Women Group Accuses UPDF of War Crimes

November 24, 2004 - (New Vision - Kampala) An international women's group has accused the UPDF and Karimojong warriors of committing crimes in the war-ravaged north.

The Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice (WIGJ), which has been monitoring the International Criminal Court (ICC) activities in northern Uganda, said testimonies had shown that it was not only the Lord's resistance army (LRA) rebels committing crimes in the area.

WIGJ, which has just concluded an eight-day assessment of the northern crisis, told Mps and journalists yesterday that there was a wide range of crimes committed during the 18-year-long LRA insurgency, which continue to be committed particularly against women, girls and children.

"It is clear that while the LRA commits most of the violations and crimes, the team also heard testimonies of similar violations by the UPDF as well as the Karimojong raiders," WIGJ executive director Brigid Inder said.

"Crimes are abductions, killings, mutilations, rape, torture, sexual slavery, enslavement and other forms of sexual violence. The conflict has forced over a million people to live in internally displaced people's camps," she said

Inder said they met local, cultural, religious and district leaders in the north to get their analysis of the conflict and their assessment of the impact and consequences of the conflict.

She said the northern people had little awareness of the government's referral of the war crimes to the ICC, and viewed its investigation as potentially hampering peace-talks.

WIGJ chairperson Vahida Nainar said, "Most of the women, victims and survivors we spoke to identified the government's failure to protect them as a cause for their sufferings."

She said the government and the ICC did not consult people of northern Uganda, creating arguments about the period from which ICC would begin investigations.

Vahida asked the government to compensate the war victims.

"Identify and punish the offenders in the army who have committed crimes and violations of human rights in northern Uganda," Vahida said.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200411240589.html