LRA rebels 'must be tried locally'
2007-08-30 08:08
Kampala - Most of the victims of Uganda's 20-year war want local courts to try the Lord's Resistance Army rebels for alleged war crimes, rather than see them indicted by an international tribunal, said the government on Wednesday.
Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, chief government negotiator at talks with the rebels, said he had carried out "extensive consultations" with Ugandans in the war-ravaged north, but gave no figures.
He said: "Many of them felt that Uganda by using traditional and formal justice systems, will provide a sufficient alternative to handle issues of accountability and reconciliation."
Two decades of war in northern Uganda killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 1.7 million before peace talks in south Sudan began in July 2006, leading to a truce the following August that had been largely respected.
'ICC indictments may jeopardise peace'
But the LRA had said it would never sign a final peace deal unless the International Criminal Court dropped indictments against four top commanders for crimes such as killing civilians, slicing body parts off victims and kidnapping children.
The rebels had said they might accept local courts as an alternative to the Hague-based tribunal, but were angered at what they said was the government's unwillingness to put its own soldiers accused of atrocities on trial.
In June, the Human Rights Centre at University of California, Berkeley, surveyed 2 875 people in the north, 58% of whom wanted the LRA to be tried, but with 76% saying they feared the ICC indictments would jeopardise peace.
Elders from the LRA's Acholi tribe wanted the rebels to undergo traditional reconciliation rituals to deal with crimes.
But human rights groups argued such rituals would fail to dish out punishments fitting the alleged crimes, such as long jail terms.