Global Policy Forum

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. U.S. officials bitterly opposed creation of the court, fearing that Americans would be singled out for frivolous cases because of the United States' superpower status. It is pursuing separate treaties with countries promising that they will not extradite Americans to the court. 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 has allegedly committed summary executions, torture and pillaging. 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. "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 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 the 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 in The Hague.

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