Uganda talks, UN should act to drop ICC charges
Egeland Should Seek ICC Commitment to Drop Indictment of LRA Leaders for Juba Talks to Succeed
By Ohiyok D. Oduho
Nov 21, 2006 — The Visit of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Jan Egeland, to the Sudan to address the impasse between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Uganda Government (UG) in the peace talks is a welcome development. It means that the world body, which Egeland represents, has developed interest in putting its weight on the fragile LRA-UG talks in Juba. The current LRA-UG talks in Juba have been going through thick and thin, including very serious violations of the truce signed between the LRA and UG.
Responding to what it sees as violations to the truce and lack of commitment to the peace talks by the UG, the LRA accuses the UG of lacking commitment to the fundamental principles that were laid down by both parties to guide and sustain the fragile peace talks. LRA has specifically accused the UG of not only attacking their forces as they try to gather at assembly points in areas designated to them by the Juba talks, but says Ugandan troops are trying to encircle the assembly points. “LRA has accused Ugandan soldiers of encircling fighters assembled at one of two locations under the agreement, raising doubts over the future of the peace process”, (http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=286666&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/). The LRA-UG Cessation of Hostilities Agreement states that the assembled LRA will be left to leave peacefully in case the talks fail, but how can you do it when they are already surrounded by the UPDF (Uganda People’s Defense Force)?”, (LRA legal adviser to the talks in Juba, told IRIN: http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2006/10/rebels_want_res.html).
Meanwhile, the UG accuses the LRA of buying time in order to regroup and resume its onslaught on the people of northern Uganda and South Sudan. President Museveni has more than once commented that the LRA ringleaders must stand trial and thus urging the Juba government to execute his plans to arrest the LRA ringleaders. “Museveni stressed that the UPDF would push for Kony’s prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) if he does not reach a peace agreement with the Government team in Juba, Sudan”, (http://www.newvision.co.ug/PA/8/12/512321). The UG also says that the rebels are not reporting to their assembly points, thus violating the truce. “Ugandan rebels have violated a truce with the government by leaving an agreed assembly point”, (the head of an independent monitoring team, (http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=286666&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/).
At the same time, the ICC has insisted that the LRA leaders must stand trial for the atrocities they have committed against humanity. “The Governments of Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo are obligated to give effect to the arrest warrants and we’re confident they will honor their joint commitment to do so. The ICC warrants name Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen and Raska Lukwiya. Each is charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Uganda since July 2002 in the context of a 20 year campaign of brutality against civilians”, (http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-05/2006-05-18-voa31.cfm?CFID=24787331&CFTOKEN=14486851). The ICC is simply responding to UG’s request to try the LRA leaders. “The ICC took action against Joseph Kony following Museveni’s referral of the situation in Northern Uganda. For the ICC, the invitation was a blessing: a so-called ‘state-party referral’ was seen as the best means for the ICC to take action, much preferred to the ‘trigger’ mechanism by which the prosecutor would move on his own (proprio motu). For the newly established ICC, conscious of its critics (including the US administration), acting at the invitation of a government was far preferable to being seen as intervening in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.” (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/07/catch-22-in-uganda-lra-icc-and-peace.php).
In other words, the UG has to be more than serious in engaging the ICC to drop the charges. One or two visits to The Hague by the UG and popular officials are not an end to the ICC-UG-LRA crisis. They were important initial steps that needed following with a serious effort to advice the ICC to drop the charges against the LRA leaders. “The ICC said it was waiting for the outcome of peace talks before deciding on how to proceed with cases against the rebel leaders”, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6120646.stm).
The UG-LRA talks were not only initiated in good faith by the Juba Administration’s Vice-President, Dr Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon, but money that is supposed to support suffering South Sudanese is being used to ensure the success of these talks. These efforts are seriously aimed at bringing peace to both South Sudan and Northern Uganda. The UG has to acknowledge this and must stop uttering statements that do not advance the serious search for peace in Uganda.
Sustenance of negotiations like the UG-LRA talks requires the UG’s patience and total commitment to peace. But lack of focus from the UG on how to sustain the talks could, in actual fact, work against the peace process. It is not enough for the UG to attend the talks and negotiate with the LRA without commitment and focus towards how to reach a positive conclusion of the talks.
Therefore, the interest that has been developed by the UN to talk to the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, to encourage him and the LRA to reach a final agreement with the UG is indeed a positive development. “Egeland said the message he took to the rebels, would be the same message he takes to President Museveni, an affirmation of the UN’s support in efforts to end the war”, (The Monitor, Kampala, November 14, 2006).
Egeland, however, needs to know that the Juba talks may not succeed unless the UN presses on the ICC to drop the charges against the LRA leaders. It would be very difficult for Mr. Egeland to proceed with his new mission that now includes the LRA negotiations unless both the UG and the LRA focus on peace rather than arresting LRA leaders or threatening to resume the fighting respectively. “They (ICC warrants of arrests) are a blockade to the talks, the primary agenda is to request Egeland to use his offices to talk to the UN Security Council and the ICC to drop the warrants in the interests of peace in the region,” Mr. Ayoo, LRA spokesman, told AFP news agency, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6072994.stm).
Egeland needs to seek UG’s serious commitment to ask the ICC to drop the indictment of the LRA leaders to The Hague. This commitment should be delivered by Egeland in person to the ICC Chief Prosecutor with whom Egeland, on behalf of the UN, has to engage in serious talks on the necessity to drop all the ICC charges against the LRA leaders for the Juba talks to succeed.
“The ICC was established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, so called because it was adopted in Rome, Italy on July 17th, 1998, by the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court”, (http://www.icc-cpi.int/about/ataglance/establishment.html).
How else could the LRA gain the confidence to negotiate peace with the UG if the UG’s head of State insists that the LRA leaders must be arrested and handed over to the ICC? LRA spokesman, Godfrey Ayoo, told the BBC that when he came to visit the Juba talks, Mr. Museveni “only called us uninformed Ugandans who have been out of the country for 20 years. He also said other things which were all abusive – indicating that he is never interested in peace talks.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6072994.stm).
It is human nature that a person who brings about peace needs to live to see the fruits of peace but not to die off soon after. But usually nature’s call is so strong that it would just call and end the life of a person with no regard to whether or not the person has a programme that needs to be completed. The LRA leaders, like other former or current rebel leaders do not want to die before seeing the peace agreement they negotiated bore fruits.
Thus, Egeland needs to know that for a serious peace to be achieved in Uganda and South Sudan, it is his duty as the UN Humanitarian Coordinator to talk to UG President and the leaders of the LRA to respect the fundamental principles that were laid down by them to sustain the fragile peace talks in Juba. Once he has received the commitment of the parties to the talks, he needs to pursue the indictment of the LRA leaders by negotiating with the ICC Chief Prosecutor to drop their cases against the LRA leaders.
Unless this is done, neither peace nor the indictment of the LRA leaders would succeed. “Will the ICC’s threats of arrest disrupt the prospects for peace? Or has the ICC’s intervention pushed Kony towards negotiation? If Kony negotiates, can the international community and an ICC still in its infancy tolerate an amnesty that allows him to escape judgment for his many crimes? The problems and solutions are so intertwined that at this juncture, neither prosecution nor a peace deal appears feasible.” (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/07/catch-22-in-uganda-lra-icc-and-peace.php).
While it is an acceptable fact that the LRA has committed untold violations of human rights against the people in Northern Uganda and South Sudan, it is also a fact that many rebel organizations before the LRA did commit immeasurable human rights violations against their own people. Yet, they are now not only living happily amongst their people but are ruling them.
If it is a must that the LRA leaders must be tried, then the ICC should not be selective. It should try war criminals now masquerading as genuine leaders in the African continent. But for the sake of peace this is not possible because it would mean the resumption of conflicts all over the continent. Although these former rebel leaders, claiming to have forgiven their opponents, they are in a cold war with their opponents and they are busy arresting and detaining them in secret security cells from where they lynch them through immense tortures.
If the ICC is a legal body recognized by the UN, then the UN through its Humanitarian Coordinator, Jan Egeland, ought to remind it that the opponents in Uganda are engaged in a reconciliation process that is likely to lead to a genuine peace. The ICC in return should listen to the UN and give the LRA a chance so that the talks in Juba are not only resuscitated but given a boost by the world body to succeed. Egeland is likely to succeed in his mission if he protects the LRA indicted leaders from the ICC and the UG, which apparently seem to have two hearts – one wants to negotiate seriously – and the other wants to arrest the LRA leaders and perhaps end the Juba Peace Talks.
* The author of this article is Ohiyok D. Oduho, a columnist with Sudan Vision Daily. He can be reached on [email protected]