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UPDF Not for World Court, Says Mbabazi

The Monitor (Kampala)
NEWS
October 7, 2004
Posted to the web October 7, 2004

By Solomon Muyita
Kampala
Defence Minister, Mr Amama Mbabazi, has downplayed claims that both the UPDF
and Joseph Kony's, Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels commit atrocities
against humanity in northern Uganda.
He said the LRA is the sole perpetrator of the insurgency, and its mastermind
would soon face the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague,
Netherlands, as government requested recently.
"I disagree that this government has committed crimes with impunity. Its true
some government troops committed atrocities, but not ours," said Mbabazi,
during a Uganda Human Rights Commission workshop in Kampala.
The workshop held at the International Conference Centre discussed the
implications of the ICC investigations on human rights and the peace process in
Uganda.
Majority of the participants in the workshop said it was useless to refer the
LRA case to The Hague, when the court is going to deal with part of the crisis.
"Government troops have also committed crimes against humanity with impunity,"
said the retired Northern Uganda Bishop, Baker Ochola.
Lira Municipality MP, Ms Cecilia Ogwal, said involvement of the ICC was
admission by the government that the northern war is out of hand. She said it
was high time the region is declared a disaster area.
Mr Reagan Okumu (Aswa County MP) was concerned about the fact that the ICC
investigations would start from July 2002 and not 1986 when Kony activities
started.
Mr Jacob Oulanyah welcomed the idea as a step ahead of the original UN systems,
"which only punished the defeated."

   

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