ICC indictments against rebels should stay, says President

President Yoweri Museveni's insistence that indictments against Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commanders should not be rescinded until they sign a peace deal could discourage the rebels from coming out of the bush, local leaders in northern Uganda said.

Museveni said on an FM radio talk show in northern Uganda on Wednesday that the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments would not be dropped until the "terrorists" accepted a peace deal.

"Why should we reward you before you give us peace?" the president asked. "If the ICC indictments are removed, it will make the terrorists untouchable. The removal of the indictments will be a reward for their signing of the agreement. Otherwise you [rebels] will die in our hands or in the hands of the ICC."

He advised them to take his amnesty offer "so the community can cleanse them through the traditional justice system, mato oput. Thereafter, the government would plead with the ICC," adding that if ongoing talks in Juba, southern Sudan, between the LRA and the rebels collapsed, his government and the army were ready to protect civilians and resume hunting the insurgents.

"If these talks fail, we shall hunt down these terrorists because the government is always there to fight and protect civilians. The army is now very strong, they have all the means to destroy these terrorists," Museveni said on Mega FM in Gulu, the epicentre of the conflict in northern Uganda that has killed thousands and displaced nearly two million people over two decades.

Museveni's remarks were made in apparent response to assertions by LRA leaders that they would only come out of the bush if the indictments were lifted. On Wednesday, at one of two neutral camps in southern Sudan where rebel fighters are to gather under a truce signed with the government, the LRA’s deputy leader, Vincent Otti, said: "Not even a single LRA soldier will go home before [the indictments] are lifted."

Referring to charges and arrest warrants issued last year by The Hague-based court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, he added: "The ICC is the first condition, without that I cannot go home because it might be a trap."

James Otto, spokesperson for the Gulu-based Human Rights Focus, said the president should have been seen leaning towards the peace process. "This was not the case, unfortunately. It was a repeat of the old message; an issue of calling names that may sway the process one way or the other."

Odoki Lamaka, commandant of the Unyama internally displaced peoples’ camp near Gulu, said: "If this continues, it will mean that these rebels will not come out and we shall never get peace. The ICC should hear our voices and drop these arrest warrants."

Museveni warned that the talks in Juba, mediated by the government of south Sudan, were the last chance for the rebels to come out of the bush. "The Juba talks are the last chance for them to come out. I advise those of you who are still in the bush to come back. If you don't, you will perish for nothing," he told listeners. "You should remember that Kony [Joseph, LRA leader] killed so many people including a Briton and UN staff in Garamba [Democratic Republic of Congo]."

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