US Sends Troops to Assist Removing LRA

By Carolyn Abdenour
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KAMPALA, Uganda – On Friday, 14 October, President Obama reported that he sent 100 U.S. troops to Uganda to hunt the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (“LRA”).  President Obama said this notoriously violent group “has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa.”  The LRA has also forced boys to fight and used girls as sex slaves.

LRA leader Joseph Kony is wanted by the ICC. (Photo Courtesy of BBC)

The troops act as advisers to support the regional forces striving to remove head of LRA, Joseph Kony, and his advisers from the battlefield.  President Obama deployed these troops to further U.S. national security interests and foreign policy along with countering LRA efforts in central Africa.

LRA has killed over 2,400 and abducted more than 3,400 people since 2008.  LRA activity has displaced over 380,000 people in the region.  Formed in the 1980s, LRA engaged in a twenty-year war in northern Uganda and its neighboring countries.

Although the U.S. has provided over $40 million along with logistical support, non-lethal equipment, and training and intelligences assistance to support regional efforts to remove the LRA since 2008, the effort has been unsuccessful.

On Wednesday, President Obama deployed the forces to “provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nations.”  The combat-equipped troops will only engage LRA forces as a self-defense necessity.  With each country’s approval, the troops, primarily comprised of Special Operations Forces, will deploy to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

President Obama did not comment on the deployment duration, but a U.S. military spokesperson said, “Forces are prepared to stay as long as necessary to enable regional security forces to carry on independently”.

The International Criminal Court (“ICC”) issued arrest warrants for Kony and four close aides in 2005 for crimes against humanity and war crimes.  In 2008, Kony refused to sign a peace deal with the Ugandan government because the agreement would not guarantee withdrawal of the ICC arrest warrants.

Uganda’s acting foreign minister Henry Okello Oryem reported he welcomed the U.S. troops now, but the region has begged the Americans and Europeans to help fight these international terrorists for twenty years.

The 34 LRA-affected groups in northern Congo, Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan communicated their appreciation to President Obama’s commitment to address this problem in December through a letter.

Their letter stated, “Each day that goes by without a solution to the problem of the LRA is another day of terror and pain for those of us living under constant threat of renewed attacks . . . .  During these attacks, our family members were killed in unimaginably savage ways: their heads crushed with clubs or machetes; their faces disfigured; and their genitals, mouths, ears, legs and arms cut off, for no reason other than to terrorize.”

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Uganda: US Help Against Rebels Overdue – 15 Oct 2011

Xinhua – Obama Sends US Military to Help Fight Lord’s Resistance Army – 15 Oct 2011

BBC – US to Send Troops to Uganda to Help Fight LRA Rebels – 14 Oct 2011

CNN – Obama Orders U.S. Troops to help chase down African ‘Army’ Leader – 14 Oct 2011

 

Paraguayan People’s Army Targeting Citizens, Police, Journalists

by Emilee Gaebler
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay – Army troops were dispatched to Concepción this past Monday October 10.  The troops have been sent to the city to combat the growing problem of the Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (Paraguayan People Army or EPP).

A member of the EPP. (Photo Courtesy of Americas Forum)

The Paraguayan congress passed a bill one week ago that created a state of exception.  This bill allowed for the army to dispatch to the troops to the north, where the self-declared socialist group has been most active.  The state of exception established only lasts for a period of 60 days.  It allows for the police to detain any who they believe to be “suspects” for questioning without having to secure a warrant first.  The bill was contested by President Fernando Lugo, he delayed signing it once it passed Congress by a number of days, despite its widespread support.

President Lugo has a religious background; he is a former Roman Catholic Bishop.  He is openly left-leaning and his opposition to the state of exception bill rests on the notion that this is a police action that should not be undertaken by the federal government.

It is believed that the EPP comes from a Catholic background as well.  Guerilla EPP members, captured by local police, have been found to be closely tied to the Catholic Church.  Critics of Lugo note this connection, attributing Lugo’s hesitance to sign the bill as support for the EPP.

It is unclear where the group’s origins lay.  Some sources point to the group beginning in 1992 when three priests were expelled from the Catholic seminary for their liberal and radical ideals.  They started a socialist movement, the Movimiento Monseñor Romero, which has evolved into the EPP.  News agencies claim that the movement began with the kidnapping and murder of Cecilia Cubas in 2005.  The group themselves claim to be made up of peasant communities.

The group has increased its activities in the last couple months.  They have kidnapped a number of wealthy farmers in the Northern provinces, demanding ransom for their safe return.  They have also been attacking local police stations in the area to obtain more weapons

Most worrisome however is Alcides Oviedo Brítez’s, the EPP leader, announcement from jail that news journalists will be attacked as valid military targets if they act as “informants” to the government.  During a tape-recorded interview two weeks ago, Brítez’s point of view was that the press was “terrorizing the citizenry” and that the true violence came from the nation’s police forces who were not the “poor little angels” as portrayed by the press.  He noted that the killings of police, journalists and civilians would continue as this was a war.

 

For more information, please see;

Americas Forum – Paraguay Sends Troops to Fight Growing Threat From Left-Wing Terrorist Group EPP – 12 October 2011

MercoPress – Paraguay Sends the Army to the North of the Country to Combat Guerilla Groups – 11 October 2011

Center for International Media Assistance – Guerilla Army in Paraguay Calls Journalists “Military Targets” – 27 September 2011

Council on Hemispheric Affairs – The Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP)-A New Insurgent Group with an Old Time Political Ideology? – 22 July 2011

ICC Takes Steps Forward and Backward in the Span of One Week

By Tamara Alfred
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The International Criminal Court (ICC) took a major step forward as Cape Verde became the latest Member State to accede to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC which prosecutes individuals for genocide, crimes again humanity and war crimes.

The Statute will take effect for Cape Verde on 1 January 2012, bringing the total number of states party to the ICC to 119.

International Criminal Court President Judge Sang-Hyun Song. (Photo Courtesy of the UN.)

The ICC President, Judge Sang-Hyun Song, welcomed Cape Verde into the tribunal system, saying: “As the first Lusophone country in Africa to ratify the Rome Statute, Cape Verde has not only demonstrated its commitment to international criminal justice but also taken us one step further towards a truly universal system of the Rome Statute, representative of all peoples, cultures and legal systems of the world.”

And yet, the ICC suffered a blow when Malawi rejected calls to arrest visiting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes in Darfur.

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika ignored the outcry at his hosting of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir as he opened a regional trade summit Friday.

Bashir is the first sitting president indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued a warrant in 2008 for his arrest on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Bashir was among six heads of state at the meeting of the 19-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), despite calls from the European Union and international rights groups for Malawi to arrest him.

The trade talks, however, have been overshadowed by the uproar over Bashir’s visit.

Malawi is a signatory to the ICC, but senior officials told the media that Bashir would not be arrested.  Malawi’s Information Minister Patricia Kaliati told the BBC it was not her government’s “business” to arrest Bashir.

President Mutharika made no mention of Bashir as he opened the summit.  Recently, Mutharika has become a staunch critic of the ICC, according to the BBC’s Joel Nkhoma.  Mutharika accuses the court of unfairly targeting African leaders and believes that Africa should set up its own court to try alleged war criminals.  Several other African countries have also refused to arrest Bashir and the African Union has urged the UN to suspend the arrest warrant.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Malawi to arrest Bashir, noting the country’s “obligations under international law to comply with the International Criminal Court.”

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Omar al-Bashir arrest request rejected by Malawi – 14 October 2011

AFP – Malawi ignores outcry at Bashir visit for trade summit – 13 October 2011

UN News Centre – Cape Verde ratifies treaty setting up International Criminal Court – 13 October 2011

Lithuania Diverts Blame and Will Continue to Violate Human Rights

By Alexandra Halsey-Storch
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

GENEVA, Switzerland – On October 11, the United Nation’s Council on Human Rights in Geneva reviewed and discussed the serious human rights problems that continue to pervade Lithuanian society, namely a “discriminatory policy with regard to ethnic and language minorities, manifestations of racism and anti-Semitism, a grave situation in the penitentiary system, human trade, the violation of the rights of children, women and handicapped, and others.

Protesters in Lithuania protesting LGBT inequality. (Photo Curtesy of gaelick.com)

UN member states made a variety of suggestions to Lithuanian officials to improve the dire human rights conditions. Russia identified the particular “need to eradicate manifestations of racism, and neo-Nazism, to put an end to attempts to revise the outcome of World War II, to make heroes of fascist henchman and persecute veteran anti-fascists. It is correcting these violations that the Lithuanian authorities must, at least, deal with.”

In response, the head of the Lithuanian delegation at the United Nations, Justice Remigijus Simasius, declared that Lithuania will not abandon a policy of persecuting people who “committed crimes against the Lithuanian people during the occupation,” also commenting that, “some Russian institutions hold an odd stance that censuring the crimes against humanity committed by Stalinism automatically vindicates Nazi crimes.”

In mid-July, Lithuanian foreign minister issued a statement recognizing Russia’s role in defeating Hitler and the Nazi regime iterating that, “we have big appreciation for the Russian nation’s historic contribution and dedication to the defeat of the dragon of Nazism together with members of the then coalition.” He went on to say that, “I believe evaluation of Stalinism is currently a difficult task in Russia because it is viewed together with the Russian nation’s historic role in World War II. I believe that Russia has intellectual potential and the capacity of separating the two phenomena. The start may be difficult but we hope that is part of a longer path.”

It appears that the heart of the disagreement between Russia and Lithuania stems from the fact that the two countries cannot agree on the role that the Stalinist regime played during World War II and the Lithuania occupation.

Nevertheless, relations between Russia and Lithuania run deep and have been tumultuous from the beginning. Once a part of Russia, Lithuania initially achieved independence in 1917 during the Bolshevik Revolution.  In 1939, however, the Soviet Military invaded and took Lithuania over as a result of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact made between Russian Dictator Josef Stalin and German Dictator Adolf Hitler.  Once occupied, an estimated 200,000 Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians were arrested, deported and imprisoned in labor camps in Siberia and the Northern Soviet Union. Lithuanians say the agreement resulted in the “”planned genocide of the people” and have pointed toward the illegal nature of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. Lithuania regained independence in 1991.

Though no mention of reform was made regarding the other human rights abuses occurring in Lithuania the head of the Lithuanian delegation asserted that Lithuania “would continue seeking due assessment of totalitarian regimes in Europe.”

For more information, please visit:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation – Comments by Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ombudsman for Human Rights – 12 October 2011

United States Department of State – Background Note: Lithuania – 11 March 2011

US Sends Troops To Assist Removing LRA

By Carolyn Abdenour
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KAMPALA, Uganda – On Friday, 14 October, President Obama reported that he sent 100 U.S. troops to Uganda to hunt the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (“LRA”). President Obama said this notoriously violent group “has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa.”  Formed in the 1980s, the LRA engaged in a twenty-year war in northern Uganda and its neighboring countries. Since 2008, the LRA has killed over 2,400 people and abducted more than 3,400, with LRA activity displacing over 380,000 people in the region. The LRA has also forced young boys to fight and used girls as sex slaves.

LRA rebel leader Joseph Kony. (Photo Courtesy of Reuters)

Although the U.S. has provided over forty million dollars, logistical support, non-lethal equipment, and training and intelligences assistance to support regional efforts to remove the LRA since 2008, the effort has been unsuccessful.

The U.S. troops are reportedly being sent to act as advisers to support the regional forces striving to remove Joseph Kony, the head of the LRA, and his advisers from the battlefield. The International Criminal Court (“ICC”) issued arrest warrants for Kony and four close aides in 2005 for crimes against humanity and war crimes.  In 2008, Kony refused to sign a peace deal with the Ugandan government because the agreement would not guarantee withdrawal of the ICC arrest warrants.

President Obama deployed the forces to “provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nations,” claiming that countering the LRA’s efforts in central Africa are in furtherance of U.S. national security interests and foreign policy objectives.  The combat-equipped troops will only engage LRA forces if it is necessary for self-defense.  With each country’s approval, the troops, primarily comprised of Special Operations Forces, will deploy to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

President Obama did not comment on the deployment duration, but US military spokesperson said, “forces are prepared to stay as long as necessary to enable regional security forces to carry on independently”.

Uganda’s acting foreign minister, Henry Okello Oryem, reportedly welcomes the U.S. troops, but also notes  that the region has pleaded with the Americans and Europeans to help fight these international terrorists for twenty years. However, in December, the thirty-four LRA-affected groups in northern Congo, Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan communicated their appreciation to President Obama for his commitment to addressing this problem.

Their December letter stated, “Each day that goes by without a solution to the problem of the LRA is another day of terror and pain for those of us living under constant threat of renewed attacks . . .. During these attacks, our family members were killed in unimaginably savage ways: their heads crushed with clubs or machetes; their faces disfigured; and their genitals, mouths, ears, legs and arms cut off, for no reason other than to terrorize.”

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Uganda: US Help Against Rebels Overdue – 15 Oct 2011

CNN – Obama Orders U.S. Troops to help chase down African ‘Army’ Leader – 15 Oct 2011

BBC – US to Send Troops to Uganda to Help Fight LRA Rebels – 14 Oct 2011

Xinhua – Obama Sends US Military to Help Fight Lord’s Resistance Army – 14 Oct 2011