Lord’s Resistance Army’s Commander Termed For 25 Years Of Jail By International Criminal Court

Overview

• On 06 May 2021, the International Criminal Court sentenced Dominic Ongwen, a former Commander in the Lord's Resistance Army to twenty-five years of jail for crimes committed against humanity

What Is Lord’s Resistance Army

• It is a rebel group.

• It was started by Joseph Kony in the late 1980s.

• It has waged a war of attrition against the Government and people of Uganda and nearby countries.

• LRA does not have any main agenda however it does mention overthrowing the government of Uganda and establishing a government with ten commandments as its constitution.

• This group wanted to create fear in the eyes of people so that the government will appear weak to protect its citizens.

• It is very infamous for its reliance on child soldiers.

• It has crossed every limit of humanity as it is responsible for child abducting, raping, kidnapping women, forcing them, and killing people.

• It was largely expelled from Uganda in 2006 and then it became a problematic issue for nearby countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Who Is Dominic Ongwen

• Ongwen is a former Commander of the Sinia Brigade of the Lord's Resistance Army.

• He is also known as the White Ant and was one of the most feared fighters in the rebel movements.

• Ongwen was abducted by the LRA after killing his parents, at the age of nine when he was on his way to school.

• He was a child soldier in the LRA.

• In 2016, he surrendered himself to the U.S forces in the Central African Republic and they later handed him over to the Ugandan army.

• He has committed a lot of crimes against humanity like abducting, raping, and torturing people.

International Criminal Court On The Case

• Dominic Ongwen is now 45 years old and he is sentenced to jail for a term of twenty-five years for committing various crimes including murder, rape, and torture.

• In February, he was convicted by the International Criminal Court for sixty-one of seventy charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

• More than four thousand victims gave the testimony in the present case, which was heard in The Hague, related to the crimes on attacks on four camps for internally displaced people in Uganda in 2004.

• Despite this, the Court did consider the fact that Ongwen was abducted at a very young age of nine and after that, he was groomed by the people of LRA, however, it was also said that his childhood happenings do not give him liberty to do anything in his adult life and therefore a term of twenty-five years of jail was handed to him.

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