Fellow Ugandans,
The people of the great lakes region have suffered unimaginable atrocities under many self claimed leaders for a number of decades now. Yet the perpetrators of such egregious crimes against humanity continue to walk freely with impunity enjoying all the fine things of life.
For countries like Uganda-where each new wave of leadership brought in a new tribe with cleverer and harsher measures of suppression and abuse, those who were victimized, relied heavily on the ICC to bring them relief. Only to be deeply disappointed by it’s limited scope of jurisdiction. Today, Ugandans continues to suffer from tribal polarization and mistrust paving way to horizontal violence, vigilantism and mob justice as a way of expressing their political frustration and lack of redress of trauma.
The dreams and promise of democracy seem to have evaporated with the millions who have perished in the struggle of self-determination.
I hope the international community; will not stop at the advent of the ICC court alone to address the cheapening of life in these countries. We owe it to the people who have endured such atrocities, to have other mechanisms of seriously keeping track of any new abuses. It is so easy to get information from those who are abused in many countries today, especially with the prevalence of cell phone technology.
The court now has to take a more pro-active role to collect evidence and give warning to those in power that they themselves face prosecution if such atrocities continue under their watch.
In order to move on from the wounds of yester years these countries have to adopt non-violent conflict resolution processes, similar to the truth and reconciliation commission of South Africa. The wounds are too deep and long to be washed away without a cleansing process. America ought to stand with the ICC and the world community now, as it has always done where gross human right abuses have been evidenced. We continue to be hopeful when we see the netting of those Nazis who committed heinous crimes against humanity more than sixty-four years ago. It is with the same standard and spirit of justice that we hold and expect the new ICC to operate and wield it’s long arm of the law in the most remote places on earth, especially in zones that were labeled as the killing fields of the world.
Tendo Kaluma
Ugandan in Boston
Anthony Rwaga said,
August 11, 2009 at 11:27 am
Targeted Rapes To Spread HIV/Aids Started In Uganda
By Anthony Rwaga
August 11th, 2009
Yoweri Museveni: accused of using soldiers known to be HIV-positive to spread the disease among civilians suspected of supporting insurgency
[Commentary]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has decried the use of rape as a weapon in Congo’s conflict.
On August 5, 2009, The New York Times published a front page story that included for the first time photographs of male rape victims in the conflict. While the rape of men –women have traditionally been the victims of this crime—might be a new phenomenon in Congo; in Uganda it started as early as the 1990s and I remember trying to convince The New York Times to pursue the story at the time.
In 1992 after I completed journalism training at Columbia University, I met with several editors at The New York Times, including the foreign editor, the deputy foreign editor and the managing editor. My plan was to return to Africa and set up as a stringer there. I met with The Times’ editors hoping to work out a deal.
I also met with Donatella Lorch; The New York Times was sending her to be East Africa bureau chief. Lorch was then a minor legend, having reported from Soviet occupied Afghanistan, and moving amidst the Taliban, who were then U.S.-supported.
My own passage into the corridors of The New York Times was paved with my masters paper at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia; “Darkest Times In Africa.” My paper documented the evolution of African news coverage in The New York Times dating from the 1860s right through the 1990s; including the period when the reportage was outright racist.
In addition to Times news clips in microfilm in New York libraries, I had gained access to The New York Times archives where I discovered very dirty laundry—offensive racist letters exchanged between editors of The New York Times and reporters sent to cover Africa from the 1950s right through the 1990s. Later, I used some of the material for my book, “The Hearts of Darkness, How White Writers Created The Racist Image of Africa,” (Black Star Books 2002).
Please see http://www.theheartsofdarkness.com/
It was on the basis of my masters’ paper that I caught the attention of editors at the Times. After all, the paper documented the role that Times editors and reporters had played in African reportage; some decent, many ugly and offensive. Nevertheless, I never travelled to Africa to become a stringer. I honed my journalism here in New York instead.
Yet, when I met Donatella Lorch, I told her about a big and chilling story I had been following from Uganda, that had not yet been dealt with by any of the major media outlets, including The New York Times. That story was about the deliberate spread of HIV/Aids by Yoweri Museveni’s regime, which had unleashed government soldiers known to be HIV-positive, to rape people in Uganda’s Acholi region. That’s the region in Uganda which was then resisting Museveni’s regime; and still is, today.
I told Lorch that I had already done much of the reporting by telephone here in New York, calling contacts in Uganda, and that I had interviewed a Ugandan doctor, then visiting New York City, who also confirmed the diabolical policy. The doctor told me he was convinced there was a policy to spread the disease because for the first time men were also being raped by the government soldiers. I also gave Lorch a copy of a videotape of a documentary that a German crew had shot which contained interviews with some Acholi males who described their ordeal. Even then, I could tell that she could not relate to such a seemingly outlandish story. In fact I recall her saying –and at least I took it to be a joke at the time, “Maybe the Ugandan army is recruiting more gay soldiers into the army.”
Yet, some of the victims later reportedly committed suicide out of humiliation. After all, in some of the remote parts of Acholi, anal intercourse between men was practically unheard of.
Another reason why most outside media outlets, including The New York Times, were unwilling to touch the story is that often corporate media mirror official U.S. policy and Uganda under Museveni was considered to be an “ally.” Uganda at the time was also being celebrated for its open and aggressive policy to combat and contain Hiv/Aids. Later, it was revealed that some of the reported achievements were exaggerated and funnelled to Western media outlets by well-paid public relations firms.
In fairness it wasn’t only The New York Times that ignored the Uganda targeted-and homosexual-rapes story. I tried to interest countless publications, including The Village Voice and The Nation. I remember once writing to Andrew Sullivan, now a famous blogger and commentator when he was editor of The New Republic. I recall him writing back something to the effect: “I don’t believe you.”
Inside Uganda, an Acholi politician, Tiberio Atwoma Okeny, was one of the few who publicly accused the Museveni regime of using targeted rapes, including of males, to spread Hiv/Aids to punish Acholis for their perceived support of insurgency against his regime. Okeny was arrested and charged with sedition and treason.
Please see
http://books.google.com/books?id=rjKENRcL1ZYC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=
tiberio+atwoma+okeny&
source=bl&ots=
NVscr3g1Zt&sig=V7FB8IUgc_Z4fp8GrWr1UghIYik&hl=en&ei=_PiASr3p
PJavtgezkqjOCg&sa=
X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=tiberio%
20atwoma%20okeny&f=false
It’s not by accident that rebellion has lasted for more than 23 years in Uganda’s Acholi region. Partly it’s because Joseph Kony, who leads the Lord’s Resistance Army, is inplacatable; partly, because Museveni, like Kony is a die-hard militarist who lives by the sword; but mostly, it’s because Acholis remember the diabolical crimes unleashed by Museveni’s army, including targeted and homo-sexual rapes to spread Hiv/Aids.
Moreover the maccabre policy has worked, when combined with the confinement of two million Acholis in concentration camps, only now easing. Northern Uganda once had the lowest HIV infection rates in the country; by 2004 it was twice the national average and according to a report in local media there by 2009 it was 11.9% while the national average was 6.4%
Today the Congo is in the news and the focus of stories about the use of mass rapes as a weapon in its ongoing conflict.
Consider this: In all the years that Congo suffered mayhem and collapse under the late dictator Mobuttu Sese Seko, even during its worst years, mass rape was never favored by the brutal and repressive government troops in what was then Zaire.
What changed? What was new? The Congo was invaded by Uganda and by Rwanda twice. The first invasion was in 1996; that was a popular invasion because it led to the overthrow of the detested Mobuttu.
The second invasion, of 1997, was very unpopular. Uganda, and Rwanda, both sought to install a plaint leader in Congo after Laurent Kabila –father of current president Joseph Kabila—exerted too much independence from his former benefactors who had installed him.
With the help of Angola and Zimbabwe, the senior Kabila thwarted an outright takeover.
Uganda ended up occupying eastern Congo, including the Ituri; Rwanda occupied the part of Congo that covers Goma and leads into Rwanda.
It was during this occupation –resisted by the Congolese, much as the Acholis had resisted Museveni’s army in northern Uganda– that mass rapes became a weapon against Congolese and men were raped for the first time. The occupying armies also looted Congo’s natural and mineral resources, as documented by the United Nations and by Human Rights Watch.
Please see
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/ituri0703/DRC0703.pdf
Indeed, in 2005, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda liable for what amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity in Congo. What’s more, on June 8, 2006, The Wall Street Journal reported that the International Criminal Court (ICC) also has launched its own investigation into the crimes committed by Uganda troops and sponsored militias.
Please see
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10455.pdfhttp:
The behavior of Rwanda’s troops –and its own sponsored militias—shouldn’t come as a surprise: Many of its fighters had been members of Uganda’s national army before the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Rwanda in 1990 and seized power there in 1994.
Last week, when The New York Times story documented how out of hand targeted rapes, including of males, has become in Congo: I could not help but remember my attempts to convince Donatella Lorch and Times editors to pursue the Uganda rape stories 16 years ago.
The Ugandan story is yet to be fully told and many victims await interviews.
Anthonyh Rwaga said,
September 3, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Bashir blocked but is Museveni off the hook?
Ladies and gentlemen here is a quest on our so called leader of Uganda and the saga that he upholds in his hands. does one seem to undersatnd where he is heading for? Here is a copy of a story that narrates a bit of the position which is is stuck in and cannot let go due to the fear of being inidicted by the ICC. please read on
Thursday, sept 3rd2009 08:14
Govt drafts law to save the President from prosecution
Uganda has officially become the second African country after South Africa to block a visit by Sudanese President Gen. Omar al-Bashir.
Bashir faces a similar situation in 28 other African countries and more than 90 others worldwide which are signatories to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC)Rome Statute. The number of potential arrest spots for Bashir swells if countries that are not signatories but are cooperative with the ICC are included.
Uganda placed itself between a rock and a hard place when it invited him to the 19th edition of the International Global Smart Partnership dialogue in Kampala between July 26 and 28.
Since then, analysts have pointed out that, the narrowing of space for Bashir has implications for President Yoweri Museveni and other African leaders too.
Bashir has a warrant of arrest hanging over his head issued by The Hague-based ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s restive western region of Darfur between 2003 and 2008.
But African Union (AU) leaders at their July 4 summit in Sirte, Libya, had resolved not to cooperate with the ICC “pursuant to the provisions of Article 98 of the Rome Statute on the ICC…or the arrest and surrender of African indicted personalities.”
Since the arrest warrants were issued in March, Bashir has defiantly visited several African countries and the Middle East. But coming to Kampala would be significant because it would be the first visit to a country which is a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the ICC.
South Africa blocked Bashir from attending President Jacob Zuma’s inauguration in May with a warning that it would arrest him to honour its obligations to the ICC.
Initial indications that Bashir would attend shifted world attention to whether Uganda, as a signatory to the Rome Statute, would flout the AU position, uphold its international obligation to the ICC, and arrest him.
ICC mandate
At the time, Lina Zedriga, a women’s peace and security advocate in Kampala, argued that although the Rome Statute puts obligations on the signatory countries to arrest the suspects, it does not impose legal punishments on countries which do not comply.
“The institutional framework to practically deliver this arrest seems to be largely absent even at the ICC level. There is a gap as the court operates on the cooperation, so failure to cooperate is not fatal to Uganda,” she said.
But David Mpanga, a senior lawyer in Kampala, argued that Uganda could not risk undermining the ICC.
Profile: Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Luis Moreno-Ocampo was born on June 4th, 1952 in Argentine. A lawyer by training, Ocampo has been Prosecutor of the ICC since June 16th 2003. He previously worked as a prosecutor in Argentina, combating corruption and prosecuting human rights abuses by senior military officials.
Ocampo graduated from the University of Buenos Aires Law School in 1978. From 1980 to 1984 he worked as a law clerk in the office of the Solicitor General.
1984-1992, Ocampo was a prosecutor in Argentina. He first came to public attention in 1985, as Assistant Prosecutor in the “Trial of the Juntas.” The first time since the Nuremberg Trials those senior military commanders were prosecuted for mass killings. Nine senior commanders, including three former heads of state, were prosecuted and five of them were convicted.
He served as District Attorney for the Federal Circuit of the City of Buenos Aires 1987-1992 during which time he prosecuted the military commanders responsible for the Falklands War. In 1987, he helped USA prosecutors extradite Gen. Guillermo Suárez Mason to Argentina.
He resigned in 1992 and established a private law firm, Moreno-Ocampo & Wortman Jofre. He represented the victims in extradition proceedings against Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke, and also in the trial of the murderer of Chilean General Carlos Prats.
“Uganda cannot go with the AU on the Bashir indictment. That would not be politically expedient in light of the fact that Uganda now chairs the UN Security Council,” Mpanga reasoned. “There is also the matter of Kony; how does Uganda urge the DRC and others to apprehend Kony if they lay their hands on them but then let Bashir slip through its hands?”
On the face of it, Uganda appeared to be reacting with classic confusion. Later analysis revealed, however, that it could have been orchestrated confusion.
The unstated view of most AU leaders who signed the Sirte resolution is that most of the ICC accusations of war crimes have been against Africans. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is locked up at The Hague on trial under the jurisdiction of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, while former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Vice President Jean Pierre Bemba and former DRC warlords Thomas Lubanga, Germaine Katanga, and Mathieu Ngudjolo are on trial by the ICC.
To this group, Bashir’s indictment proves that the ICC is only working at the whims of western leaders. Most African leaders fear that they could end up on trial in The Hague should they fall out of favour with the West.
On March 29, 2006 Taylor was arrested and handed to the ICC despite a 2003 assurance of immunity from prosecution from his host, then Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo, then South African President Thabo Mbeki and the international community. On the day Taylor was arrested Obasanjo had a scheduled meeting with then US President George Bush. Insiders claim Bush gave Obasanjo an ultimatum: “Arrest Taylor or meeting is off.”
At a broader level, DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has filed a similar case in the ICC against President Museveni’s government on accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity following Uganda’s military campaign against the Kinshasa government between 1998 and 2002. If the ICC finds merit in the DRC case, we may witness Bashir-like indictments against the Ugandan leadership.
However, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has condemned the position of the African leaders saying they are seeking protection “when one of them” is called to face justice.
“The ICC represents hope for victims of atrocities and sends a message that no one is above the law. That hope and message will be undermined if the African Union condemns the Court because it has charged an African head of state,” Annan said.
Implications
But threatening Bashir with arrest has other significant implications for President Museveni.
Uganda is slated to host the ICC review conference next year. As a prelude, the government is working hard to ensure the ICC Bill of 2006, which is the domestication of the Rome Statute, is enacted into law before the end of this year.
It is, therefore, interesting that in the ICC Bill which the Uganda government wants parliament to pass, Clause 19 which spells out those to be tried under the law, excludes Article 27 of the Rome Statute.
Article 27 of the Rome Statute disregards immunity conferred to the heads of state under their national law. That is why Bashir can be arrested even if he is a sitting president.
Kampala Central MP Erias Lukwago who sits on the Parliamentary Legal Committee says the domesticated ICC Bill must also hold the head of state accountable.
“We are challenging this exclusion of the president from prosecution in case he commits war crimes. We want government to adopt the Rome Statute article that disregards [such] immunity.”
He says the reason for immunity of a sitting president in cases related to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Ugandan law is similar to the views of African leaders towards the ICC.
According to Lukwago, Uganda cannot risk to be seen championing the arrest of Bashir when back home in the national ICC Bill they are seeking to exempt a sitting president from similar criminal liability.
Ocampo’s role
The arrival in Uganda of the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo initially appeared to complicate the government’s strategy. Initially interpreted as an attempt to secure assurance from Uganda that it would arrest Bashir should he step into the country, Ocampo’s visit appears to have served the interests of the Uganda government more than it did the ICC.
Before Ocampo arrived, Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kuteesa, said Bashir was free to travel to Uganda.
“We cannot invite President Bashir here and then arrest him. We don’t work like that,” he said at a press conference.
He said Uganda would abide by the AU resolution and not act until an investigation by an AU-appointed commission has given its recommendations on Bashir’s indictment. He said the decision was not a denial of support for the Rome Statute.
However that changed when Ocampo arrived and told a press a conference in Kampala that Uganda was under obligation to arrest Bashir.
“South Africa informed Bashir that he could be invited to President Zuma’s inauguration, but while he is there he could be arrested,” he continued, “It’s a legal obligation not a political decision, it’s a court decision and Uganda, South Africa and the 30 African (member) state parties have this legal obligation, it’s clear.”
Uganda’s Junior Foreign Affairs Minister Okello Oryem who spoke at the same press meeting with Ocampo, appeared to contradict his senior minister.
“The warrant against Bashir is already deposited here in the Solicitor General’s office,” Okello said, “If and when Bashir arrives here in Uganda, then it is up to Kayihura [head of the police] to see to it that he takes action if and when it arises.”
His statement sparked a cloud of confusion. President Museveni panicked into calling Bashir to refute Oryem’s remarks. Museveni, according to the Sudan News Agency, told Bashir that Oryem’s statement did not represent the Uganda government position.
However observers now believe that Oryem could not have contradicted his senior and the president without the matter having been discussed and endorsed by the government.
However the dice was cast. Amid the confusion, Bashir could only travel to Kampala at his own peril.
So it was not surprising that Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Permanent James Mugume announced the next day that the two countries had agreed that Bashir delegates a senior cabinet official to represent him at the Smart Partnership dialogue.
President Museveni had achieved double success; Bashir would not set foot in Kampala and therefore it relieved him of the ICC obligation to arrest him or the AU responsibility to spare him.
Analysts point out that Uganda’s dilemma doubled because in December 2003 it became the first country to refer a case to the ICC, which in July 2005 issued indictments against Lord’s Resistance Army rebel leaders, Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen over 2,200 killings and 3,200 abductions between July 2002 and June 2004, in about 850 attacks.
The ICC indictments have since been blamed for the LRA’s failure or refusal to sign a peace agreement with the government.
The government is, however, aware that the ICC involvement drew international support to its efforts to end the rebellion.
Currently, a bill called the “LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act 2009” is being pushed through the US Senate to ensure further support.
The Uganda government has been careful not to jeopardise that through its handling of the Bashir affair.
If Bashir had come and was not arrested, it would have left Uganda in the mud and rendered the ICC indictments inconsequential. This could motivate other countries to follow suit and no other indicted person would ever get bothered by the ICC indictments.
Ocampo, who travelled to Uganda from Kinshasa where he sought MONUC support to apprehend Kony, told journalists in Kampala that was the other reason for his visit.
Bashir’s side
Ensuring that Bashir stays away from Kampala was no easy job.
On July 16, just a few hours before Mugume announced that Bashir would send a representative, a source in The Hague quoting contacts in Khartoum had told The Independent that information from Sudan indicated that Bashir was determined to come to Kampala to put the efficacy of the ICC indictments on absolute test.
The other reason that added to the pressure was that Uganda is currently heading the UN Security Council, which has not accepted the AU request to defer Bashir’s indictment for 12 months.
Complying with the International Crminal Court arrest warrant would, however, not only put Uganda’s diplomatic relations with Sudan at risk, but could also alienate Uganda from other fellow African countries that share the African Union’s thinking. If that happened, Uganda then could face political isolation by her counterparts on the continent.
This view was reinforced by the Sudanese Ambassador to Uganda Abdil Rahim al-Sadiq who said in the wake of contradicting statements from Uganda government officials that Uganda risked a diplomatic row if it dared arrest Bashir.
Uganda has in the past accused Khartoum of sponsoring the Kony rebellion in northern Uganda. It is feared that any diplomatic tiff could resurrect such hostilities and strangle the remaining hope for peace.
If arresting Bashir in Kampala could have reignited hostilities between Sudan and Uganda, not arresting him does not mean that Khartoum now counts on Uganda as an ally.
Blocking Bashir also seems to have provided a temporary rather than a permanent solution.
Even after blocking Bashir visit, South African President Jacob Zuma is still under pressure to state his country’s stand regarding Bashir’s indictment.
Human rights organisations want Zuma to categorically state that he is not party to the AU decision. The agitators include Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia; and Dumisa Ntsebeza, a member of the international commission of inquiry on Darfur appointed by the UN.
Cases before the ICC
On 17 July 1998, 120 states adopt the Rome Statute, which sets up the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute became operational on 1 July 2002 after ratification by 60 countries.
The ICC is joined by 109 countries. It will not act if a case is investigated or prosecuted by a national judicial system unless the national proceedings were undertaken to shield a person from criminal responsibility.
To date, three States Parties to the Rome Statute – Uganda, the DR Congo and the Central African Republic – have referred cases on their territories to ICC. In addition, the Security Council has referred the situation in Darfur, Sudan – a non-State Party.
In Uganda’s case; The Prosecutor v. Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen is currently being heard before Pre-Trial Chamber II. In this case, five warrants of arrest have been issued against the five top members of the Lords Resistance Army. Following the confirmed death of Mr Lukwiya, the proceedings against him were terminated. The four are still at large.
For DR Congo, there are three cases: The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo; The Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda; and The Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui. Two cases are at the pre-trial stage, while the proceedings against Lubanga are at the trial stage. Lubanga, Katanga and Ngudjolo are in the ICC custody. Ntaganda is still at large.
In Darfur, there are three cases before Pre-Trial Chamber I: The Prosecutor v. Ahmad Muhammad Harun (“Ahmad Harun”) and Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (“Ali Kushayb”); The Prosecutor v. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir and suspect Bahr Idriss Abu Garda appeared voluntarily for the first time before Pre-Trial Chamber I on 18 May 2009. He is not in custody. The three other suspects remain at large.
In the Central African Republic, the case; The Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo is at the pre-trial stage and is currently being heard before Pre-Trial Chamber II.