7 ms·

The trial of a child soldier who became a brutal rebel commander

48 points by whocansay 6y ago

marczellm 6y ago
The article's veracity for me becomes questionable when it mentions that his father was a Catholic lay priest. No such thing exists.
- yial 6y ago
  Since it says that he was a teacher, could they be using it to say that he was not an official ordained priest? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_in_the_Catholic_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_in_the_Catholic_Chu...
  - marczellm 6y ago
    I understand what the article means: he was a catechist. A priest or a layperson can be a catechist. But lay is the opposite of priest.
    - nugget 6y ago
      Isn’t “a Catholic lay priest” how you’d best describe the person, in colloquial terms, to a readership that wasn’t familiar with the definition of catechist?
      - throwanem 6y ago
        No, I'd define the term. That's not hard to do - especially if you're willing, as the article is, to spot the reader knowledge of the difference between laity and ordination. To be clear, I'm not OP, and I don't judge the quality of the article on this basis. It's commonplace to see a journalist do sloppy work, especially in parts of an article less critical to its thesis. But the article already defines the term 'catechist', albeit incorrectly. I don't think it's unreasonable to consider that the same trouble should go toward getting it right.
        gowld 6y ago
        Catechist is defined, inside of one line, using terms the audience knows: "Catholic", "lay", and "priest". The silly objection here is like objecting to the statement "he was a pilot, an airplane driver", because a "driver" drives a car, not a plane.
        throwanem 6y ago
        That's not a comparable example. There's a lot more to the priesthood than teaching the catechism - Mass and most sacraments, for example, I believe save only viaticum - and "lay priest" is oxymoronic in any case. To someone knowledgeable in the faith, it sounds like the writer is trying to say "deacon", which would still be wrong anyway, and missing nonetheless; to someone lacking such knowledge, it confers an entirely false impression. As I said, I think OP makes too much of the phrase, but I agree it's entirely risible.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
We either view Ongwen as an morally culpable human who is capable of making moral choices (certainly by the time he reached adulthood) and hold him responsible for those choices, and likely lock him away for many, many years as punishment for the horrible choices he made. The other way is that we view him as so broken by his childhood trauma that he has had no moral capacity, even in his adulthood. If that is the case, he still needs to be locked away for many years, because someone with that level of brokenness is not safe human society.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  > If that is the case, he still needs to be locked away for many years, because someone with that level of brokenness is not safe human society. Or rehabilitated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(penology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(penology) > The effectiveness of Norway's methods is evident as they hold the lowest recidivism rate worldwide at 20% as of December 2014.
  - selestify 6y ago
    There's still that 20% that fails to be rehabilitated. This seems like it would be one of those cases.
  - akiselev 6y ago
    I too feel that rehabilitation, not vengeance, should be the goal of the justice system but in this case, I think it's a moot point. This is an individual with the means and clear history of organizing and wielding violent armed groups which (I hypothesize) requires a level of emotional intelligence that justice systems are not equipped to rehabilitate by design. The ones that try to rehabilitate offenders naturally err towards giving people the benefit of the doubt in order to make the process fairer for the falsely accused which is very easily exploitable, especially for the well resourced. I think this individual presents a clear cut case where public safety is more important than the individual's right to rehabilitation post-conviction, in a way that even the worst civilian criminals like serial killers do not. There is just no way to reintegrate him to like a POW of an opposing nation in war or a rebel soldier who joined a movement - he was a primary instigator in the conflict and his enemy was the system he'd be rehabilitated into.
vkou 6y ago
He did not take prior offers of amnesty, that went back to 2000, and only surrendered when his position in the LRA became untenable. This seems enough to condemn him. It's a complicated issue, which is why blanket amnesty gets offered in these kinds of situations - to people who want to re-integrate back into society. He did not do so until he had no other choice. The split personality disorder is a beautiful story, that fails to explain why he didn't surrender at any point in the preceding two decades. If we were to suppose he was not culpable for his actions during his Dominic B states, Dominic A must surely be culpable for not extracting himself from a situation where Dominic B would keep on committing his atrocities.
- gowld 6y ago
  The "split personality" theory was ripped off from the Primal Fear movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Fear_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Fear_(film)
solutron 6y ago
Evil doesn't have to have remorselessness or have awareness of it's evil to be evil. Ongwen is clearly traumatized. But, he is also the trauma. The spread of death and despair by his hand has to be adjudicated. Life in prison is the most morally just outcome for him, regardless of whatever reformations or personal developments he might make. Some things can't be undone and the consequences have to be lived with, forever. Like, he could become an international voice for reforming child soldiers, educating policy makers, and literally every good thing he could do with his experience. Yet, he should still be in prison. Forever.
- onethought 6y ago
  Is prison to punish? Rehabilitate? Or both? I feel like we could be way more creative in how we treat prisoners in how they “repay their debt”. Someone like Ongwen could probably be very valuable in finding and converting other people away from situations similar to his. Or from helping security forces secure against the kind of tactics they used... I don’t know random thoughts, but we can punish someone and have value generated at the same time.
  - DaedPsyker 6y ago
    Its purpose is not just those, another is protecting society. I actually think that is its primary function, rehabilitation can be done in better ways. I think jail should only be considered where a threat to the public is posed. This case is an open and shut example of a dangerous threat.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    Even if that were possible, Ongwen may be too damaged to be very effective at such a "punishment." And it would be very cruel to expose him to the same environment which traumatized him enough to make him into a brutal commander.
    - vkou 6y ago
      I have doubts that a Dutch prison is quite the same environment as a child being kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to fight in the LRA.
anm89 6y ago
> The French-American author Jonathan Littell happened to be filming a movie in Obo on the day that Ongwen was extradited. Ongwen gave him a rare 30-minute interview I searched briefly but could not find this footage. Does anybody have access to it?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chmod600 6y ago
Justice is a process. Processes are important for the simple reason that it's much easier to agree on a process than an outcome. Processes are generally free of context and confounding factors. Mere mortals aren't capable of juding the entirety of one's life, let alone going back generations. So they simply evaluate the question before them about a particular crime. Sure there are a few exceptions, like when someone is insane or lacks intent. But those are usually quite narrow. So justice is following the process, not getting to the heart of a moral issue.

48 points by whocansay 6y ago

The article's veracity for me becomes questionable when it mentions that his father was a Catholic lay priest. No such thing exists.

yial 6y ago
Since it says that he was a teacher, could they be using it to say that he was not an official ordained priest? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_in_the_Catholic_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_in_the_Catholic_Chu...
- marczellm 6y ago
  I understand what the article means: he was a catechist. A priest or a layperson can be a catechist. But lay is the opposite of priest.
  - nugget 6y ago
    Isn’t “a Catholic lay priest” how you’d best describe the person, in colloquial terms, to a readership that wasn’t familiar with the definition of catechist?
    - throwanem 6y ago
      No, I'd define the term. That's not hard to do - especially if you're willing, as the article is, to spot the reader knowledge of the difference between laity and ordination. To be clear, I'm not OP, and I don't judge the quality of the article on this basis. It's commonplace to see a journalist do sloppy work, especially in parts of an article less critical to its thesis. But the article already defines the term 'catechist', albeit incorrectly. I don't think it's unreasonable to consider that the same trouble should go toward getting it right.
      - gowld 6y ago
        Catechist is defined, inside of one line, using terms the audience knows: "Catholic", "lay", and "priest". The silly objection here is like objecting to the statement "he was a pilot, an airplane driver", because a "driver" drives a car, not a plane.
        throwanem 6y ago
        That's not a comparable example. There's a lot more to the priesthood than teaching the catechism - Mass and most sacraments, for example, I believe save only viaticum - and "lay priest" is oxymoronic in any case. To someone knowledgeable in the faith, it sounds like the writer is trying to say "deacon", which would still be wrong anyway, and missing nonetheless; to someone lacking such knowledge, it confers an entirely false impression. As I said, I think OP makes too much of the phrase, but I agree it's entirely risible.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

We either view Ongwen as an morally culpable human who is capable of making moral choices (certainly by the time he reached adulthood) and hold him responsible for those choices, and likely lock him away for many, many years as punishment for the horrible choices he made. The other way is that we view him as so broken by his childhood trauma that he has had no moral capacity, even in his adulthood. If that is the case, he still needs to be locked away for many years, because someone with that level of brokenness is not safe human society.

wizzwizz4 6y ago
> If that is the case, he still needs to be locked away for many years, because someone with that level of brokenness is not safe human society. Or rehabilitated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(penology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(penology) > The effectiveness of Norway's methods is evident as they hold the lowest recidivism rate worldwide at 20% as of December 2014.
- selestify 6y ago
  There's still that 20% that fails to be rehabilitated. This seems like it would be one of those cases.
- akiselev 6y ago
  I too feel that rehabilitation, not vengeance, should be the goal of the justice system but in this case, I think it's a moot point. This is an individual with the means and clear history of organizing and wielding violent armed groups which (I hypothesize) requires a level of emotional intelligence that justice systems are not equipped to rehabilitate by design. The ones that try to rehabilitate offenders naturally err towards giving people the benefit of the doubt in order to make the process fairer for the falsely accused which is very easily exploitable, especially for the well resourced. I think this individual presents a clear cut case where public safety is more important than the individual's right to rehabilitation post-conviction, in a way that even the worst civilian criminals like serial killers do not. There is just no way to reintegrate him to like a POW of an opposing nation in war or a rebel soldier who joined a movement - he was a primary instigator in the conflict and his enemy was the system he'd be rehabilitated into.

vkou 6y ago

He did not take prior offers of amnesty, that went back to 2000, and only surrendered when his position in the LRA became untenable. This seems enough to condemn him. It's a complicated issue, which is why blanket amnesty gets offered in these kinds of situations - to people who want to re-integrate back into society. He did not do so until he had no other choice. The split personality disorder is a beautiful story, that fails to explain why he didn't surrender at any point in the preceding two decades. If we were to suppose he was not culpable for his actions during his Dominic B states, Dominic A must surely be culpable for not extracting himself from a situation where Dominic B would keep on committing his atrocities.

gowld 6y ago
The "split personality" theory was ripped off from the Primal Fear movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Fear_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Fear_(film)

solutron 6y ago

Evil doesn't have to have remorselessness or have awareness of it's evil to be evil. Ongwen is clearly traumatized. But, he is also the trauma. The spread of death and despair by his hand has to be adjudicated. Life in prison is the most morally just outcome for him, regardless of whatever reformations or personal developments he might make. Some things can't be undone and the consequences have to be lived with, forever. Like, he could become an international voice for reforming child soldiers, educating policy makers, and literally every good thing he could do with his experience. Yet, he should still be in prison. Forever.

onethought 6y ago
Is prison to punish? Rehabilitate? Or both? I feel like we could be way more creative in how we treat prisoners in how they “repay their debt”. Someone like Ongwen could probably be very valuable in finding and converting other people away from situations similar to his. Or from helping security forces secure against the kind of tactics they used... I don’t know random thoughts, but we can punish someone and have value generated at the same time.
- DaedPsyker 6y ago
  Its purpose is not just those, another is protecting society. I actually think that is its primary function, rehabilitation can be done in better ways. I think jail should only be considered where a threat to the public is posed. This case is an open and shut example of a dangerous threat.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  Even if that were possible, Ongwen may be too damaged to be very effective at such a "punishment." And it would be very cruel to expose him to the same environment which traumatized him enough to make him into a brutal commander.
  - vkou 6y ago
    I have doubts that a Dutch prison is quite the same environment as a child being kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to fight in the LRA.

anm89 6y ago

> The French-American author Jonathan Littell happened to be filming a movie in Obo on the day that Ongwen was extradited. Ongwen gave him a rare 30-minute interview I searched briefly but could not find this footage. Does anybody have access to it?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

chmod600 6y ago

Justice is a process. Processes are important for the simple reason that it's much easier to agree on a process than an outcome. Processes are generally free of context and confounding factors. Mere mortals aren't capable of juding the entirety of one's life, let alone going back generations. So they simply evaluate the question before them about a particular crime. Sure there are a few exceptions, like when someone is insane or lacks intent. But those are usually quite narrow. So justice is following the process, not getting to the heart of a moral issue.