Uganga Law Society, MPs, Carnally Motivated on minimum legal age of responsibility
Key Words: Uganda, Uganda Law Society(ULS), Uganda Parliamentarians (MPs), Carnal Knowledge, Paedophiles, Adulterers, polygamy, Underage Sex, Defilement, International Criminal Court (ICC), ICC Bill 2006, Joseph Kony, Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Child Soldiers, Yoweri Museveni, Age of consent, Minimum Recruitment Age.
The independent Ugandan daily, The Daily Monitor, has reported that Uganda Law Society (ULS) and a select committee of the Ugandan parliament have agreed to lower the minimum age for legal responsibility from the internationally recognised 18, to 15, so that abducted children gang-pressed into the ranks of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), could be tried for the same crimes their abductors and commanders have been indicted for -war crimes and crimes against humanity-by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The LRA is a notorious rebel army that has been fighting dictator Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, for the last 23 years. The insurgents earned their notoriety for abduction of children from northern Uganda, and alleged mutilation of unarmed civilians. Conservative estimates put the total number of child abductions at between 25,000 to 30,000.
In 2005, in a politically self-serving and grandstanding move, the Ugandan autocrat referred the leaders of the LRA insurgency to the ICC, which in turn wasted no time in indicting five of the LRA commanders-including the top two most senior, Generals Vincent Otti and Joseph Kony. The indictments came swiftly, on the heels of the ICC chief prosecutor, Louis Moreno de Ocampo, sharing a public stage with dictator Museveni, in London, UK. Besides Washington, London is regarded as Gen. Museveni's earnest and ardent diplomatic, economic, and international benefactor.
The thought that the ULS and parliamentarians would want to try children as young as 15, and as part of the Rome Statute and ICC international justice process, beggars belief. First, the Rome Statute criminalises the use of children under 18 in armed conflict. Second, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography forbid nations and armed groups from using children younger than 18 in conflicts.It is considered a war crime to recruit and deploy children under 18 in armed conflicts.
Although Article 40 (3)(a) of The Convention provides thus:
3. States Parties shall seek to promote the establishment of laws, procedures, authorities and institutions specifically applicable to children alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law, and, in particular:
(a) The establishment of a minimum age below which children shall be presumed not to have the capacity to infringe the penal law;
Article 1: of The Convention sets such advisory body on the straight by declaring that “A child means every human being below the age of 18 years.”
Now, what kind of a farce are the learned society and the moral compass of Uganda society and both guardians of constitutionalism and the rule of law engaging in? First, the Ugandan state failed to protect these children from abductions in the first place. Second it is precisely because the LRA gang-pressed these minors into combat that the rebel leaders have been indicted for war crimes. Therefore, it is preposterous that, the victims of war crimes in the hands of the rebels, and also victims of criminal state negligence in not ensuring protection, must be responsible for their own plight and that of the defenceless society from which they were plucked with impunity. Moreover, the Rome Statute itself sets legal responsility at age 18. How then could the ULS and parliament purport to pass and implement an ICC Bill when they foul key accepted international standards on age limitations for service in armed conflicts and personal responsibility for acts committed while one was a minor?
In any case, a more robust and diligent application of international justice, would have found the Ugandan state forces themselves, culpable for the debacles of rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, including forced recruitment, rape, torture and mutilation, abduction, sexual violence, and extra-judicial execution of so-called rebel collaborators in northern Uganda. Obviously, because of shoddy ICC work on northern Uganda that have largely served certain vested international interests to protect blood-soaked dictators like Yoweri Museveni in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa, the double-edged sword of international justice has so far only cut one way. But this should have been no reason for some idle and uninformed Ugandan jurists and legislators to make fools of themselves. Repatriating the Rome Statute on the ICC process into Uganda's municipal laws, should not pose such steep learning curve for the law society and select committee of parliament. In any case, the age limitation issue is not a matter of debate, but widely recognised, accepted international practice.
It would seem that the law society and the MPs are motivated by something other than the desire to ensure equitable justice. Ugandan men are notorious for underage and cross-generational sex, with girls as young as 12. Not very long ago, they were up in arms to lower the minimum age of consent to 14. It is possible that this latest move is a calculated ruse to get to a lower minimum sexual consent age than to prosecute and punish juvenile LRA war criminals. In a national parliament stacked with polygamists, deadbeat dads, concubines, adulterers, husband-raiders, wife and child abusers, marital rapists as well as statutory rapists and statutory paedophiles, such notion as going west in order to get east, is not as far-fetched as it may appear at first thought.
As keen and long time observers of Ugandan society and politics in the dictator Museveni era, we have more than a hunch that, the parliamentarians and the law society, are carnally motivated in their latest comedy of errors and nonsense. They hope to enact this law, to use it to backstop their own ambitions to lower the minimum age of consent, legitimise predatory sexual behaviour and obstruct statutory rape and defilement litigations that have characteristically featured the elite and those in positions of power and authority-from teachers to government ministers.
As we write, a 13 year old girl, a victim of rape, defilement, abduction, and unlawful imprisonment, is jailed instead of her defilers and abductors being apprehended. What has the learned law society done? What has the minister of justice done? and what has parliament done? Intead of the law protecting her, or exacting justice on her behalf, the law has raped her hundredfolds. According to The Daily Monitor, in 'some cases, security has ignored the victims yet considered helping the culprits because they have money. Such has always delayed the course of justice and denied justice to the culprits.' And what does the minister responsible for the welfare of children do; use his clout in cabinet to tap his justice counterpart to whip the police to release the girl immediately? You wish!
Instead, accordind to The Monitor the 'State Minister for Children and Youth Affairs James Kinobe says the case needs to be followed up to the end. “We must follow the case of the girl and help her family until justice is prevailed,”' as reported by Saturday Monitor.
We thought the right and first thing to do would be to have the girl victim of rape released immediately on ministerial powers, and the law enforcement and the judicial system that joined in to gang-rape her, investigated and put on trial alongside her initial abductors and rapists. That, we think, Mr. Minister Sir, the justice the victim and her family and the country crave for and deserve.
Had Uganda a strong sexual crimes and harrassments laws, aggressive and robust litigations, the halls of parliament, government, private sector, and international NGO offices would be emptied of its patriarchs who would be hauled off to jails. Assemble these jurists, parliamentarians, heads and middle management of international NGOs, and government bureaucrats in Uganda, and ask those who have not touched the backsides, or grabbed the bossoms of their female counterparts, assistants, secretaries and support staff, to on their honour, raise up their hands!
Notice the furtive glances, clammy palms and fiddling of dirty old men!
The independent Ugandan daily, The Daily Monitor, has reported that Uganda Law Society (ULS) and a select committee of the Ugandan parliament have agreed to lower the minimum age for legal responsibility from the internationally recognised 18, to 15, so that abducted children gang-pressed into the ranks of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), could be tried for the same crimes their abductors and commanders have been indicted for -war crimes and crimes against humanity-by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The LRA is a notorious rebel army that has been fighting dictator Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, for the last 23 years. The insurgents earned their notoriety for abduction of children from northern Uganda, and alleged mutilation of unarmed civilians. Conservative estimates put the total number of child abductions at between 25,000 to 30,000.
In 2005, in a politically self-serving and grandstanding move, the Ugandan autocrat referred the leaders of the LRA insurgency to the ICC, which in turn wasted no time in indicting five of the LRA commanders-including the top two most senior, Generals Vincent Otti and Joseph Kony. The indictments came swiftly, on the heels of the ICC chief prosecutor, Louis Moreno de Ocampo, sharing a public stage with dictator Museveni, in London, UK. Besides Washington, London is regarded as Gen. Museveni's earnest and ardent diplomatic, economic, and international benefactor.
The thought that the ULS and parliamentarians would want to try children as young as 15, and as part of the Rome Statute and ICC international justice process, beggars belief. First, the Rome Statute criminalises the use of children under 18 in armed conflict. Second, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography forbid nations and armed groups from using children younger than 18 in conflicts.It is considered a war crime to recruit and deploy children under 18 in armed conflicts.
Although Article 40 (3)(a) of The Convention provides thus:
3. States Parties shall seek to promote the establishment of laws, procedures, authorities and institutions specifically applicable to children alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law, and, in particular:
(a) The establishment of a minimum age below which children shall be presumed not to have the capacity to infringe the penal law;
Article 1: of The Convention sets such advisory body on the straight by declaring that “A child means every human being below the age of 18 years.”
Now, what kind of a farce are the learned society and the moral compass of Uganda society and both guardians of constitutionalism and the rule of law engaging in? First, the Ugandan state failed to protect these children from abductions in the first place. Second it is precisely because the LRA gang-pressed these minors into combat that the rebel leaders have been indicted for war crimes. Therefore, it is preposterous that, the victims of war crimes in the hands of the rebels, and also victims of criminal state negligence in not ensuring protection, must be responsible for their own plight and that of the defenceless society from which they were plucked with impunity. Moreover, the Rome Statute itself sets legal responsility at age 18. How then could the ULS and parliament purport to pass and implement an ICC Bill when they foul key accepted international standards on age limitations for service in armed conflicts and personal responsibility for acts committed while one was a minor?
In any case, a more robust and diligent application of international justice, would have found the Ugandan state forces themselves, culpable for the debacles of rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, including forced recruitment, rape, torture and mutilation, abduction, sexual violence, and extra-judicial execution of so-called rebel collaborators in northern Uganda. Obviously, because of shoddy ICC work on northern Uganda that have largely served certain vested international interests to protect blood-soaked dictators like Yoweri Museveni in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa, the double-edged sword of international justice has so far only cut one way. But this should have been no reason for some idle and uninformed Ugandan jurists and legislators to make fools of themselves. Repatriating the Rome Statute on the ICC process into Uganda's municipal laws, should not pose such steep learning curve for the law society and select committee of parliament. In any case, the age limitation issue is not a matter of debate, but widely recognised, accepted international practice.
It would seem that the law society and the MPs are motivated by something other than the desire to ensure equitable justice. Ugandan men are notorious for underage and cross-generational sex, with girls as young as 12. Not very long ago, they were up in arms to lower the minimum age of consent to 14. It is possible that this latest move is a calculated ruse to get to a lower minimum sexual consent age than to prosecute and punish juvenile LRA war criminals. In a national parliament stacked with polygamists, deadbeat dads, concubines, adulterers, husband-raiders, wife and child abusers, marital rapists as well as statutory rapists and statutory paedophiles, such notion as going west in order to get east, is not as far-fetched as it may appear at first thought.
As keen and long time observers of Ugandan society and politics in the dictator Museveni era, we have more than a hunch that, the parliamentarians and the law society, are carnally motivated in their latest comedy of errors and nonsense. They hope to enact this law, to use it to backstop their own ambitions to lower the minimum age of consent, legitimise predatory sexual behaviour and obstruct statutory rape and defilement litigations that have characteristically featured the elite and those in positions of power and authority-from teachers to government ministers.
As we write, a 13 year old girl, a victim of rape, defilement, abduction, and unlawful imprisonment, is jailed instead of her defilers and abductors being apprehended. What has the learned law society done? What has the minister of justice done? and what has parliament done? Intead of the law protecting her, or exacting justice on her behalf, the law has raped her hundredfolds. According to The Daily Monitor, in 'some cases, security has ignored the victims yet considered helping the culprits because they have money. Such has always delayed the course of justice and denied justice to the culprits.' And what does the minister responsible for the welfare of children do; use his clout in cabinet to tap his justice counterpart to whip the police to release the girl immediately? You wish!
Instead, accordind to The Monitor the 'State Minister for Children and Youth Affairs James Kinobe says the case needs to be followed up to the end. “We must follow the case of the girl and help her family until justice is prevailed,”' as reported by Saturday Monitor.
We thought the right and first thing to do would be to have the girl victim of rape released immediately on ministerial powers, and the law enforcement and the judicial system that joined in to gang-rape her, investigated and put on trial alongside her initial abductors and rapists. That, we think, Mr. Minister Sir, the justice the victim and her family and the country crave for and deserve.
Had Uganda a strong sexual crimes and harrassments laws, aggressive and robust litigations, the halls of parliament, government, private sector, and international NGO offices would be emptied of its patriarchs who would be hauled off to jails. Assemble these jurists, parliamentarians, heads and middle management of international NGOs, and government bureaucrats in Uganda, and ask those who have not touched the backsides, or grabbed the bossoms of their female counterparts, assistants, secretaries and support staff, to on their honour, raise up their hands!
Notice the furtive glances, clammy palms and fiddling of dirty old men!
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