Museveni’s tactics to evade the ICC won’t work
Museveni the bloody dictator has been working around the clock to prevent the opening of an ICC investigation into the crimes committed by his security forces, on his direct orders. The tyrant has deployed his spin doctors on different fronts.

First, foreign affairs minister Sam Kutesa responded to the US Secretary of State - on accusations against the Museveni regime of widespread human rights abuses - by denying the very crimes the police, the interior minister and the army had confessed to weeks ago. These are abductions, kidnap, and disappearance of hundreds of opposition supporters. Kutesa tried to minimized the death toll of the November massacre and tried to justify the killing of innocent bystanders whose crime was to witness Museveni’s killers rampaging through Kampala.

Recently, the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ephraim Kamuntu, told Daily Monitor on Tuesday that investigations are underway to determine who among the victims of the November massacre is entitled to compensation. Months later, victims have not been compensated and no one has been held accountable. Instead the government is shifting the responsibility upon the opposition. “These people would not have died if there were no riots. They lost their lives because some people engineered the riots,” Kamuntu claimed, disregarding the evidence that shows regime forces shooting at peaceful bystanders, or targeting people hiding in their homes and offices at the time.

But feigning to investigate, alongside outright denial, denial of responsibility and minimization of the gravity of the crime, is a known tactic to evade the ICC. Indeed, “the Rome Statute recognizes that States have the first responsibility and right to prosecute crimes against humanity.” But the ICC can exercise jurisdiction where national legal systems fail to do so, including where they purport to act but in reality are unwilling to genuinely carry out proceedings.”

There is no doubt that Museveni’s courts are unwilling to go after the killers - which means going after the boss of the killers! The theatrics before the press in which Museveni’s officials pretend to investigate are just that: theatrics.

But they won’t evade Justice forever.