ICC Agrees to Look Into UPDF; Otunnu Submits Evidence to ICC Boss
Before the ICC Conference, U.N. secretary general Ban ki Moon played soccer with President Museveni. Moon was on the Justice team, and Museveni was on the Dignity Team. Associated Press.
During the ongoing International Criminal Court’s conference on the Rome Statute in Munyonyo, major opposition leader Olara Otunnu gave the chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo a dossier of evidence of what he says are atrocities committed under President Museveni’s regime, Voice of America reported. Otunnu is the president of the Uganda People’s Congress party.
He has accused the ICC of only singling out the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda’s recent war, where the rebel army was ousted in 2005 into the Democratic Republic of Congo, and ignoring atrocities committed by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF). Otunnu said that President Museveni hosting the ICC conference made a mockery of the Rome Statute. However, President Museveni’s supporters say Otunnu is trying to score political points with elections early next year.
On June 3rd, Otunnu’s calls were answered when the ICC announced it would investigate the UPDF for alleged crimes against humanity, CNN reported.
“I have received complaints from many affected people in Uganda and human rights activists about [the] Uganda army’s alleged atrocities they committed during many years of insurgency in the north,” Luis Moreno-Ocampo told CNN. However, most of the complaints focus on actions taken pre-2002, Ocampo says, which is before the ICC has jurisdiction.
“We are here to manage conflict including violence,” Moreno-Ocampo said. “If he (Otunnu) has information he wants to submit, let him give it to me for as long as it does not predate 2002.” Ocampo said war crimes committed before 2002 should be taken to Uganda’s High Court.
Post 2002- evidence that Otunnu gave the ICC included the Kampala riots last year. According to reporting by the Daily Monitor, about 27 people died during the riots in Kampala. Otunnu also accused Mr Museveni of ordering UPDF soldiers to hound war victims in camps but never provided them with necessary facilities to sustain their living. “That was genocide because it was intentional,” he told the press. ”He [Museveni] imposed abnormal conditions on the people that led to their deaths. Imagine two million people put in 200 camps and left to die at the rate of 1,500 per week?”
The ICC chief asked for all Ugandans to submit evidence, but said he did not want any political statements. “I ask any Ugandan who has sufficient evidence to present it to the ICC so that we can assess it. But political statements shall not be considered,” Mr Ocampo said.
If you find this information helpful, please
to Ugandans Abroad.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
[...] Court was the first indictment against a sitting head of state. Over the weekend, the ICC also made news by agreeing to look into allegations of atrocities by the UPDF in northern Uganda and the DR Congo, [...]