The following post is by Barrie Sander, a Ph.D. Candidate in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID). Barrie, currently on exchange at Harvard Law School, focuses his research on historical narratives and conceptions of justice in the international criminal context.

Dominic Ongwen (Photo Source: Unknown)

Earlier this week, a Ugandan army spokesman confirmed that Dominic Ongwen, a senior commander in the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), was to be transferred by the Central African Republic (CAR) to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The news followed last week’s revelations that Ongwen had been taken into US custody and the call by numerous civil society groups demanding Ongwen’s transfer to The Hague (see, for example, here, here and here).

It has subsequently transpired that Dominic Ongwen has been handed over to Ugandan troops in the CAR. Last week, Mark convincingly argued that…

Why must police continue to torture journalists?
A statement by the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament

Press Release

January 16, 2015

On Monday, one Joram Mwesigye, the Division Police Commander of Old Kampala went out of his way to viciously torture Andrew Lwanga, the WBS photo journalist for doing his professional work. We wish to condemn this in the strongest terms possible.
It was right that the leadership of the police acted quickly to apprehend this officer and have him charged in court.
However, this was not the first time journalists or Ugandans were being tortured by the police for doing their rightful duties, an otherwise thankless job. About a year ago the Daily Monitor and the Red Pepper were closed for over a week for reporting stories on remarks by Gen. David Ssejusa. Over the same matter, journalists and other members of the public rightfully demonstrated against the…

“Joseph Kony, a former altar boy subscribing to the same mchuzi mix of traditional-ne-fundamentalist Catholicism as Lakwena, and who also dabbled in the occult, had been lurking in the shadows in the last days of the Holy Spirit movement, recruiting former soldiers to his cause”

 This is the third part of the well-known and little-known bits of the story of the macabre insurgency by Uganda rebel leader Joseph Kony, and the often equally brutal response by the Uganda government over 20 years, as a way of providing context to judge “KONY 2012”, the video by the US group Invisible Children that passed 100 million last evening, to become the most successful viral video of all time.

The North-South divide in Uganda (common in other countries too) provides only a small explanation of the raw political passions that led to war in northern Uganda, and the rise…

As we speak, one of the most pervasive and successful human rights based viral campaigns in recent memory is underway. Invisible Children’s ‘Kony 2012‘ campaign has taken Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and every other mainstream social media refuge by storm. In many ways, it is quite impressive. But there’s one glaring problem: the campaign reflects neither the realities of northern Ugandan nor the attitudes of its people. In this context, this post examines the explicit and implicit claims made by the ‘Kony 2012’ campaign and tests them against the empirical record on the ground.

Before jumping into the fray, however, I should preface the post by noting that, in many ways, Invisible Children have done a fantastic job in advocating for the rights of northern Ugandans, highlighting the conflict and providing tangible benefits to victims and survivors of LRA brutality. Indeed, this post is not intended to take aim…

What do you call the 1915 “mass deportation” of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) that resulted in the death of 1.5 million people?

Most historians and Armenians around the world call it genocide. The Turkish government and the United States are not among those who will officially accept the word “genocide” when speaking of the decimation of the Armenian people in the early part of the 20th Century. (And that list also includes U.S. Presidents.)

The lack of respect given to the Armenian genocide is shocking when you consider the scope and brutality of the event that killed 75 percent of the Armenians — a predominantly Christian group.

The History:

Armenia was a trendsetter when it came to Christianity. The country adopted that faith in 301 A.D. This was even before the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. For centuries the Armenian people…

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/cartoon/