UGANDA: Human rights groups have complained that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is failing to deal even-handedly with war crimes in Uganda, after indicting rebel leaders but ignoring government forces.
Joseph Kony, head of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), is among five warlords indicted last week by the ICC in the first ever prosecutions in the court's history.
Kony, a Christian mystic, has led the LRA in one of the world's grimmest guerrilla wars, with children the chief targets.
In a 19-year-campaign, more than 10,000 children have been abducted, some to become sexual slaves and others to fight as child soldiers.
The LRA became infamous after raiding a Catholic boarding school, St Mary's College, in northern Uganda and abducting 152 teenage girls in 1996.
Nuns from the school chased after the guerrillas, and after confronting them 109 girls were released, with the rest kept for forced marriages.
Kony is believed to be hiding in the mountains of southern Sudan where human rights groups say he has also terrorized local people.
Rights groups have welcomed the prosecutions, but say investigations need to also focus on actions of government forces.
"The Ugandan army itself has carried out serious crimes that demand prosecution," said Jemera Rone of US-based Human Rights Watch. "Soldiers in Uganda's national army have raped, beaten, arbitrarily detained and killed civilians."
Human Rights Watch reported in September on scores of atrocities they say were carried out by Ugandan troops, but ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has said nothing about whether more charges are to follow.
But the court, set up in 2002, has only one third of the budget of the United Nations court now trying Slobodan Milosevic, and it may be nervous about antagonizing its Ugandan hosts.
The ICC is heavily reliant on government support to track the LRA. The ICC has no statute of limitations, and so is free to indict Ugandan generals once LRA trials are complete.
This prosecution will put new pressure on Sudan, already the subject of an ICC investigation into war crimes in its Darfur region. Sudan hosts the LRA at bases in the south of the country, and could face international sanctions if it now fails to close these down. Issuance of these indictments has been a major step for the ICC, which is the world's first permanent war crimes court.
Unlike United Nations tribunals, it has no time limit and a global reach, with 99 nations now signed-up including all European Union nations.
However, fierce opposition from the United States has hamstrung its operations. This summer America suspended $47 million of aid payments to developing nations refusing to give US citizens immunity from the new court.
The lack of support from the US means only Britain and France, among member states, have commando forces with the capacity to raid rebel bases and arrest suspects.
Though such operations brought great success in Bosnia, it is unlikely that they will be repeated.
More likely is the hope that pressure from neighbouring states will eventually persuade Kony to surrender.