Uganda’s excessive court docket will on Tuesday ship judgement on the case of Thomas Kwoyelo, a former commander of the insurgent group, Lord’s Resistance Military (LRA), after greater than 15 years of delay.
Kwoyelo is being tried by the worldwide crimes division of the court docket based mostly in northern Gulu metropolis, a area on the centre of a decades-long rebel.
It’s the primary time Uganda has tried an LRA member, making this a historic second for the nation.
Homicide, rape, intent to kill and several other different conflict crimes make up the 78 counts of prices towards Kwoyelo, who has denied the claims.
The trial is going down amid a number of controversies: some have advocated for Kwoyelo’s launch based mostly on how lengthy he was held in pre-trial detention by the Ugandan authorities, and based mostly on the truth that others have confronted amnesty. However others, together with victims, say Kwoyelo was concerned in killings and torture, and will face justice.
Right here’s all you could learn about Kwoyelo’s trial and the LRA militia group:
Who’s Thomas Kwoyelo?
Kwoyelo, believed to be in his fifties, was a low-level commander of the LRA, tasked with caring for the militia’s injured members, in accordance with his testimony.
He was compelled to affix the LRA in 1987, after the group’s members kidnapped him on his strategy to faculty at age 12, on the peak of the insurgent battle. He went on to develop into a senior commander, utilizing the alias Latoni, and overseeing the remedy of wounded fighters.
In 2009, Kwoyelo was captured within the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo throughout a raid by regional forces. The LRA rebels had been compelled out of northern Uganda into DRC, and different neighbouring nations a number of years earlier due to the Ugandan army’s offensives on the group. Kwoyelo was introduced again to the nation, having sustained a bullet wound to the abdomen.
He then spent the subsequent 14 years in jail because the prosecution put the case towards him collectively. Analysts say the complexity of the crimes, together with delays from COVID-19, contributed to the prolonged delay because the case was repeatedly postponed.
Kwoyelo is accused of homicide, rape, kidnapping with intent to homicide, pillaging, aggravated theft, merciless remedy, torture and different conflict crimes.
Defence lead lawyer Caleb Akala has constantly pleaded Kwoyelo’s innocence, arguing that he was himself a baby sufferer of the LRA. Nevertheless, in accordance with witnesses and court docket paperwork, Kwoyelo led a number of LRA incursions and was concerned in killings.
“All assaults by the LRA which befell in Kilak County, Amuru District between 1987 and 2005, the topic of prices on this indictment, had been both commanded by him or had been carried out together with his full data and authority,” one doc learn.
Who’s Joseph Kony and what’s the LRA?
Joseph Kony based the LRA in 1984, as a insurgent group aiming to overthrow longtime Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. On the time, the Ugandan civil conflict had simply ended with Museveni ousting the federal government in energy, and a sequence of insurgent teams from Uganda’s Acholi northern tribe rose to problem his rule.
As a former altar boy, Kony claimed to be a non secular medium, and aimed to create a Christian state based mostly on the ten biblical commandments. His military terrorised northern Uganda and his members had been infamous for reducing off individuals’s limbs of their assaults.
Kony additionally targeted on kids: he ordered the kidnapping of tens of hundreds of kids that LRA members used as intercourse slaves or youngster troopers. Some 66,000 of the kids he kidnapped went on to develop into troopers, in accordance with some accounts. LRA combating resulted within the displacement and mutilation of hundreds of civilians, in accordance with Human Rights Watch. Some two million individuals had been displaced throughout northern Uganda, and in northeastern DRC, because of the group’s terror actions.
In 2003 after the Worldwide Legal Court docket was based, the Ugandan authorities referred Kony’s case, together with that of 4 different LRA commanders to the court docket. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Kony in 2005. In response to the court docket, Kony is suspected of 36 counts of conflict crimes and crimes towards humanity, allegedly dedicated between at the least July 1, 2002 and December 31, 2005, in northern Uganda.
The circumstances towards Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo, and Vincent Otti had been terminated, as these males have handed away.
In 2021, fourth member Dominic Ongwen grew to become the primary LRA commander to be sentenced by the ICC. He was sentenced to 25 years in a Norwegian jail, on 61 counts of conflict crimes and crimes towards humanity.
Amnesty and peace talks
In 2000, the Ugandan authorities provided amnesty to members of the group who wished to give up, with many former youngster troopers selecting to return residence. Nevertheless, the group’s rebel remained lively.
The LRA’s combating in Uganda was largely diminished after Ugandan forces pushed the group into components of the Central African Republic, DRC, Sudan, and South Sudan in 2006.
Amid the offensives, Kony agreed to ceasefire talks mediated by southern Sudanese leaders in Juba. However the talks fell aside in 2008 after Kony refused an amnesty supply, arguing that he didn’t commit atrocities.
The LRA is designated as a terror group by the United Nations, the USA, the UK and the European Union. Kony has remained in hiding for the reason that ICC arrest warrant was issued. His whereabouts are nonetheless unknown. The military has reportedly shrunk from about 3,000 males to about 100.
In March, the ICC stated it will strive Kony in absentia from October 2024.
Perpetrator and sufferer?
In northern Uganda, the place Kony’s LRA operated, a number of of the group’s former members surrendered after the 2000 amnesty and now reside freely in the neighborhood, as Al Jazeera reported in February 2024.
Nevertheless some teams, such because the UN excessive commissioner for human rights, have kicked again towards the amnesty coverage, saying it stands in the way in which of prosecuting conflict crimes.
Some in Gulu say Kwoyelo ought to be granted amnesty like the opposite former troopers.
“Our youngsters are harmless as a result of they had been forcefully conscripted into fight,” Okello Okuna, a spokesperson for Ker Kwaro Acholi, a conventional kingdom in Gulu, advised Al Jazeera in February.
Kwoyelo’s defence staff has additionally argued that he was a baby when he was kidnapped and was a sufferer, too. Defence lawyer Charles Dalton Opwonya stated the federal government “failed to guard” the previous insurgent. “He was kidnapped as a baby and educated,” he beforehand advised Al Jazeera.
However victims who alleged Kwoyelo killed their members of the family have pushed for his sentencing.
“He was a impolite particular person and a fighter,” a sufferer who was born in LRA captivity and recognized solely as Jackline, advised Al Jazeera in February, including that Kwoyelo killed her father for failing to observe orders.
Rights teams, corresponding to Avocats sans Frontiers, identified that holding Kwoyelo in detention for greater than a decade muddles the case for the prosecution.
Human Rights Watch in January urged the court docket to hurry up the case and guarantee justice for Kwoyelo’s victims.