By Charles Ochen Okwir
Aug 29, 2003
| Against the advice of millions of Ugandans and friends of the country from far and wide, the government insists on pursuing the military option as a means of ending the 17-year-old war in northern and now eastern Uganda.
The question, therefore, is what course of action should many of us who have been advocating for a peaceful political settlement now adopt? “War is said to be a continuation of politics by other means,” I heard recently. This appears to be consistent with my argument in these pages a few weeks ago that what we lack is the political will to solve this war. If war is indeed a continuation of politics by other means, should there now be a move to mobilise Ugandans to pick up arms once again to fight for their freedom? War must be the last resort after everything else has failed and whether or not we have reached that stage is beyond my competence. What I know is that not only are Ugandans sick and tired of war, but more than 40 years of independence and civilisation must be justified by embracing civil means of conflict resolution. To that end, I invite my fellow citizens to consider this humble suggestion which is borne more out of desperation than anything else. The time has come for all patriots to make a humble contribution. The contribution asked of you is no more than your name and signature for a petition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) inviting them to investigate, indict and prosecute some key figures in the Movement leadership for war crimes. In my humble opinion, without prejudice to the impending ICC investigation, I think there exists a strong prima facie case for the said leaders to answer. Briefly, criminal responsibility is determined to a greater extent by the all important ingredient which those in the legal fraternity call the “mens reas”. In lay terms, it is quite simply the “intention” to commit a crime. It is this that turns what would ordinarily pass as anti-social behaviour into a crime. There is no doubt in my mind that the Movement leadership is sufficiently possessed of reasonably intelligent people who can surely foresee that arming civilians against seasoned rebels would have the inevitable effect of turning the entire civilian population into enemies in the eyes of the rebels. The army has clearly abrogated its constitutional duty to protect the lives and property of Ugandans and opted to arm civilians against abducted civilians, who are no doubt the majority in the LRA force. This can either amount to an overt genocidal intention to wipe out an entire people for what must only be their open political dissent against the Movement government. Or criminal recklessness can certainly be inferred from the decision to formally back the illegal paramilitary militias like the Rhino Brigade and the Arrow Group. I have struggled, without success, to convince myself that the role Liberia’s ex-president Charles Taylor played in Sierra Leone for which he has been indicted for war crimes is any different from what the Movement leadership is currently doing in northern and eastern Uganda and by extension, perhaps the DR Congo. The State Minister for Health, Mike Mukula is reported to have openly declared, before President Yoweri Museveni that the Arrow Group will not hand over “their” weapons back to government after they finish with the LRA because they intend to turn them against the Karimojong. God help us. With the proliferation of such militias, we could be heading for the sort of turmoil that engulfed Liberia and Somalia. Criminal recklessness may also be inferred in the decision of the Movement leadership to refuse to consider calls for international intervention considering that they have, by all standards, failed to end it in 17 years. This is, in fact, criminal negligence of the highest order. We must learn to take the lead in our own affairs for once. History has shown that the international community will happily sit back and wait until the 11th hour before intervening, by which time things will have gone beyond reprieve. Worse still is the flat denial in court, presumably on oath, attributed to the Chief of Military Intelligence (CMI), Col. Noble Mayombo in The Monitor recently that the war exists at all. Here is some food for thought for my learned friend. It is said that, “a bottle which believes its crack to be a smile will finally laugh in the dust bin”. As a trained lawyer with human rights credentials at Masters level to his name, the world legitimately expects Col. Mayombo to provide the sobering voice among the hawks in the administration that he serves. There are many more clear cut crimes that have been attributed to the Movement over the years. Some of the well publicised ones are the Mukura massacre in which over sixty people were roasted alive in a train wagon, the Bur Coro massacres, the indiscriminate shooting of civilians in Pader and Katakwi, to name but a few. But it is not yet too late. The option for an out of court settlement remains open up to the point of entering the courtroom. They should now show cause why the process of mobilising signatures for a petition to the ICC should not be set in motion. This can be done by organising a national dialogue involving all the stakeholders in a neutral country to map out Uganda’s political future. A neutral country will help solve the problem of mutual mistrust that has been a contributory factor in the failure of many peace talk attempts between the rebels and government. The alternative to for the Movement leadership is to prepare to absorb the full wrath of the legal machinery to their detriment, chagrin and peril. The Slobodan Milosevic case is good evidence that with determination, it can be done. The writer is a Ugandan living in the UK and member of the International Lobby for Reform in Uganda (ILORU). |
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug
