[Letter]
My name is Rogers W’O Okot-Uma. We met at the screening of “A Brilliant Genocide” (at the Raindance Film Festival in London, September 30). I spoke last 1 – 2 minutes from the audience before you closed the panel discussion on this above.
I did not find time to speak to you afterwards as I was looking for a few individuals I wanted to speak to before leaving the Cinema Hall. Thanks for the efforts put in for making the above a reality.
1) In my opinion, the film gives provenance to a milestone in a possible long road to justice:
2) The film bequeaths into the general global arena a powerful voice for all those whose voices have hitherto before been likened to disparate voices crying in vain in the wilderness;
3) The film should hereinafter trigger and motivate Ugandans (easily with the support of any interested individuals and groups) to pool together, systematically and in an integrated systemic form, a comprehensive and consolidated array of data containing all manners of perpetrations that afflicted Acoliland’s Northern Uganda over a period of 20-30 years.
This, I believe, would be necessary to give effect, force and validity for the purpose of relevant Articles of the Rome Statute of the ICC.
We should have regard to the fact that the LRA and the NRM had contemporaneous existence in Acoliland for a good proportion of the LRA insurgency period.
Attributions in respect of “Who done it?” Would fall on either group or both.
Perpetration that attended the women, men and children in the “protected villages”, IDP camps, “satellite” or “decongestion” camps, or “concentrated” camps can, to a large extent, be nearly wholly attributed to the NRA.
Historicity and chronology of events will be critical. So would be the timelines in the activities of the LRA and the NRM in the period including, roughly, 1985 through 2011.
Genocide as well as Crimes against Humanity will reign supreme with regard to the Rome Statute (that created the ICC). To some extent, War Crimes should also be able to feature in the anticipated consolidation of records.
4) For objectivity, such a consolidation of evidentiary documentation should be devoid of any litany of emotional content.
It should also be devoid of attempts to self-direct to justify why the LRA or the NRM did what they did unless they are quoted saying so.
Editor’s note: For upcoming screenings please see www.abrilliantgenocide.com
