Peace groups and government officials worried about ICC probe into LRA

Peace groups and officials from the government’s Amnesty Commission have warned that the impending probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into war crimes committed by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels could make a peaceful settlement of the 18-year conflict impossible. "Certainly, this is going to make it very difficult for the LRA to stop doing what they are doing. They have already been branded ‘terrorists’, which isn’t going [to help] to easily persuade them to come," the Amnesty Commission spokesman, Moses Saku, told IRIN. On Thursday, the ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, announced that there was sufficient evidence to initiate a probe into grave human rights abuses committed the LRA. He was responding to a petition lodged with the ICC by President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni met Ocampo in London on Thursday. Shortly afterwards, the ICC issued a statement requesting maximum cooperation from the international community in the hunt for the LRA’s senior commanders. But the ICC acknowledged that many LRA members were themselves victims, having been abducted and brutalised by the LRA leadership, and that "the reintegration of these individuals into Ugandan society is key to the future of northern Uganda". Saku said in this context the "position of the Uganda Amnesty Commission is that all LRA should be granted across-the-board amnesty, including the commanders". However, he went on to concede that "Uganda is a signatory to the ICC, so we acknowledge that they may have obligations not to grant immunity to some of its [the LRA's] members". Members of the Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative (ARLPI) condemned the probe. "This kind of approach is going to destroy all efforts for peace. People want this war to stop. If we follow the ICC in branding the LRA criminals, it won’t stop," the ARLPI vice-president, the Rev McLeod Ochola, told IRIN. Ochola said an ICC probe was something that must come after the war ended. "We’re not saying impunity should be encouraged," he said. "We’re saying this is poor timing. Let us not forget that UPDF [Uganda People’s Defence Forces] have also committed atrocities which will at some stage need to be investigated."