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Opposition Leader Wants ICC to Investigate Ugandaās Leader

   Peter Clottey 03 June 2010

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

   Ugandan President Yoweri Musevini, left, of the Dignity team, controls
   the  ball  under pressure from UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, front
   right,  of the team named Justice, during a football match in Kampala,
   Uganda, Sunday, May 30, 2010, played shortly before the opening of the
   International  Criminal Court (ICC) conference in Kampala. The leaders
   played soccer against each other with a team made up of victims of the
   former  rebel  group  Lord  Resistance  Army  (LRA)  who were fighting
   against  the  Uganda  government, and other volunteers in Kampala. The
   football game was organised by the organisation named No peace without
   justice.  The soccer game ended with the Musevini Dignity team winning
   1-0. (AP Photo/ Stephen Wandera)

   A Ugandan opposition leader said he is compiling more evidence for the
   chief prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC)
   to  begin  investigating  President  Yoweri  Museveni  for alleged war
   crimes.

   Olara  Otunnu,  head  of  the Uganda Peopleās Congress party, told VOA
   there  is  a  long trail of evidence of massacres, human rights abuses
   and  other  atrocities  committed  in  Uganda,  as well as neighboring
   Democratic  Republic  of  Congo, that were allegedly carried out under
   President Museveniās instructions.

   āThere  is  a  long  trail  of  bloodshed  and  massacres wherever Mr.
   Museveni  has  been.  Last  September,  in  the streets of Kampala, he
   ordered  the  shooting  of  unarmed demonstrators. More than 40 people
   were  killed and hundreds were rounded up, tortured and jailed without
   trials. To this day, thereās been no investigation or accountability,ā
   he said.

   Shortly  after meeting chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, opposition
   leader  Otunnu  told  reporters  he presented a dossier of evidence so
   that the ICC could start an investigation of President Museveni.

   But,  supporters of Mr. Museveni dismissed the accusations as a way to
   score  cheap  political  points  ahead  of  next  yearās  presidential
   election.

   Opposition  leader  Otunnu  said he is compiling more evidence against
   Mr. Museveni over his alleged war crimes.

   āI  handed to Mr. Moreno Ocampo some information and he asked for more
   information, which I will be providing to him. We have tons of tons of
   information  on  all these cases. So, information is not a problem and
   there  is actually plenty of information in the public domain, as well
   in  reports  in  various writings, including my own writing, and there
   are  still survivors who can testify to what Mr. Museveni did,ā Otunnu
   said.

   Otunnu  met  the  chief prosecutor on the sidelines of the ongoing ICC
   conference  on  the Rome Statute in Ugandaās capital, Kampala. He said
   the prosecutor requested to meet him after holding discussions with an
   official of his opposition Uganda Peopleās Congress Party.

   Opposition  leader  Otunnu  served  as the former U.N. Under-Secretary
   General  for  Children  Affairs.  But,  he  is  now a fierce critic of
   President  Museveni,  often  describing  the  Ugandan  leader as a war
   criminal.

   Otunnu  accused  the  ICC  of  only  singling  out  the  rebel  Lordās
   Resistance  Army  (LRA)  over atrocities committed during the northern
   Uganda conflict with the national army.

   He also said the court should have prosecuted President Museveni, whom
   he  accused  of  giving  instructions  to  the national army to commit
   various crimes, including human rights abuses, in northern Uganda.

   But,  the  government  contends that residents in northern Uganda were
   forced into camps to protect them from the LRAās insurgency.

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