Today the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Judge Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi, began a visit to Uganada to meet victims of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
The Hague-based court is currently trying a former LRA commander, Dominic Ongwen.
And it still has a warrant out for the arrest of the infamous LRA leader Joseph Kony.
The group tends to operate in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic (CAR) after being driven out of northern Uganda several years ago.
But what is it like being under Kony’s command?
One of his bodyguards, Peter Kidega, who recently surrendered to US and Ugandan forces in the CAR, told me about how he was forcibly recruited into the LRA and about the rebels’ current operations:
The only thing the Lord’s Resistance Army does is get commodities from civilians’ homes. They look for diamonds, gold, money and mercury from people here, in the Central African Republic. In the Congo they send people to hunt for elephant tusks – but nowadays Joseph Kony lives in Darfur and works with people there.”
The bodyguard spoke of the likelihood of the LRA leader surrendering:
Joseph Kony will not see reason when it comes to this because he says he’s going to die in the bush until the Ugandan government changes. But who is supposed to take over the government if he himself says he’s a rebel of the Ugandan people, he’s going to fight for the development of Uganda, and yet he stays out of the country? What can he do where he is?”
He also spoke about Mr Ongwen’s ICC case:
He should be forgiven because he was captured. But I don’t think he will be, because of the role he played and because his conduct. Because he was a commander-in-chief there, he was giving orders to his troops. He took orders from his boss Joseph Kony and carried them out.”
Mr Kidega lived with the LRA leader between 2014 and 2016:
I went to Joseph in 2014, at the time he said he loved me. In 2014 he loved me and was very nice to me. But in 2015, he changed his character. I handed myself in because Joseph Kony wanted to kill me for talking to his wife.
He didn’t want anyone to love his wife. Even if you just wanted to be friends with her, they would say you are a bad person.”
The bodyguard said he had been in the group for 14 years before surrendering:
Joseph kept on saying that we were going to fight to bring down the Ugandan government. That we would fight and then lead Uganda. And I kept on waiting for this to happen, I waited until this year. But all Joseph wants is to stay alive.”
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