Gov't ponders asking ICC to lift LRA indictments

Uganda is considering asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) to lift indictments against five leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to facilitate peace talks between the government and the insurgents, an official said on Monday. "We will ask them [the ICC] to give peace talks a chance. We want to convince them that there will be no impunity whatsoever. They should allow the traditional justice system to handle the situation. We find that to be the ideal situation because those people [the ICC] cannot get [LRA leader Joseph] Kony," said Paddy Ankunda, a spokesman for a delegation of government officials due to travel to southern Sudan for a meeting with LRA representatives. The ICC indicted five top leaders of the LRA, including Kony, in October 2005 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including abduction and sexual enslavement of children. It insists that Kony should be arrested and put on trial. However, on 4 July, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni announced a total amnesty for Kony, on condition that the rebel leader renounced terrorism and accepted peace. By ‘traditional justice’, Ankunda was referring to a tradition among the Acholi community of northern Uganda known as ‘Mato Oput’, whereby an offender apologises to the community he has wronged and pays compensation to the victims of his crimes. Northern Uganda has borne the brunt of the LRA violence. "We can reconcile as was done in South Africa and Northern Ireland - then the Ugandan government and the international community compensates the victims because Kony will not have the money and resources to compensate them. What we want is our people to get out of the [internally displaced persons] camps," Ankunda added. John-Baptist Odama, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Gulu in northern Uganda, agreed that the ICC should drop the indictments. "With the ICC [indictments] no senior LRA leader will come out but they will continue to maintain strong control over the officers and men under them. 'Mato Oput' requires confession of the offender before the victim can accept," said Odama. "The perpetrator has to pay a certain compensation determined by the cultural leaders before both parties drink from the same calabash with the heads touching one another and eating together," he added. Said Ankunda: "The president has extended the [amnesty for surrendering LRA fighters] period to September 12. This is the period when the rebels have to demonstrate that they are seriously involved in the efforts to end the war through peace talks. They should also use this time to consult among themselves and later reach us to agree on the places where they will assemble after they have given up war." Tens of thousands of people have been killed and some two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took over leadership of a regional rebellion in 1988 in a bid to oust Museveni, sparking what the United Nations and other humanitarian groups have described as the world's most brutal and forgotten conflict. See related story: UGANDA: Kony will eventually face trial, says ICC prosecutor vm/mw/eo