ICC issues arrest warrants for 5 Uganda rebels
Oct 6, 2005 (UNITED NATIONS) — The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for five members of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, the first warrants issued by the court, the top U.N. envoy for Congo said Thursday.
The International Criminal Court, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, was founded in 2002 and had said for some time it was investigating the Lord’s Resistance Army, and hoped to present a case to the court’s judges by the end of the year.
“It is true, I can’t give you details because I don’t know how much the ICC has put on the public record,” William Lacy Swing, who is Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative for Congo, told a news conference. “I know they’ve issued arrest warrants for five people and these notifications went out last week.”
Court officials in The Hague, Netherlands, where the court is based, said they could not confirm the arrest warrants. It’s possible that the warrants were sealed, which means they wouldn’t be announced until the arrests were actually made.
“I am aware of the statement. I cannot comment at this time,” said Yves Sorokobi, spokesman for Chief ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
Over the years, Joseph Kony’s followers in the Lord’s Resistance Army have abducted more than 30,000 children, forcing them to become fighters, porters or concubines, according to U.N. statistics. His supporters have killed tens of thousands of civilians and forced more than 1.6 million people to flee their homes.
If the arrest warrants have in fact been issued, it’s almost certain that Kony would be among those named.
Ugandan officials announced last month that the deputy chief of the LRA, Vincent Otti, fled a base in southern Sudan and crossed into Congo with some 50 fighters, and is seeking political asylum.
Swing said somewhere between 100 and 400 LRA rebels had crossed into Congo and settled in the town of Aba right across the border with Sudan. He said a U.N. peacekeeping delegation had gone to warn them that they must either disarm or face forcible eviction. Another delegation went to the Ugandan capital Kampala to discuss the problem.
Swing said that Congo’s President Joseph Kabila was sending some 2,000 troops to the region and that the U.N. mission had airlifted about 1,000 of its own troops to Aba.
“We all agree – Congo, MONUC and Uganda – that it is unacceptable that these people remain there, and they will be obliged to go back where they came from,” Swing said, referring to the U.N. peacekeeping mission by its French acronym.
Kony is believed to be hiding in the mountains of southern Sudan. He was originally given support by the Sudanese military during its conflict with Uganda.
The LRA received international notoriety in 1996 when it abducted 152 teenage girls from St. Mary’s College, a boarding school in northern Uganda. Nuns pursued 200 armed men and 109 girls were released while “the prettiest” were taken as “wives.”
Unlike other tribunals, the ICC has no time limit. Its indictments remain in force until the suspect is tried, dies or runs out of hiding places.
(Agencies)