Uganda court orders government to pay compensation to LRA victims

A court in Uganda has ordered the government to pay $2,740 dollars to each victim of Lord’s Resistance Army commander, Thomas Kwoyelo.

In October, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for war crimes, the first senior member of the feared rebel group to be convicted.

Kwoyelo had been found guilty on 44 charges, including murder, rape, enslavement, pillaging, torture, and kidnapping.

The court on Monday found that Kwoyelo was unable to pay the compensation due to what it described as his “indigent” status.

As a result, it said the government should foot the bill saying the sheer scale of the atrocities he had committed was such that they amounted to a failure on its part.

The court also awarded additional cash compensation of varying amounts to the victims of other harm caused by Kwoyelo, including property destruction and theft.

The LRA was founded in the late 1980s with the aim of overthrowing the government and  creating a state based on leader Joseph Kony's interpretation of the Ten Commandments.

It battled the government from bases in the north of the country for nearly two decades.

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. Kony remains at large and was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005.