Theatre of Violence

The International Criminal Court occupies a cubic, functional building in the Hague. It is here, in 2016, that a peculiar battle began between black and blue robes, centred around one man: Dominic Ongwen. Abducted at the age of nine by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan rebel group founded by Joseph Kony – nicknamed the “Bloody Messiah” – he was tortured, and then forced to kill. He claims to be innocent of the 70 war crimes of which he is now accused. He is also the first former child soldier to be charged before the ICC: “a victim who became a persecutor,” summarises his charismatic lawyer, Krispus Ayena. Emil Langballe and Lukasz Konopa followed him and his defence team to Uganda in search of evidence and witnesses, as well as during the court hearings. Presented like a legal thriller, with rare acuity and powerful direction, Theatre of Violence interrogates the workings of western international justice, served far from the burning savannahs, blinded by its legitimacy, seeming to abdicate before the complexity of the situation.

Emmanuel Chicon