ICC calls for renewed efforts to arrest Joseph Kony

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo says that Lords Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony must be arrested following attacks and abductions by his forces in villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo last month. He says that reports indicate that on 17 September the LRA attacked Congolese villages in the Haut Uelé district.

The attacks are systematic and constitute war crimes. All these attacks follow a similar method with markets surrounded and looted, students abducted from schools, properties burned and dozens of civilians killed, including several local chiefs. Tens of thousands have now been displaced because of the renewed violence.

According to a press release, Moreno Ocampo also collected information indicating that at the end of 2007, Kony issued orders to abduct 1,000 persons to expand the ranks of the LRA. "Kony is now implementing his plan," he says.

The ICC has been looking for Kony and top LRA commanders Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen. Kony's rebel movement is responsible for decades of bloodshed in northern Uganda and is now spreading death and destruction in neighbouring Congo. Kony's fighters are accused of rape, mutilations, kidnapping children to serve as child soldiers and murdering thousands of civilians.

The Court itself does not have a police force and nobody else has seriously put effort in the arrest of Kony. The rebelleader is accused of using the Juba peace talks to gain time and support, to rearm and attack again. "The price paid today by civilians is high. The criminals remain at large and continue to commit crimes and they are threatening the entire region. Arrest is long overdue," the prosecutor says.

Ocampo now urges all actors, including regional and international organisations, to support and work together with the DRC and Uganda in the planning and execution of the arrests.