Trial to open at ICC of first LRA warlord

THE HAGUE: Former child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen Tuesday becomes the first member of Uganda’s brutal Lord’s Resistance Army to go on trial in a landmark case before the International Criminal Court keenly watched by thousands of victims.

Ongwen, now in his early 40s, will also be the first former child soldier to be tried by the tribunal and is due to plead to an unprecedented 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the rebel group led by the elusive Joseph Kony.

“The LRA leadership is reviled worldwide for its brutality against Africans, but never before has an LRA commander faced trial,” said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch, calling the trial a ‘significant first’.

A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony sought to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda after founding the LRA in 1987.

The UN says it has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children since it launched a bloody rebellion against Kampala. More than 4,000 victims are taking part in Ongwen’s trial and thousands of others are expected to watch the trial unfold at four viewing sites in northern Uganda.

“Victims of LRA crimes have been waiting for justice for up to 14 years,” said Sheila Muwanga, vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights.

Victims have recounted the LRA’s sadistic initiation rites for kidnapped youngsters, who were forced to bite and batter friends and family to death, or to drink their blood.

The son of Ugandan school teachers, Ongwen was abducted as a child while on his way to school and press-ganged into the militia’s ranks. He likely endured such horrors himself.

But ICC prosecutors say when Ongwen became an adult he turned abuser, helping orchestrate the abduction and enslavement “of children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities”.

He stands accused of rape, murder and ‘forced marriage’– the first such charge at the ICC – as well as the unprecedented legal charge of ‘ forced pregnancy’. — AFP