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Both
Uganda�s Museveni and rebel chief Kony should face war crimes
tribunal
By P.
Okema Otika
Recently, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni asked the
International Criminal Court at The Hague to investigate and
prosecute Ugandan rebels and their leader Joseph Kony of the Lord's
Resistance Army, LRA. He neglected to mention that he too deserves
to stand trial.
The LRA which started as a small group after the demise of Odong
Latek's Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) and Alice Lakwena's
Holy Spirit Movement rebel groups in the late 1980s has for decades
been known for heartless atrocities against innocent unarmed
civilians mostly in the Acholi region of Uganda. The rebels are
known for abducting tens of thousands of children, killings and
brutalities like chopping of lips, legs and arms of innocent
civilians. The rebels' excuses for these atrocities have always been
that the civilians are betraying them by reporting their presence to
the government army and therefore deserving the atrocities.
To anyone who is unfamiliar with the war in the northern Uganda
which started way back in 1986 when Museveni had just come to power,
Museveni's quest to prosecute Kony might sound like the most
brilliant idea for a very responsible person. However, to those who
have lived through the years and experienced atrocities perpetrated
by both the rebels and the Ugandan army, the Uganda People's Defense
Forces (UPDF), Museveni is just as criminal as the Kony he trying to
prosecute. Since 1986, Museveni's army has been known to have
committed some of the worst atrocities on the ethnic Acholi people
who occupy the regions of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader.
The UPDF, also formerly known as the National Resistance Army
(NRA) became infamous for burning civilians alive in huts, killings,
and the rapes of both women and men in what the Acholi called tek
gungu. Tek Gungu referred to rape of men and women by Museveni's
soldiers who would force a man or woman to kneel down (gungu) before
the rape is committed against the male or female victim. These rape
incidents have been documented by Human Rights Watch and yet remains
ignored by most so-called mainstream media. Museveni, despite his
army's atrocities remains a Western "darling."
The period 1987-1988 was the worse in the history of the Acholi
and it was also at that time that Museveni's army intensified
atrocities on the civilians. This was a period that Museveni
declared a state of emergency. He entrusted his commanders like his
brother Salim Saleh and Major General David Tinyefunza to help him
do the job. Their atrocities included the terrible forcing of Acholi
civilians in a pit dug into the earth in a place called Bur Coro.
The top of the pit was then covered with soil and grass which was
then set ablaze. The civilians slowly suffocated from the smoke.
Such sadistic killers have never been punished. Later, the army
exported such atrocities into Teso in Eastern Uganda. In an incident
which was also documented by international human rights agencies,
people were forced into a train wagon in a place called Amakura and
were suffocated. This incident is known in Uganda as the Amakura
massacre. To make it more effective and unknown to the international
community, Museveni banned media reporting on war and no journalists
were allowed to enter the war zone. By 1990, Museveni had
accomplished most of what he wanted, leaving tens of thousands of
Acholi dead and thousands languishing in Luzira prison for alleged
treason. All these are well documented and still remain fresh in the
minds of the Acholi who had trusted Museveni and thought he would
treat them as citizens of Uganda rather than his adversaries.
As if his terror was not enough, in 1996 Museveni declared a
presidential order that stipulated that all local Acholi living in
their homes in the villages be forcefully moved into concentration
camps to be surrounded by government troops ostensibly to guard them
against LRA rebels' atrocities. Where else in the world but in
Africa would the international community today stand for such gross
violation of human rights.
Museveni's troops immediately started beating up locals to run to
the camps. They burnt down crops and houses of the locals so that
they would not go back to their homes. The result was the creation
of communal homelessness for over 500,000 people who up to now, have
no permanent home, and live in some of the worse human conditions
the world. Although Museveni prefers to call the camps "Protected
Camps," the locals who live there know it as a concentration camp in
which terror reigns and individual freedoms don't exist.
Government soldiers claiming to be guarding these camps are well
known for their atrocities on the hapless civilians. They rape the
women and have contributed to the increase in the rate of HIV/AIDs -
now the highest in that region.
These are just few recorded incidents and yet the majority
remained unreported. Similarly, the government is indiscriminately
using its Helicopter gunship and night-guided vision technology to
try to spot and kill the LRA rebels. However, the majority of the
unfortunate victims are innocent civilians.
Putting these and many other such government-sanctioned abuses
side by side with Kony's rebels' atrocities, it is clear that
Museveni too should be tried in an international criminal court for
crimes against humanity.
By jumping out first to the ICC, looking for opportunity to
prosecute Kony, Museveni is behaving like a member of a band of
killers who conspicuously breaks away and starts pointing fingers at
his fellow thugs knowing full well that he too will have to face
justice. To heal the wounds and scars of the 18-year old genocide in
Acholi both Kony and Museveni must appear before a war crimes
tribunal.
P.Okema Otika, a Black Star News columnist is also President
of African Trans-Atlantic Alliance, an organization that promotes
local empowerment and fights for the rights of African Asylees,
Refugees and Immigrants in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He can be
contacted via email at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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