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Thursday, January 29, 2004 Posted: 2127 GMT ( 5:27 AM HKT)
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- Ugandan rebel leaders who have exploited
thousands of kidnapped children as soldiers or sex slaves will be the target
of the first investigation by the International Criminal Court, the chief
prosecutor said Thursday.
The world's only permanent war crimes tribunal won jurisdiction for its
first case when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni asked the Hague-based
court to investigate possible crimes against humanity by the Lord's
Resistance Army, which operates in northern Uganda.
The rebels have "kidnapped thousands of kids, forced them to be soldiers,
forced them to kill their parents, forced them to be sex slaves," said Chief
Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. "I don't know a more awful crime."
Since it formally came into existence in 2002, the tribunal has received
hundreds of complaints and requests to investigate alleged war crimes, most
of them involving the U.S.-led conflict in Iraq. But the Ugandan referral is
the first to fall clearly under the court's jurisdiction.
"The president of Uganda referred it to the ICC and opened the door for an
international prosecution," Moreno-Ocampo told The Associated Press by
telephone from London, where he was meeting Museveni.
Reports reaching the prosecutor's office speak of as many as 20,000
children, aged 11-15 and sometimes younger, being forcibly conscripted by
the rebel group, which allegedly is responsible for summary executions,
torture and pillaging of villages.
The reports say thousands of children become "night dwellers" to evade
capture by the rebels, seeking shelter until dawn in churches or in the
offices of charity agencies. To terrorize the population, the rebels have
cut off limbs, ears or lips of villagers suspected of helping the central
government, said a statement from Moreno-Ocampo's Hague office.
The prosecutor "has determined that there is a sufficient basis to start
planning for the first investigation (by) the International Criminal Court,"
it said.
"We need to collect evidence. When we have evidence, we will ask for arrest
warrants," said the Argentine prosecutor. "There is no decision to arrest
anyone."
The Lord's Resistance Army includes remnants of a northern rebellion that
began after Museveni, a southerner, seized power in Kampala in 1986. It is
led by Joseph Kony, who claims to have spiritual powers.
Aid agencies working in the area were quoted a year ago as estimating that
the conflict has killed more than 23,000 people and cost the East African
nation more than 1 billion dollars (euros) over 17 years. Fighting increased
in recent years after Sudan agreed to allow Ugandan troops to enter that
country in pursuit of the rebels.
The rebels do not maintain contact with journalists and have never commented
on allegations against them.
Moreno-Ocampo said Uganda would need to call on neighboring countries and
international institutions to help locate and arrest the rebel leadership. A
similar task was handed to NATO-led forces in the Balkans to capture war
crimes suspects wanted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, also in The
Hague.
The ICC prosecutor has spent most of his time since he was installed last
June hiring lawyers and building a team capable of prosecuting charges of
genocide or crimes against humanity committed after the court began
functioning in July 2002.
Last year, he identified rebels in Congo as potential targets of
investigation, but he is still waiting for Kinshasa to officially refer the
case to the court.
Uganda is one of 92 countries to have ratified the 1998 Rome Statute that
created the court. The court can prosecute cases only if they are committed
in the territory or by citizens of countries that ratified the treaty.
Alternatively, a country that has not ratified the treaty could ask the
court to intervene in a conflict on its own territory, or the U.N. Security
Council could request that the court open a case.
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