Uganda court convicts LRA rebel commander of war crimes

A former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels was sentenced to 40 years in prison by a Ugandan court on Friday for the group’s heinous crimes committed during its 1980s insurgency.

Thomas Kwoyelo, a child soldier turned rebel commander, is serving a prison sentence for the most serious crimes he committed, including many counts of murder, rape, pillage, and enslavement.

Kwoyelo was found guilty on 44 of the 78 counts against him for crimes committed during the insurgency from 1992 to 2005 in August.

The sentence was delivered by a panel of the High Court that sat in Gulu, the northern city where the LRA once was active.

He can appeal the sentence.

Kwoyelo, whose trial began in 2019, had been detained since 2009 while Ugandan officials struggled to figure out how to administer justice in a fair and honest manner.
Human Rights Watch called his trial “a rare opportunity for justice for victims of the two-decade war between” Ugandan military and the LRA.

Prosecutors alleged Kwoyelo had the LRA’s military rank of colonel and directed deadly attacks on civilians, many of whom had been displaced by the war.

The LRA’s overall leader, Joseph Kony, is believed to be hiding in a vast area of ungoverned bush in central Africa. The U.S. has offered $5 million as a reward for information leading to the capture of Kony, who is also wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Dominic Ongwen, one of Kony’s lieutenants, was sentenced to 25 years in jail by the International Criminal Court in 2021 for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Thousands of other rebel warriors have gotten amnesty from the Ugandan government over the years, but Kwoyelo, who was caught in nearby Congo, has not. Ugandan officials never explained why.

Kwoyelo, who rejected the charges, claimed that only Kony could be held accountable for LRA crimes and that disrespecting the warlord would result in death for all LRA members.

The LRA, which began in Uganda as an anti-government rebellion — and later expanded its operations to neighbouring Congo as well as Central African Republic — was accused of recruiting boys to fight and keeping girls as sex slaves.

The LRA was accused of committing multiple massacres targeting mostly members of the Acholi ethnic group.