The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ordered Dominic Ongwen, a former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), to pay $56 million in reparations for war crimes committed against several thousand victims.
Ongwen was charged with executing crimes against humanity and war crimes in Northern Uganda, during his term with the LRA from July 2002 to December 2005. The LRA, established in the 1980s by Joseph Kony, was once regarded as a terrorist organization by the US government. Ongwen himself was abducted by the LRA at the age of nine and later climbed the ranks to become a military commander. Despite a decline in recent years, the LRA continues to operate in the border region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan.
The ICC held Ongwen accountable for a laundry list of heinous crimes perpetrated by the LRA against the Ugandan civilian population. These included murder, torture, enslavement, pillaging, forced marriage, rape, sexual slavery, and forced recruitment of children under the age of 15 into an armed group. After rejecting an appeal, the ICC found Dominic Ongwen guilty of 61 counts of crime in February 2021, sentencing him to 25 years imprisonment in a Norwegian prison.
Total reparations are valued at €52,429,000, with each victim receiving 750 euros (approximately $812) as a symbolic award. Additional reparations will come in the form of community-based programs. The ICC did note Ongwen’s financial inability to pay the ordered reparation and acknowledged the associated challenges of implementing individual reparation for around 49,772 victims. The reparation fund will be paid out via a trust fund specifically set up to aid victims in Uganda.
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