I'll be sticking with my talk about the LRA for the current moment because of an interesting article I found on http://www.irinnews.org/ It talks about a senior leader of the LRA that is being transfered to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity. Dominic Ongwen is the senior leader that surrendered himself after a battle. Dominic was abducted at the age of 10 on his walk to school. This is almost the exact same thing that happened to Ishmael Beah in the book, A Long Way Gone. He was forced to fight against the rebel army in Sierra Leone at the age of 12. The biggest controversity of this story is that Dominic was abducted and forced to fight, forced to commit these horrible crimes. He was taught since the ago of 10 to kill or be killed. The question set forth is should he be tried for his crimes against humanity?
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael spoke of how he killed before, yet his story is a little different he was never tried for doing so. He was picked up by the UN as a kid and sent to a rehabilition center to get off the drugs the army hooked him and to help him move past the memories he had of being a boy soldier. I understand that he was only a kid when they picked him up so why should he be tried? But what if he was never picked up by the UN? He would have grown up through all of that and been exaclty like Dominic. Is it Dominic's fault for all of the crimes that he has commited? Yes you could say that he had a choose but really he didn't. It was either he did the killing or he be killed himself. What would you say happens to him?
For Example, there is Caesar Achellam who voluntarily joined the LRA. He was taken into the custody of Uganda military and tried for his crimes against humanity. He and the others like him who voluntarily commit these terrible crimes should be tried to the highest degree for their crimes. I'm not saying all shouldn't be tried but the ones who didn't have to choice should have some other form of punishment than the others. Personally I would die before i committed any of these horrid acts and that's why I believe they should still be punished but not in the way that people like Caesar Achellam and Joseph Kony should be.
Thoughts?
I personally don't think he should be tried. But the people that brainwashed him should be. When you're young and brainwashed that's what you think is right. How can you punish someone for actually believing that was okay?
ReplyDelete