Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un3lrasc032708.ht
UNITED NATIONS, March 27 -- With the planned signing day of a peace treaty between Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army put back to April 5, on Thursday France's Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert told Inner City Press that the Security Council could suspend for months or a year the International Criminal Court's indictments of the LRA leaders including Joseph Kony "if the government pursues its own tribunal or... traditional pursuits." Video here
Ambassador Ripert's language tracks the agreement, still not finalized, between Uganda's Museveni government and the LRA, providing for "a special division of the High Court of Uganda, to try individuals who are alleged to have committed serious crimes during the conflict." And so, is the fix in, that Museveni has committed to ask for, and the Security Council has somehow committed to give, a year suspension of the ICC indictments? "I'm not saying we'd support it," France's Amb. Ripert added.
Inner City Press asked Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, president of the Council for this month, about Wednesday's closed-door briefing of the Council about Uganda. Was there a discussion of the Lord's Resistance Army? Video here, from Minute 7:41
"The members of the Council only took in the information," Amb. Churkin responded. But what information? Watch this site.And see, www.innercitypress.com/un3lrasc032708.html
