As a young boy Thomas Kwoyelo excelled at mathematics and piano playing. He was a good shot with a homemade catapult. His mother, Roselina Oyella, remembers that he rose early in the mornings to lend a hand on the family farm, and always insisted on clearing away trash left in front of their home. It was this discipline, perhaps, that would make Kwoyelo a model soldier – a grim predicator of the years he later spent as a senior-ranking colonel with the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA.
The group terrorized northern Uganda for more than two decades, abducting thousands of children to serve in its ranks. Kwoyelo himself was taken in 1987 and turned into a soldier. Now, he is the only member of the LRA to be tried for war crimes in a Ugandan court. His case has dragged on for 13 years, with the accused spending nearly as much time in a prison cell in the capital Kampala as he did with the rebels, and the court meant to try him frequently running out of money to proceed. Meanwhile, some of those impacted by the war have questioned whether he should be charged at all, arguing that Kwoyelo is, himself, a victim of the LRA.
