War and Justice in Northern Uganda: An Assessment of the International Criminal Court's Intervention
Abstract
In December 2003 the President of Uganda, H.E Yoweri Museveni, asked the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate 'the situation concerning the Lord's Resistance Army' (LRA). This independent report examines the current ICC investigations and possible prosecutions, and assess the risks to children - including the children still in captivity (i.e. those living and perhaps fighting with the Lord's Resistance Army), and the formerly abducted children that are now living at one of the reception centres or have returned to their families. The report is also aimed at providing an understanding of how the actions of the ICC are likely to affect national, regional and local reconciliation and the entire peace building process. Inevitably, some of the findings have had to be speculative, because there are so many unknowns (at the time of writing in February 2005, no warrants had yet been issued). In addition, the report describes and reflects on aspects of the war itself and on the experiences of people in the displacement camps. This has been done in order to provide information that may be of use in thinking about wider issues of vulnerability. One of the things that emerged from the fieldwork was that the attitudes of people in the displacement camps were by no means as homogeneous as their representatives and advocates have tended to suggest. Many informants were much more willing to support a process of punishing the LRA's senior commanders than has been supposed.
Citation
Allen, T. War and Justice in Northern Uganda: An Assessment of the International Criminal Court’s Intervention, Special Report, 2005, London, UK; Crisis States Research Centre, 100 pp.
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