By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/icclra1egg071709.html
UNITED NATIONS, July 16 -- Civilians continue to be chopped up and kidnapped and rape by the Lord's Resistance Army while a peace agreement lies unsigned, largely because its seeming promise that LRA leader Joseph Kony would be tried in Uganda and not by the International Criminal Court in The Hague cannot be substantiated. The UN's outgoing envoy to the LRA affected areas Joaquim Chissano on July 17 told Inner City Press that Kony should rest assured that the peace agreement provides for his trial in Uganda, not the Hague. But there is no way to know if the ICC judges in The Hague will accept the Ugandan's process as sufficient to drop the ICC warrant.
Inner City Press asked the President of the Assembly of State Parties of the ICC and its Rome Statute, Liechtenstein Ambassador Christian Wenaweser if the ICC could somehow pre-certify Uganda's process as complementary, and likely to replace the ICC warrants. Wenaweser replied that "It is the job of the ICC to look at the national judicial process.. I don't know how you can do that in an effective way before they are actually underway." Video here, from Minute 19:15.
This calls into question the statements of Chissano, and of Uganda's Ambassador to the UN Ruganda that Kony would face justice in Uganda, not the Hague. Actually, there is no way to know. Realistically, it is not surprising that Joseph Kony would not sign and turn himself in under these circumstances.
Why hasn't the ICC developed a procedure to pre-certify countries' procedures as complimentary, to avoid this chicken and egg standoff in which more and more civilians are killed? Some think that the leaders of the international criminal justice movement are more concerned with their own purity of concept than with the realities of more and more dead civilians. Watch this site.
Footnote: Inner City Press asked Chissano if Kony still has his cell phone number. Yes, Chissano said, before adding that he was returning a phone to the UN unless and until his mandate is re-activated. Is that the cell phone that Kony would call, Inner City Press asked. No, Chissano said, he has my other number. But he never calls it. Video here.
