A Ugandan court mandates that the government compensate victims of LRA war crimes

Thomas Kwoyelo, the first senior member of the rebel organization to be found guilty by Uganda’s judiciary, was the commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army. A Ugandan court has ordered the government to pay up to 10 million Ugandan shillings ($2,740) to each victim.

Mid-level LRA leader Kwoyelo was found guilty in October of war crimes such as murder, rape, enslavement, torture, and kidnapping and was given a 40-year prison sentence.

According to the court’s decision, Kwoyelo’s “indigent” status prevented him from providing any compensation to the victims, so the government was ordered to cover the expenses.

According to the verdict, Kwoyelo’s atrocities were so widespread that they constituted “a manifestation of failure on the part of the government that triggers a responsibility on the state to pay reparations to the victims,”

The victims of other harms inflicted by Kwoyelo, such as theft and property destruction, were also granted further monetary compensation in various sums by the court.

The LRA, which was founded in the late 1980s with the intention of toppling the government, fought the military from bases in northern Uganda for almost 20 years, brutalizing Ugandans under Joseph Kony’s command.

Rapes, kidnappings, the chopping off of victims’ mouths and limbs, and the use of crude tools to beat individuals to death were among the insurgents’ crimes.

The LRA withdrew to the lawless jungles of South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic around 2005 or so due to military pressure, where it continued to conduct acts of violence against civilians.

Attacks are now rare, but it is thought that Kony and splintered elements of the gang still reside in such locations.

Kwoyelo was taken by the Ugandan military in 2009 in the northeastern Congo, and his case made its way through Ugandan courts until he was found guilty in August.

($1 equals 3,645,0000 shillings in Uganda)