable radio to follow the proceedings in The Hague. Some collapsed, crying, when the guilty verdict came, according to a local journalist at the scene.
Ongwen showed no emotion when the verdicts were read out in court. Defendants are usually required to stay as long as the presiding judge reads the verdicts. In the case of Ongwen, there were so many that he was allowed to remain seated.
“The LRA has terrorized the population of northern Uganda and its neighboring countries for more than two decades. An LRA leader was finally held responsible at the ICC for the terrible abuses suffered by the victims, ”said Elise Keppler, associate director of the Human Rights Watch International Justice Program.
Reacting to the convictions, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said her thoughts were with the victims of the LRA’s atrocities.
Bensouda acknowledged that Ongwen was already a victim of the LRA, but said that he became “one of the most senior military leaders, fervently committed to the cause of the LRA with infamous brutality. As an adult, he was personally responsible for encouraging and committing the same crimes against others that he himself suffered as a child. As evidenced at the trial, he was also a direct perpetrator of terrible sexual violence, including against girls, some of whom were forcibly “married” 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 constitute “a major advance in international recognition of the seriousness of such crimes and an important result of prosecutor on sexual and gender crimes ”.
The Lord’s Resistance Army, which started in Uganda as an anti-government rebellion, is accused of atrocities, including mass murder, recruiting boys to fight and maintaining girls as sex slaves. At the height of its power, the group was a notoriously brutal unit, whose members for years eluded Ugandan forces in the forest of northern Uganda.
When military pressure forced the LRA to leave Uganda in 2005, the rebels spread to parts of Central Africa. Reports over the years claim that Kony was hidden 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 known internationally in 2012, when the United States-based advocacy group Invisible Children made a viral video highlighting the crimes of the LRA. At that time, the group was already weakened by defections, as it was divided into smaller and highly mobile groups. The Ugandan military estimated in 2013 that the group comprised no more than a few hundred combatants.
“Today’s verdict is a reminder that the LRA’s top leader, Joseph Kony, remains a fugitive who has evaded justice for more than 15 years,” said Keppler, calling on nations to commit to bringing him to justice at the ICC . “
Invisible Children said this week that 108 children abducted by the LRA remain missing.
Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, president of Gulu district in northern Uganda, told the Associated Press that there were “mixed reactions” among the local population.
Some were saddened that Ongwen faced years in prison, despite being a victim of the insurgency, he said, while many others wept for children they did not expect to see again.
“There are so many children who remain missing. When such a thing happens, it brings back painful memories, ”said Mapenduzi, referring to Ongwen’s condemnation.
Mapenduzi said he has a nephew who was kidnapped in 1996, and the boy’s mother still “screams” his name a few days, looking for him.
“From 1996 until now, we don’t know whether he is alive or dead,” said the official.
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Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda contributed to the report.