Thomas Kwoyelo | |
---|---|
Born | 1974 |
Allegiance | ![]() Lord's Resistance Army |
Years of service | 1987 – 2009 |
Rank | Commander and Colonel |
Known for | Allegations of war crimes, rape and murder |
Battles/wars | Lord's Resistance Army insurgency |
Thomas Kwoyelo is a former Commander and Colonel of the Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda. [1] Starting from 1996, there were 12 counts and 52 criminal charges laid on Kwoyelo. He was accused of rape and murder. [2]
In 2009 Kwoyelo was captured while in a shootout against the Ugandan Armed Forces, he was shot twice and injured. After recovering he was held in captivity for three months before being charged with war crimes, [3] at which point he was transferred to a standard security prison in Uganda. In 2011 he appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to more than 90 charges of war crimes, including murder and hostage-taking. [3] Due to the scale of the case against him, [4] Kwoyelo's trial did not begin for over a decade, and he spent fourteen years in pre-trial detention. On 19 January 2024, Kwoyelo's trial finally began. He was the first LRA commander to be put on trial by Uganda (Dominic Ongwen had previously been tried by the International Criminal Court). [4] His case was in the past put on hold or postponed. His case is currently ongoing. [5] [6] On August 13, 2024, a Ugandan court found Thomas Kwoyelo guilty of forty-four counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. [7]
The Lord's Resistance Army insurgency is a conflict involving the Lord's Resistance Army against the government of Uganda. Following the Ugandan Civil War, militant Joseph Kony formed the Lord's Resistance Army and launched an insurgency against the newly installed President Yoweri Museveni. The stated goal was to establish a Christian state based on the Ten Commandments. Currently, there is low-level LRA activity in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. Kony proclaims himself the 'spokesperson' of God and a spirit medium.
Joseph Rao Kony is a Ugandan militant and warlord who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union, and various other governments including the United Kingdom and United States of America.
The International Criminal Court has opened investigations in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Darfur in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Uganda, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Palestine, the Philippines, and Venezuela. Additionally, the Office of the Prosecutor conducted preliminary examinations in situations in Bolivia, Colombia, Guinea, Iraq / the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Georgia, Honduras, South Korea, Ukraine and Venezuela. Preliminary investigations were closed in Gabon; Honduras; registered vessels of Comoros, Greece, and Cambodia; South Korea; and Colombia on events since 1 July 2002.
The period from 2000 to 2006 of the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency in northern Uganda begins with the assault of the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) upon LRA strongholds in South Sudan. This in turn led to a series of retaliatory attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army of an intensity not seen to since the mid-1990s. International awareness of the conflict gradually grew and in September 2005, the International Criminal Court issues warrants for the arrest of senior LRA commanders, including Joseph Kony.
Vincent Otti was a Ugandan militant who served as deputy-leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel guerrilla army operating mainly in northern Uganda and southern Sudan. He was one of the five persons for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its first arrest warrants on 8 July 2005 in its investigation in Uganda. Rumours of his death began to circulate in October 2007 and strengthened in January 2008. On 17 November 2023, the ICC terminated proceedings against him.
Raska Lukwiya was the third highest-ranking leader of the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group founded in northern Uganda. Believed to be a native of Uganda's northern Gulu District, Lukwiya served successively as Brigade General, Deputy Army Commander and Army Commander of the LRA, the last being the highest LRA rank after those held by Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti.
Okot Odhiambo was a senior leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan militant group which operates from Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Odhiambo was one of five people for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its first ever arrest warrants in 2005, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2009, he announced his intention to defect from the LRA and return to Uganda if the government would agree not to surrender him to the ICC.
Dominic Ongwen is a Ugandan former child soldier and former commander of one of the brigades of the Ugandan guerrilla group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
Germain Katanga, also known as Simba, is a former leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI), an armed group in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On 17 October 2007, the Congolese authorities surrendered him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stand trial on six counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity. The charges include murder, sexual slavery, rape, destruction of property, pillaging, willful killing, and directing crimes against civilians.
Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui is a colonel in the Congolese army and a former senior commander of the National Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI).
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is a Christian extremist organization operating in Central Africa and East Africa. Its origins were in the Ugandan insurgency (1986–1994) against President Yoweri Museveni during which Joseph Rao Kony founded the LRA in 1987.
Bahr Idriss Abu Garda is the leader of the United Resistance Front, a rebel group fighting against the Sudanese government in Darfur. He is a former commander of the Justice and Equality Movement.
The Makombo massacre took place from 14 to 17 December 2009 in the Haut-Uele District of Democratic Republic of the Congo in the village and region of Makombo. Human Rights Watch (HRW) believes the attacks, which killed 321 people, were perpetrated by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which denied responsibility.
The International Criminal Court investigation in Uganda or the situation in Uganda is an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency which has been taking place in northern Uganda and neighbouring regions since 1987. The Lord's Resistance Army is a Christian-based group led by Joseph Kony that is accused of numerous human rights violations and war crimes including massacres, the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers, sexual enslavement, torture, and pillaging. After the government of Uganda referred the matter to the ICC in December 2003, warrants of arrest were issued in 2005 for Joseph Kony, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen, and Vincent Otti, who became the first people to be indicted by the Court.
The International Criminal Court investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the Second Congo War and its aftermath, including the Ituri and Kivu conflicts. The war started in 1998 and despite a peace agreement between combatants in 2003, conflict continued in the eastern parts of the country for several years. In April 2004 the government of the DRC formally referred the situation in the Congo to the International Criminal Court, and in June 2004, prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, formally opened an investigation. To date, arrest warrants have been issued for:
The following lists events that happened during 2005 in Uganda.
The Regional Cooperation Initiative for the elimination of the LRA (RCI-LRA) with its military arm, the African Union Regional Task Force was a multi-national operation to counter the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). On 22 November 2011 the AU Peace and Security Council authorized the RCI-LRA with the mandate to "strengthen the operational capabilities of the countries affected by the atrocities of the LRA, create an environment conducive to the stabilization of the affected areas, free of LRA atrocities, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to affected areas." The United Nations provided logistical support, the European Union and African Union contributed additional funding, and the United States provided non-combat military and strategic support.
Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza is a Peruvian jurist and judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands. Ibañez Carranza is the first Peruvian judge at the ICC. Before being elected as a judge at the ICC, she was a prosecutor and professor in Peru.