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The case of Dominic Ongwen, a former child soldier and commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has been brought to trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) after a pre-trial chamber confirmed 70 charges against him. Ongwen is the first leader of the LRA to be held in custody at the court. The judges decided that there were "substantial grounds" to believe that Ongwen was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture, sexual slavery, rape, enslavement, forced marriage, persecution, and other inhumane acts. The LRA has killed, maimed, and abducted thousands of civilians, many of them children, in remote regions of northern Uganda, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic for more than two decades.
Ongwen was himself abducted into LRA ranks at a very young age (possibly at age 10) when he was on his way to school. Ongwen is believed to be the only former child soldier to face charges before the ICC. But the court refused arguments made by Ongwen’s defence team that “circumstances exist that exclude his individual criminal responsibility for the crimes that he may otherwise have committed”. The defence believes that Ongwen was under duress and that as a former child soldier, he should benefit from the “international legal protection as child soldier up to the moment of his leaving of the LRA in January 2015, almost 30 years after his abduction, and that such protection should include, as a matter of law, an exclusion of individual criminal responsibility for the crimes under the Statute that he may have committed”.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted Radovan Karadžić, former Bosnian Serb leader, of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war committed by Serb forces during the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 until 1995. He was sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment.
Karadžić was convicted of genocide in the area of Srebrenica in 1995, of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts (forcible transfer) - the list goes on - terror, unlawful attacks on civilians and hostage-taking. The single worst atrocity of the conflict occurred in the summer of 1995 when the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, a UN-declared safe area, came under attack by forces led by the Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladić. During a few days in early July, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed by Serb forces in an act of genocide.
In a ruling issued last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) found former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba guilty on five charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the rape of men, women and children, murder and pillage, committed in 2002-2003 in neighbouring Central African Republic. More than 5,000 victims were granted the right to participate in the proceedings. The case was the first before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a war crime, as well as on a senior military official whose forces carried out the atrocities – even if he had not directly ordered them to do so. “The judgment of the Court reaffirms that impunity will not be tolerated and sends a strong signal that commanders will be held responsible for international crimes committed by those under their authority,” the UN Secretary-General said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the UN published a report on the human rights situation in South Sudan describing a multitude of horrendous rights violations, in particular by government forces, including cases of civilians burned alive or cut to pieces and of a 15-year-old girl being raped by ten soldiers. Although all parties to the conflict have committed patterns of serious and systematic violence against civilians since fighting broke out in December 2013, the report says state actors bore the greatest responsibility during 2015, given the weakening of opposition forces. In five months last year, from April to September, the UN recorded more than 1,300 reports of rape in just one of South Sudan's ten states - oil-rich Unity. The report concludes there are reasonable grounds to believe the violations may amount to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. Later in March, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution establishing a Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan with the mandate to monitor and report on the human rights situation in the country.
The UN Secretary-General published a new report on the situation of children in armed conflict in Central African Republic (CAR). The report describes widespread violations and dreadful acts of violence against children committed between January 2011 and December 2015. The UN documented the killing of 333 children, many of them targeted because of their religious affiliation. Over 500 cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence were documented by the UN since 2011, including cases of rape and sexual violence against children committed by international forces and UN peacekeepers.
Earlier this month, the UN Security Council passed a resolution to prevent and combat sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers, including “the repatriation of a particular military unit or formed police unit of a contingent when there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse by that unit.”
Read CRIN’s coverage of the recent revelations of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in CAR.
Earlier this week, Sudan signed a UN action plan to prevent the recruitment and use of children by national security forces. The action plan sets out a series of measures to enhance the overall protection of children affected by armed conflict, including the cessation and prevention of child recruitment, and the release of children from national security forces. The Sudanese Government also committed to appoint a high-level focal point to coordinate the implementation of the plan and to collaborate with the UN in monitoring progress.
The parties to the conflict in Yemen have agreed on a ceasefire that will take effect on 10 April. During the past year of fighting, thousands of civilians have been killed and injured due to the bombing or shelling of schools, hospitals and markets. According to a new report published by UNICEF, children as young 10 are recruited to fight by all parties, with 848 verified cases over the past year. During the same period, more than 900 children were killed.
A new report published by UNICEF looks at the impact on children of five years of war in Syria. More than 10,000 children were killed between 2011 and 2013 and no verified data available on the total number of children killed since 2013. There are 2.4 million Syrian refugee children in the world today. More than 16,600 unaccompanied and separated children have crossed Syria's borders and more than 151,000 were born as refugees. Children as young as seven have been recruited to fight. They report being actively encouraged to join the war by parties to the conflict offering gifts and ‘salaries’ of up to US$ 400 a month.
The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, released 46 children from its armed forces in March. More than 740 children have been released since the country signed a UN joint action plan in 2012. The children and young people discharged will have access to support programmes to facilitate their recovery and reintegration into their families and communities. Myanmar was also criticised by UN officials for the continuing recruitment of children by non-state militant groups.
Some 9,000 children have been recruited during the conflictin Colombia by paramilitary forces, according to figures from the Unified Victims Records Office (Registro Unificado de Víctimas). The Office noted that children from deprived areas were specifically targeted; around nine percent were of indigenous origin, and seven percent were of African descent. More than 32,000 people were recorded to have been internally displaced to keep children from being recruited.
Violence in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has intensified since October 2015, killing 41 Palestinian children - including one at the hands of Israeli forces. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported more than 2,177 injured Palestinian children from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinian attackers have killed at least 28 Israelis during the same period.
Defence for Children International (DCI) reports that in response to the escalating violence, Israeli forces appear to be implementing a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy, which in some cases may amount to extrajudicial killings. Last week, a senior UN official condemned an arson attack by suspected Jewish extremists on the home of a Palestinian family in the West Bank village of Duma. The attack resulted in the death of 18-month-old Ali and his parents, and injuries to his five-year-old brother Ahmad.
In Guatemala, former dictator Ríos Montt (1982-1983) is on trial for crimes committed during his time in office. Ríos Montt and his former head of intelligence are being tried for the murder of 1,771 members of the Ixil Maya people. According to experts, during the search for mass graves in the area of Nebaj, in Quiché, in the north-west of the country, more than 27 percent of the bodies found were those of children. Ríos Montt was declared unfit and therefore, if found guilty, sentences will be restricted to corrective measures and not prison time.
Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict: Research Officer
Application deadline: 31 March 2016
Location: New York City, United States
Afghanistan Mother and Child: Trustees
Application deadline: N/A
Location: London, United Kingdom
Closing
Welcoming the guilty verdict by the International Criminal Tribunal against the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, stressed that the trial should give pause to leaders in Europe and elsewhere who seek to exploit nationalist sentiments and scapegoat minorities for broader social ills. “Speech that incites hatred, discrimination and violence is an inflammable force,” he said. “In the countries of the former Yugoslavia, we saw the terrible bloodshed that can result.”
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