International Criminal Court judges on Wednesday awarded more than 52 million euros ($56 million) in compensation to thousands of victims of a convicted commander of Uganda’s shadowy rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army.
The nearly 50,000 victims covered by the order include former child soldiers and children born as a result of rape and forced pregnancy.
Three years ago, Dominic Ongwen was found guilty of 61 crimes, including murder, rape, forced marriage and the recruitment of child soldiers between 2002 and 2005. An ICC appeals panel upheld his conviction and 25-year sentence in late 2022, laying the groundwork for a compensation order.
Presiding judge Bertram Schmidt said rebels led by Ongwen attacked four displacement camps in northern Uganda and “inflicted unimaginable atrocities on tens of thousands of people”.
“Similarly, more than 100 women and girls and thousands of children, boys and girls under the age of 15 suffered profound and multifaceted trauma as a result of their abduction. Many subsequently suffered sexual and gender-based crimes and/or or forced into slavery. LRA soldiers are imprisoned through brutal means of physical and psychological coercion,” he added.
Ongwen did not appear for the compensation hearing. Although he was found liable for compensation, the court ruled he was indigent and said the compensation would be paid from a trust fund established for victims by the court’s member states.
Schmidt urged “countries, organizations, companies and individuals to support the mission and efforts of the Victims Trust Fund and to contribute to its fundraising efforts.”
He said the victims would each receive 750 euros ($812) as a “symbolic reward” while other compensation would be provided in the form of a community rehabilitation programme.
Evidence from the Ongwen trial showed that female civilians captured by the LRA were turned into sex slaves and wives of fighters. The Lord’s Resistance Army trains children to become soldiers. Men, women and children were killed in attacks on internally displaced persons camps.
“The Chamber concluded that direct victims of attacks, direct victims of sexual and gender-based crimes and children born of these crimes, as well as former child soldiers, suffered serious and lasting physical, moral and material harm,” Shi Mitt said.
The Lord’s Resistance Army began launching attacks in Uganda in the 1980s, when Joseph Kony, one of the court’s most wanted men, tried to overthrow the government. After being driven out of Uganda, the militia terrorized villages in Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.
Ongwen was one of those kidnapped by militias led by Kony. He was converted into a child soldier when he was a 9-year-old boy and later became a senior commander responsible for attacks on camps for displaced civilians in northern Uganda in the early 2000s.
Defense lawyers described him as a victim of LRA atrocities. But the judge presiding over the trial described Ongwen as “a fully responsible adult” at the time of his crimes.
Activists welcomed his conviction for crimes against women including rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery.
Kony’s whereabouts are unknown and he faces 36 charges, including murder, torture, rape, persecution and slavery. Prosecutors are seeking a hearing on the evidence against him in court without Kony’s absence.
The Lord’s Resistance Army leader thrust into the global spotlight in 2012 when a video of his crimes went viral. Despite the attention and international efforts to capture him, he remains at large.
The ICC cases against three other Lord’s Resistance Army leaders were dropped after it was confirmed they had died before their arrest.
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