By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Ugandan government is to pay the sum of 10 million Ugandan shillings ($2,740) to each victim of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a court in the East African country has ordered.
Commander Thomas Kwoyelo is the first senior member of the rebel group to be convicted by Uganda’s judiciary, Reuters said in a report.
A mid-level commander in the LRA, Kwoyelo was in October sentenced to 40 years in prison for war crimes, including murder, rape, enslavement, torture, and kidnapping.
According to the court ruling, the rebel leader was found unable to pay any compensation to the victims due to his “indigent” status, leaving the court with no option but to transfer the cost to the government.
The ruling stated that the scale of Kwoyelo’s atrocities amounted to “a manifestation of failure on the part of the government, which has attracted a responsibility on the state to pay reparations to the victims.”
The court also awarded additional cash compensation of varying amounts to the victims of other harm caused by Kwoyelo, including property destruction and theft.
Founded in the late 1980s with the aim of overthrowing the government, the LRA brutalized Ugandans under the leadership of Joseph Kony for nearly 20 years as it battled the military from bases in northern Uganda.
The insurgent group was accused of carrying out rapes, abductions, hacking off victims’ limbs and lips, and using crude instruments to bludgeon people to death.
Following a military onslaught in 2005, the LRA fled to South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic, where it also committed violence against civilians.
The Ugandan military captured Kwoyelo in 2009 in northeastern Congo, and his case lingered through the country’s judicial system until his conviction in August.
