Uganda: Lawil mutilated by LRA, wants justice

(SomaliNet) The rebels showed some mercy on Concy Lawil when they sliced off her lips, ears and nose with a machete and then force-fed them to her. They had originally planned to kill her too.

\"A commander intervened to stop them, I was saved,\" she said, speaking softly through a healed but lipless mouth. \"But I will have to live the rest of my life with these defects.\"

Lawil is one of thousands of victims of a two-decade war between Uganda\'s government and Lord\'s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, halted last year by a ceasefire.

LRA delegates arrived in Uganda last week for a historic visit and a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni to further talks aimed at ending one of Africa\'s longest wars.

Now they are touring the ravaged north to build support for an effort to prevent LRA leader Joseph Kony from being tried for war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and instead face local, traditional justice in Uganda.

Kony and three other wanted top commanders are in hiding in eastern Congo. Kony\'s delegates say he is unlikely to sign a peace deal unless the ICC drops its indictments.

The rebels became notorious for their cruel attacks on civilians -- beating villagers to death, hacking off body parts of their victims and kidnapping an estimated 10,000 children for use as soldiers and sex slaves. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict and an estimated 2 million displaced by the violence.

Many northerners say they are ready to forgive the LRA in exchange for peace, but Lawil, a 25-year-old mother of seven, wants justice.

\"Kony should be tried in The Hague. He should be jailed for life for what he\'s done,\" she said, re-arranging pyramids of tomatoes in her market stall in Gulu, centre of the conflict.

Lawil was with 11 other women when the rebels, armed with guns and machetes, struck in broad daylight. They made them sit down, then told them they would die.

\"They took us one by one and mutilated us for the others to see,\" she said, gesturing to the shriveled stump of an ear. \"Then they made us chew and swallow them.\"

When the rebels changed their minds and freed them, they fled to a hospital to cover their bleeding faces in bandages.

Locals say the LRA\'s taste for mutilating victims was intended to punish civilians it suspected of collaborating with the government.

\"It was a signal. If I\'m dead, no one can see. But to come back disfigured -- everyone sees the message,\" Lawil said.

Lawil copes with the trauma by working. She says her friends pity her, which means she gets more business at the market. But she wants the government and aid agencies to help her.--Reuters