THE HAGUE, Netherlands
Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have awarded victims of Ugandan child soldier-turned-commander Dominic Ongwen more than €52 million ($56 million) in compensation.
Ongwen, who was himself
abducted by Joseph
Kony's notorious Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) at the age of 9 before rising through the
ranks, was convicted
on 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2021,
including rape, murder and child abduction. He was sentenced
to 25 years in jail and is currently serving his term in Norway.
On Wednesday, the ICC
calculated the total value of reparations for an estimated 50,000 eligible
victims to be approximately €52,429,000, a record sum whereby each victim will
receive a symbolic €750, paid collectively.
"The direct victims of
the attacks, the direct victims of sexual and gender-based crimes and the
children born out of those crimes as well as the former child soldiers suffered
serious and long-lasting, physical, moral and material harm," said ICC
judge Bertram Schmitt, saying women and children especially suffered
"serious and long-lasting harm."
Ahead of the ruling, Louis
Lakor, a 29-year-old Ugandan who the LRA kidnaped as a boy, told the Reuters
news agency that reparations could only ever be symbolic "because in
reality there's no amount of money that can compensate for the crimes the LRA
committed."
The rebels murdered his
parents and forced him to kill his sister, he said. "How can you
compensate those who died, or those with invisible wounds or victimhood like
the children who were born in the bush, those whose parents were killed?"
he asked.
Ongwen, now in his mid-40s but
whose precise date of birth is unknown, became a senior commander in Kony's LRA
under the nom de guerre of "White Ant."
Prosecutors portrayed him as a
leading figure in the LRA's reign of terror in northern Uganda in the early
2000s, personally ordering the massacres of more than 130 civilians at five
refugee camps between 2002 and 2005.
In total, the LRA is
considered responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the
kidnapping of 60,000 children, with boys transformed into child soldiers and
girls kept as sex slaves.
Ongwen's trial was the first
time that the ICC had dealt with a former victim, a child soldier, who became a
perpetrator. Since Ongwen does not have the resources to pay the compensation,
the court asked the tribunal's own Trust Fund for Victims to help cover the
cost.
The judges cautioned that,
given the record scale of the reparations, "Victims cannot expect payments
to be executed soon after the issuance of this reparations order."
After fighting the government
of President Yoweri Museveni from bases in northern Uganda and neighboring
countries for nearly 20 years, the LRA has been largely wiped out, but commander
Kony remains one of the ICC's most wanted fugitives.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in
2022 said he would ask judges to confirm charges against Kony despite his
absence, as the rebel leader is still at large.
No comments:
Post a Comment