Premier wants international trial for Kony

Ugandan Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi has said the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) should be expedited so that the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, could be tried for crimes against humanity. Nsimbambi said conflict in northern Uganda had facilitated the perpetration of crimes against humanity, making it necessary to have a court which could try those thought to be responsible, the independent Kampala-based Monitor newspaper quoted him as saying. "For Uganda, where many women have suffered rape among other sexual offences, and where children before the age of 15 have been abducted and forced to become soldiers at the hands of Kony rebels, the court has remarkable significance," he said on 4 April. The first permanent international criminal court designed to investigate and prosecute individuals for war crimes could come into effect on 1 July 2002, the UN said on Monday. A ceremony to mark the ratification by 60 countries - the necessary number for the ICC to come into effect - of the Rome Statute proposing establishment of the ICC, was due to take place in Rome on Thursday, the UN said. States party to the Rome Statute, along with the UN Security Council and the Court's Prosecutor, will have the power to bring cases before the ICC, which will have judges from 18 countries, and an independent prosecutor, according to the UN. According to the website of the Rome Statute of the ICC, Uganda has signed, but not yet ratified, the Statute. Local legal experts, meanwhile, maintain that there is no need for Kony to be tried by an international court should he be captured in the ongoing government offensive against him. "What Kony has done can be tried in a national court. So we cannot say that only an international criminal court can try him," Sam Tindifa, head of the Makerere University's Human Rights and Peace Centre, told IRIN on Monday. An ICC would not be necessary for the prosecution of Kony, particularly in the current case, where the Sudan, the country hosting him, was cooperating with the Ugandan government, Tindifa added. "An ICC comes in only for the prosecution of people who are out of the jurisdiction of the country where the alleged crime was committed or for other political reasons. To me, an ICC would only be required if Kony can't be brought to Uganda for trial," he said. Led by Joseph Kony (and previously supported by Sudan, in retaliation for Ugandan support for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army), the LRA has fought Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's secular government since 1988, from bases in southern Sudan. LRA operations have included the killing and abduction of civilians, and the looting of people's goods and destruction of their homes, to the extent that humanitarian officials have described its operations as a war against the civilian population and not the Kampala government. Although a number of children have since escaped or died in the war, a registration system supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) places the number of those still in captivity at 5,555. According to Tindifa, the ongoing Uganda military operation to destroy LRA bases in southern Sudan could result in a split of the rebel organisation into smaller bandit groups, which would be more difficult for the Ugandan army to fight. "There is a lack of seriousness in the way this thing is being done. It may flare up into a more complex problem, which could end into gangs of bandits terrorising people," he said. The anti-LRA operation was provided for by a protocol signed by the Sudanese and Ugandan governments 10 March, permitting Ugandan troops to pursue Kony inside Sudan for a limited period, ending on 18 April, the Monitor quoted Ugandan Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi as saying on 4 April. Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) spokesman Shaban Bantariza said three LRA units were thought to be moving through Sudanese territory towards the border with Uganda, The New Vision government-owned newspaper reported on 6 April. "We are not bothered by their plans or tactics. All we know is that we shall get them, and that is what the UPDF has gone to do in Sudan," Bantariza was quoted as saying. Since the anti-LRA operation was launched, the UPDF has overrun at least five of Kony's camps in southern Sudan, according to military sources. The New Vision reported on 5 April, that Kony had instructed Latin Koyelo, commander of an LRA splinter group in northern Uganda, to kill all children in the region, because he was unhappy with the local Acholi people. "The UPDF is hard on the heels of Koyelo, and we will continue to do that," it quoted Mbabazi as saying. UNICEF has expressed concern over the safety of the abducted children, following the latest escalation in the northern Ugandan conflict. The UN agency reiterated its "grave concern" on 4 April over the fate of thousands of children abducted by the LRA in southern Sudan, especially in light of the reported abandonment of many of them by the rebel group as a result of the Ugandan army offensive. According to the Sudanese newspaper Al-Ra'y al-Amm, Sudan's ruling National Congress party (NC) has backed the government's approval for the UPDF to pursue the LRA into Sudanese territory, as this did not pose a threat to the security of Sudan. The NC's secretary-general, Ibrahim Ahmad Umar, said he believed the Ugandan army was organised by "responsible security personnel" who were respected by the NC, and that officials who allowed the Ugandan army to enter would be "fully responsible for their action", the paper reported on 4 April.