“Ongwen was a very simple person and he cared and loved us” the witness told court

On November 5^th, a former abductee of the LRA from Aruti, Patiko Sub-County, Gulu district was examined by the defence team of Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court. 

The witness was asked questions about his abduction into the LRA, then about his experience as soldier, and finally about his escape and return home.

He narrated a story of the time when he was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army together with other people, women and men. “The women” he said, “were very young, I can firmly say that a lot of them weren’t even adults at the time.” When asked if he tried to run away from the soldiers who were abducting him, he said that he had just one chance when the soldiers were distracted, but unfortunately it was the period of the year when the grass is really tall, so he couldn’t run too fast. The soldiers managed to catch him, and they punished him severely.

After one month in captivity, the army moved them from Kilak to Sudan. There he attended a training to become a soldier and join the army. The Defence lawyer inquired who was the commander of the battalion he was fighting for, after becoming a soldier. The witness mentioned the name of the commander was Okelo Triga.

The witness said that the higher rank of the LRA was the one of Joseph Kony, and that, although there were many commanders and Brigades Masters (BM), nobody else besides Kony could take decisions or defy Kony’s orders. Those who defied his commands were heavily hit and killed. The defence asked if they were the only kind of punishments. The witness explained: “One time we were based in a place that had some sort of prison, and it was used for the disobedient. However, after that base was shut down and the LRA moved somewhere else, they started killing them, it was easier that way.” Even Senior commanders, that were a very high ranking in the LRA, were killed as anybody else in the army if defying a command coming from Kony.

Showing to the Court a picture of the witness hurt and bleeding, the defence counsel, asked the witness about the battle in which he was shot and badly injured. The witness explained that it was an attack organized to be executed at dawn, so that they moved in the dark of the night following the indications of the intelligence of the LRA, who went previously to discover the place. Because of the darkness the attack wasn’t very well executed and a lot of them got injured or killed. The witness said he was brought back to the LRA barracks by a colleague of his and then taken to a hospital in Juba in an LRA vehicle. He stayed there to heal for two months. When asked about the vehicle, he explained with some uncertainty that it could have been provided by the Sudanese government.

The following issue examined by the Defence Counsel regarded some predictions made by Joseph Kony.  The witness explained that it happened two times that Kony could predict what was going to happen. The first time was around 2002-2003: he predicted a joint attack from the Sudanese and Ugandan army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Arab army. As a reaction he prepared the soldiers for a battle and attacked first.

He was successively asked about the role of women in the LRA and he explained that when they were brought in the bush they were assigned to the senior and junior commanders. The Junior commanders couldn’t refuse to marry the one they were assigned, the senior commanders (one ranking higher than the juniors) could refuse just one time. Sometimes they didn’t even know that they were going to be assigned a wife, but they had to accept anyway.

The witness said he met Dominic Ongwen and spent some time with him, but at the time he wasn’t a commander, he was just a Brigades Master. When asked about his character he said: “Based on my interaction with him, I can tell he loved jokes, he was a funny and careful person. He often could find time to sit with the juniors to interact with them, play cards together… that was his character. Quite childish, making fun and jokes. He was a very simple person and he cared and loved us.”  the witness said

Asked to describe to court the character of Joseph Kony, he said: “it is difficult to describe his character because he had his own life, it was difficult to really know his real character”.

The Defence counsel asked if the witness could recall something related to the time of the peace talks. He explained that he does, but that it was very complicated for him and his colleague to understand what was going on. At the time he was in Apu battalion group, affiliated to Kony’s base, it was one of his security battalions. He joined this battalion around 2008-2009, he said. During the peace talks he was hearing from his colleagues that Kony was taking a lot of time before signing an agreement. He said “the same Kony was telling us why he was hesitating to sign. He said that if the warrants of arrest were still valid, he wouldn’t have signed. He said with these words “if you see a noose you don’t put your head in it”.

The witness explained that the general feelings of the soldiers were happiness and optimism because they thought they could go back home. Instead they were sent to fight more battles. The Defence asked if at the time he had heard about amnesty.  The witness said that all the soldiers did, but that it wasn’t easy to go back home because there were many consequences.  “We could hear testimonies of former commanders on the radio, but we couldn’t understand how they managed to return.” he added.