Global Policy Forum

The UN International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant of arrest for Joseph Kony, the northern Uganda rebel leader over the atrocities committed by his Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in the past 17 years, a senior UN official said in Nairobi Friday. UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari said that the warrant of arrest was written on Tuesday but has not been publicised by the ICC, a unit of the UN, until now. "We believe he (Kony) is in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but we cannot say as to whether the UN forces can apprehend him," Gambari revealed when asked whether UN forces were in pursuit of Kony.

The warrant for Kony, wanted for atrocities committed in northern Uganda, comes as the Ugandan authorities appealed for help to bring rebels based in the Congo to book. "The ICC has actually issued a warrant for the arrest of Ugandan rebel leader but it has not been publicized. The issue here is where to locate Kony and the capacity of the UN to apprehend him," Gambari said.

Kony`s crimes include torture and mutilation, abduction, sexual violence, forced recruitment and the killing of people the LRA considers are supporters of the current regime of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.The ICC assumed the jurisdiction to investigate serious war crimes in northern Uganda last year after Museveni referred the matter to the court.

On Thursday Museveni said the Congolese government and the UN mission there known as MONUC must, in two months, disarm the LRA rebels who recently crossed into eastern Congo or else the Ugandan army would do so. "If the international community does not come in to do it, we shall go there," he told reporters in Kampala.LRA Deputy Commander Vincent Otti reportedly led 400 rebels into Congo`s Garamba National Park in early September, fleeing Uganda`s military operations in southern Sudan, the rebels have been based for years.

On Monday, the Congolese vice-president in charge of security and defence, Azarias Ruberwa, said in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, that the army was planning operations to oust the LRA rebels and their families. Kinshasa gave an ultimatum to all foreign groups to leave the country by the end of Friday (30 September). "We have no choice. We absolutely have to disarm them," Ruberwa said.

The LRA has waged a devastating rebellion in northern Uganda against Museveni`s government since 1988, targeting civilians and abducting mainly children as rebel conscripts and as sex slaves.