LRA victims ask International Court to restrict govt from compensation programme

They said this during the ICC Kampala Field Outreach Unit engagement with stakeholders in Northern Uganda mid-week in Lira City.

Instead of government, they asked that the Court sends the compensation packages through fellow victims who suffered at Ongwen's hands.

The engagement was led by Martin Okwir of ICC Kampala Field Outreach Unit, who noted that among the concerns from the meeting, excluding government from the compensation channels was paramount.

“Whenever someone mentioned that we use the office of the RDC (Resident District Commissioner), everybody said no,” Okwir said.

However, Okwir advised them to cooperate with government if they want to enjoy long-term benefits from their reparation packages. To avoid conflict with state authorities, he asked them to involve government from the onset of compensation.

“Of course, we are explaining to them that you cannot operate in a country and isolate the government. For instance, if they say we want to build a hospital here that for the next 10 years it would be helping people who got health issues during the conflict as a reparations programme and the hospital will be funded by the trust fund for victims and then the hospital is set up. What happens after 10 years? It has to be handed over to the government. How do you do that when you have been saying you are not going to work with the government?” he said.

He also called upon government to take this opportunity to make amends with the public and restore their trust in its systems.

“You need to do better so that people are happy to hear that you are going to be part of the process,” he added.

According to ICC, about 60,000 people suffered under the actions of Ongwen and these are the ones to benefit from the programme.

“We do not know what the reparations package will look like. In our experience, the judges ask different stakeholders to make submissions to the judges on what the reparations programmes should look like,” Okwir said.

Despite complaints against government, the Pader Resident District Commissioner, Milton Odongo, said that government has be involved in any programme within the borders of the country. He refuted claims of mismanagement of the funds.

“My position is that the support to the communities affected by the LRA war should pass through the government for effective implementation and monitoring,” Odongo said in an interview yesterday.

The ICC judges are aware of the complaints, according to Okwir, but are yet to decide on the matter.