KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group has been convicted of dozens of crimes against humanity in a key moment of justice for many in Uganda who suffered decades of its brutal insurgency.
The long-awaited verdict in the trial of Thomas Kwoyelo was delivered Tuesday by a panel of the High Court that sat in Gulu, the northern city where the LRA once was active. It was the first atrocity case to be tried under a special division of the High Court that focuses on international crimes.
Kwoyelo faced charges including murder, pillaging, enslavement, imprisonment, rape and cruelty. He was convicted on 44 of the 78 counts he faced for crimes committed between 1992 and 2005.
It was not immediately clear when he would be sentenced.
Kwoyelo, whose trial began in 2019, had been in detention since 2009 as Ugandan authorities tried to figure out how to dispense justice in a way that was fair and credible. Human Rights Watch described his trial as “a rare opportunity for justice for victims of the two-decade war between” Ugandan troops and the LRA.
Prosecutors said Kwoyelo held the military rank of colonel within the LRA and that he ordered violent attacks on civilians, many of them displaced by the rebellion.
The LRA’s overall leader, Joseph Kony, is believed to be hiding in a vast area of ungoverned bush in central Africa. The U.S. has offered $5 million as a reward for information leading to the capture of Kony, who also is wanted by the International Criminal Court.
One of Kony’s lieutenants, Dominic Ongwen, was sentenced in 2021 by the ICC to 25 years of imprisonment for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Thousands of other rebel combatants have received Ugandan government amnesty over the years, but Kwoyelo, who was captured in neighboring Congo, was denied such reprieve. Ugandan officials have never explained why. There were concerns by rights activists that the long delay in trying him violated his right to justice.
His trial was controversial, underscoring complex challenges in delivering justice in a society still healing from the consequences of war. As in Ongwen’s trial at the ICC, Kwoyelo asserted that he was abducted as a young boy to join the ranks of the LRA and that he could not be held responsible for the group’s crimes.
Kwoyelo, who denied the charges against him, testified that only Kony could answer for LRA crimes, and said everyone in the LRA faced death for disobeying the warlord.
The LRA, which began in Uganda as an anti-government rebellion, was accused of recruiting boys to fight and keeping girls as sex slaves. At the peak of its power, the group was a notoriously brutal outfit whose members for years eluded Ugandan forces in northern Uganda.
Some observers have pointed out that Ugandan military commanders cited in civilian abuses during the LRA insurgency have not faced justice.
The LRA was accused of committing multiple massacres targeting mostly members of the Acholi ethnic group. Kony, himself an Acholi, is a self-proclaimed messiah who said early in his rebellion that he wanted to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments.
When military pressure forced the LRA out of Uganda in 2005, the rebels scattered across parts of central Africa. The group has faded in recent years, and reports of LRA attacks are rare.
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In this file photo taken Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015, a memorial marks the location of a mass burial site of those massacred in 2004 by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), at the Barlonyo displaced persons camp in northern Uganda. A former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group has been convicted of dozens of crimes against humanity in a key moment of justice for many in Uganda who suffered decades of its brutal insurgency. The trial of Thomas Kwoyelo was the first atrocity case to be tried under a special division of Uganda's High Court that focuses on international crimes. (AP Photo/Rebecca Vassie, File)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel memorial prize in economics was awarded Monday to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for research that explains why societies with poor rule of law and exploitative institutions do not generate sustainable growth.
The three economists “have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity,” the Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at the announcement in Stockholm.
Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago.
“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges. The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this,” Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said.
He said their research has provided "a much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”
Reached by the academy in Athens, Greece, where he is due to speak at a conference, the Turkish-born Acemoglu, 57, said he was surprised and shocked by the award.
“You never expect something like this," he said.
Acemoglu said the research honored by the prize underscores the value of democratic institutions.
“I think broadly speaking the work that we have done favors democracy,” he said in a telephone call with the Nobel committee and reporters in Stockholm.
But he added that “democracy is not a panacea. Introducing democracy is very hard. When you introduce elections, that sometimes creates conflict.”
Asked about how economic growth in countries like China fits into the theories, Acemoglu said that "my perspective is generally that these authoritarian regimes, for a variety of reasons, are going to have a harder time ... in achieving ... long-term sustainable innovation outcomes.”
Acemoglu and Robinson wrote the 2012 bestseller “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty,’’ which argued that manmade problems were responsible for keeping countries poor.
In their work, the winners looked, for instance, at the city of Nogales, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.
Despite sharing the same geography, climate, many of the same ancestors and a common culture, life is very different on either side of the border. In Nogales, Arizona, to the north, residents are relatively well-off and live long lives; most children graduate from high school. To the south, in Mexico’s Nogales, Sonora, “residents here are in general considerably poorer. ... Organized crime makes starting and running companies risky. Corrupt politicians are difficult to remove, even if the chances of this have improved since Mexico democratized, just over 20 years ago," the Nobel committee wrote.
The difference, the economists found, is a U.S. system that protects property rights and gives citizens a say in their government.
Acemoglu expressed worry Monday that democratic institutions in the United States and Europe were losing support from the population. “Democracies particularly underperform when the population thinks they underdeliver," he said. “This is a time when democracies are going through a rough patch. … It is, in some sense, quite crucial that they reclaim the high ground of better governance."
The economics prize is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The central bank established it in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes.
Though Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel Prize, it is always presented together with the others on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
Nobel honors were announced last week in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.
Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands.
Journalists listen when Jan Teorell of the Nobel assembly announces the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)
Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, center, Jakob Svensson, left, and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly announce the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)
Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, center, Jakob Svensson, left, and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly announce the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)
FILE - Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology smiles in this image taken on June 22, 2019 in Kiel, Germany, as he and Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson won the Nobel prize in economics for research into reasons why some countries succeed and others fail. (Frank Molter, dpa via AP, File)
The Nobel memorial prize in economics awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson, seen on screen, during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)
Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, center, Jakob Svensson, left, and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly announce the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson, seen on screen, during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)
FILE - A close-up view of a Nobel Prize medal at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
The Nobel economics prize is being announced in Sweden
The Nobel economics prize is being announced in Sweden
FILE - A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)
