KAMPALA, Sunday — The issuing of international arrest warrants for elusive Ugandan guerrilla leaders has ended any chance of negotiating an end to 19 years of civil war, the mediator between the government and the rebels said on Saturday.
Uganda said on Friday that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued its first five indictments for commanders of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that is notorious for killing and maiming children. The warrants for Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Raska Lukwiya and Dominic Ongwen, who was killed in Teso a week ago, are the first issued by the court, which started in mid-2003 as the first permanent global tribunal set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and human rights abuses.
But Betty Bigombe, a former Ugandan government minister who has tried for years to persuade the group to end almost two decades of rebellion, told Reuters the move was a big blow.
“There is now no hope of getting them to surrender. I have told the court that they have rushed too much,” she said.
Bigombe said she had been trying to persuade Kony to end his revolt under an amnesty from the Kampala government.
Amnesty is not an option following the move by the court, which wants to bring him to justice in The Hague for a string of atrocities including the kidnap and murder of children.
“The last one month, the whole situation, has been very depressing for me,” Bigombe added. “I am really not sure what I will do next.”
Bigombe (right) said ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo had told her he was confident Otti could be arrested soon.
“He is very sure the UN and MONUC will help him get these people,” Bigombe said, referring to the UN force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “He also has the idea that Congo and Sudan are going to cooperate now, and that within one or two months, these people will be in custody.”
But UN peacekeepers reported on Friday that DRC army officials said Otti’s group had fled back to Sudan.
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