Uganda is ready to ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to abandon its investigation in the war-ravaged north of the country if rebels there show a credible commitment to peace, a minister said on Monday.
The announcement by Information Minister Nsaba Buturo came a day after President Yoweri Museveni declared a week-long halt to military operations against Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in a limited area of the north, to give room for unprecedented peace talks.
”If [LRA leader Joseph] Kony is ready to stop doing what he has been doing over time — terrorising people in the north of the country — we are ready to approach the ICC and tell them that we are not ready to proceed with the case we filed against him,” said Buturo, who is also the government spokesperson.
”Ultimately, the big prize for us is to see peace return to northern Uganda. We are prepared to do anything to achieve just that,” he added.
Also on Monday, Uganda’s government-owned New Vision newspaper quoted Museveni making the same pledge.
The LRA ”can come out and engage in internal reconciliation mechanisms put in place by the Acholi community [the largest ethnic group in northern Uganda] … The state could then withdraw its case and we could inform the ICC that we have a solution to the Kony problem. That is what the ICC wants. No cover-up, no impunity,” Museveni said.
On Uganda’s instigation, the ICC launched an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Uganda in July.
The probe is not restricted to the activities of the LRA, which began fighting Museveni’s government in 1988, but also covers Ugandan regular forces.
The conflict has devastated northern Uganda, 90% of whose inhabitants, about 1,6-million people, now live in squalid camps.
The LRA has gained infamy for its abduction of tens of thousands of children whom it forces into combat or sexual slavery.
Ultimately, it will be up to the ICC, which sits in The Hague, to decide whether to proceed with the Uganda case, one of only two ongoing, the other being in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Museveni also told New Vision that ”if the LRA leadership renounced war this week, we will give them a place on the border where they can assemble with international observers or whoever they prefer”.
”Our government negotiating team will go and talk to them about the future, and about how to come out,” he said.
The president added that a successful ceasefire could lead to the return home of many of the north’s civilians.
”We can time it with the planting season. People could start returning in February so they can plant in March,” he said. — Sapa-AFP