[allAfrica.com] [celtel.com] Uganda Found Guilty of Invading, Looting DR Congo The Monitor (Kampala) NEWS December 20, 2005 Posted to the web December 19, 2005 By Peter Nyanzi Kampala THE International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Uganda violated the sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo, plundered its natural resources and was responsible for human rights abuses when it sent its troops there. The Hague-based ICJ is the highest judicial organ of the United Nations; its ruling is final and cannot be appealed. In its judgement which was passed yesterday, the court found that Uganda failed to ensure that its soldiers respected DRC's natural resources. The case has taken five years and Uganda's defence has been led by the Attorney General, Dr Khiddu Makubuya. "Given the character of the internationally wrongful acts for which Uganda has been found responsible, the Court considers that those acts resulted in injury to the DRC and to persons on its territory. Consequently, the Court finds that Uganda has an obligation to make reparation for the injury caused. The Court considers appropriate the request of the DRC for the nature, form and amount of the reparation due to it to be determined by the Court, failing agreement between the Parties, in a subsequent phase of the proceedings," ruled the court. Congo wants Uganda to pay 18 trillion shillings ($10 billion). Makubuya was still in The Hague yesterday. His deputy, Mr Adolf Mwesige, confirmed that his office had received a copy of the ruling. "We have just received the 100-page ruling. We are studying it and after that we shall inform the public in due course," he said. The Director of Uganda Media Centre Mr Robrt Kabushenga said the ruling was unusual as it did not go into the specifics of the compensation question and left them to be sorted out politically by the two parties rather than judicially. But the Congolese authorities were very happy with the ruling which they say is now a warning to Rwanda and Burundi. "We are very happy that international law has finally listened to our case," Henri Mova Sakanyi, a spokesman for the Congolese government said shortly after the ruling, adding that Kinshasa would seek $6-10 billion in compensation from Uganda. In a unanimous decision, the court found that Uganda had an obligation to pay reparations, the details of which would be discussed at a later stage. The ruling, made at the sitting in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace in The Hague, was presided over by the President of the Court, Judge Shi Jiuyong and his deputy Raymond Ranjeva from Madagascar. It found that Uganda violated the principle of non-interference when it stayed in Congo after its welcome ended in 1998. The 15-member ICJ panel also had justices Abdul Koroma (Sierra Leone), Vladlen Vereshchetin (Russia), Rosalyn Higgins (United Kingdom) and Gonzalo Parra- Aranguren (Venezuela). The others are Pieter H. Kooijmans (Netherlands), Francisco Rezek (Brazil), Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh (Jordan), Thomas Buergenthal (USA), Nabil Elaraby (Egypt), Hisashi Owada (Japan), Bruno Simma (Germany), Peter Tomka (Slovakia) and Ronny Abraham (France). It found that by engaging in military activities against the DRC on the latter's territory, by occupying Ituri and by actively extending support to irregular forces in the DRC, Uganda violated the principle of non-use of force in international relations and the principle of non-intervention. Under court rules, Uganda has a chance to negotiate the amount and terms of the compensation directly with Kinshasa, but judges noted the amount sought by the DRC "was appropriate." Self defence Uganda mainly argued that its troops were in Congo as an act of self defence to neutralise rebels who were operating from there. But the court was mostly basing its decisions on the conduct of the soldiers while there, not so much the reason why they went there. Given the fact that Uganda's foreign debt stands at over $4 billion, (the recently announced debt relief can take several years to implement, according to donor sources) the amount the country would have to compensate the DRC would treble the total debt burden. Currently Uganda spends about $200 million per year to service the debt, and at that rate would need 50 years to pay off the Congo fine without paying any of the other creditors. If all Uganda's tax and non-tax revenue totaling to $700 million per year were to be devoted to paying off the Congo fine, it would take the country 14 years without the government buying a single aspirin or paying a single worker. Seen another way, the amount Congo wants in compensation is enough to build at least 20 power dams of Bujagali's size. Consequently, each of the 27 million Ugandans, including babies in the IDP camps in the north must contribute Shs680,000 to the compensation bill. Added to the existing debt, every Ugandan would now be owing a million shillings to external creditors. Uganda has also received some slight favourable judgement in The Hague: ICJ ordered the DRC to pay reparations for attacking the Ugandan Embassy in Kinshasa, maltreatment of Ugandan diplomats and other nationals which it said violated the Vienna Convention. The 16-judge panel ruled that Ugandan troops had committed "acts of torture and killing" against Congolese civilians, "trained child soldiers" and "incited ethnic conflict". Ugandan troops "created an atmosphere of terror pervading the life of the Congolese people," ICJ President Shi Jiuyong ruled. The court added that Uganda had been found guilty of notably "occupation of the Ituri region in the DRC, violations of sovereignty, illegal use of force, violations of international human rights laws and looting and plunder" between August 1997 and June 2003. The Court said the objectives of "Operation Safe Haven", as stated in a Ugandan High Command document issued on September 11, 1998, were not consonant with the concept of self-defence as understood in international law. Gulu Municipality MP, Norbert Mao, who was a strong critic of the Ugandan army deployment into the DRC, said he was "not surprised" by the ICJ ruling. "We have generally not been good neighbours. In Parliament, we strongly opposed the deployment of our troops into the DRC but they could not listen to us. Now the chicken are coming back to roost," he said. The ICJ ruling follows a June 23, 1999 application by the DRC instituting proceedings in the international court against Uganda for "acts of armed aggression perpetuated in flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and of the Charter of the OAU". The DRC accused Uganda of responsibility for human rights abuses and armed aggression and calling for compensation for what is said were acts of looting, destruction and removal of property. Hearing of the case ended in July 2005 and Dr Makubuya has made several trips to The Hague to defend Uganda. Justice Minister Mr Honorius Kisimba Ngoy Ndalewe led the DRC delegation. He complained that Uganda had illegally entered its territory and plundered its wealth of natural resources, including minerals, under the guise of chasing rebels that had been attacking it from DRC bases. Four million people are said to have perished in DRC's eight year instability. Rwanda and Uganda say they entered Congo to neutralise Interahamwe and ADF rebels respectively. Initially, the two countries were welcomed by the late President Desire Kabila but later fell out with the DRC government. In 2002, a UN panel of experts issued a report in which it accused several Ugandan top army officers and companies of massive plunder of the DRC's natural resources. However, a commission of inquiry chaired by Justice David Porter, which was set up by President Yoweri Museveni to look into the allegations, exonerated the officers. Butagira blames While addressing the UN Security Council a week ago, Uganda's Ambassador to the UN, Mr Francis Butagira, blamed the United Nations Security Council for not taking action against "negative forces" operating in the DRC, which he said had become a "conservation area" for rebel forces fighting Uganda. In September, Uganda said LRA rebels had crossed from Sudan into northeastern DRC. President Museveni warned that UPDF would pursue them into DRC unless the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) took action against them. The United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, issued a stern warning to Uganda against the act saying it would be a violation of international law.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2005 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================