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NEWS STORY
By Lucy Hannan in Olwal June 27, 2007 Dominic Ongwen might be the youngest person ever charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC). As one of four commanders in the Ugandan rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Ongwen is wanted in The Hague for "murder, abduction, sexual enslavement, mutilation, as well as mass burning of houses and looting". He is also charged with forcibly recruiting children as "fighters, porters and sex slaves". The date of birth on Ongwen's arrest warrant is recorded as "unknown". But to his family, tracked down this week in Olwal, in the Gulu district of northern Uganda, he is remembered as a 10-year-old, one of thousands of children abducted in the 20-year conflict between the LRA and Uganda's government. He was taken from near his home in 1986. "He is a lost child," said Akot Madelena, Ongwen's aunt, who looked after him when his mother died. His guardian, Madelena, who is heavily pregnant with her seventh child, believes there should be amnesty for child rebels. "If he needs punishment, let them give it at home, I am ready to look after him." The eldest son, Ongwen was in effect a child farmer, responsible for three younger brothers. He rose early to work that morning in 1986. At 11am he started the 4km walk home, before it became too hot to work. "We were coming from digging and a group of men with guns took Dominic," said his cousin Kilama Christoper, now 28. "They took him because he was the biggest." Terrified, Dominic did not resist or beg. The LRA's fighting force is made up primarily of child soldiers, many forced into gruesome killing rituals to cut them off from their communities. Humanitarian agencies say 20,000 children have been abducted or killed in the war, and nearly two million people displaced. Ongwen was indicted by the ICC in July 2005, along with four others, including Joseph Kony, the LRA's head. But his circumstances present "a fundamental dilemma", an ICC source in Uganda acknowledges, as he is a "veteran child soldier". The ICC does not prosecute minors; but Ongwen was an adult at the time of the charges. Andre Laperriere, of the ICC Trust Fund for Victims, in northern Uganda, said child soldiers and abductees are "among the most victimised". He said thousands of children in northern Uganda had "completely lost their childhood... forced into terrible acts during the war". Peace talks with the government are precarious because the LRA insists no settlement can be made until ICC charges are lifted and an alternative justice system is agreed. Many civil and political leaders in Uganda also see the ICC warrants as an obstacle and say that local justice is preferable. The opposition leader Morris Oyengo-Latigo, said: "Most of the so-called fighters are victims, who were abducted, subjugated to mental torture and transformed into a fighting force. And the challenge is, when does somebody become responsible?" Under the traditional justice of mato oput, the community forgives crimes of the past and reconcile. A few kilometres from Olwal, in Pagak Camp, people hold another traditional ceremony to cleanse the camp of "evil spirits". This is the site of one of the worst massacres of the war. In May 2004, 50 women, some with babies, were made to lie in the grass and bludgeoned to death by the LRA. "We can forgive but not forget," said one Pagak resident. "The LRA leaders must be punished." story url
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