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thousands of children, should also make the case benefit from the exception to the rule
that requires exhaustion of local remedies. There is jurisprudence from the African
Commission that violations of rights on a large scale that were well documented over a
long period of time in the international community need not necessarily exhaust local
remedies as the state has presumed awareness of the serious human rights violations
in the country/region.
28.
In the presence of these facts and arguments, and jurisprudence supporting the
arguments, the Committee is of the view that the case should benefit from an exception
to the rule of exhaustion of local remedies. It is therefore declared admissible.
29.
In its written submission, and during the oral arguments, the Respondent State
has raised a number of points objecting to the admissibility of the Communication. For
instance, the Respondent State argued that while the violations of rights alleged to have
been committed are provided for under the Charter, and the notion of imputing
responsibility of private persons onto the Government could be made as an argument
the Government has undertaken various measures in addressing the alleged rights
violated under the Charter( is not a clear sentence; may be it would be better if put this
way “for instance the respondent state argued that the government has undertaken
various measures in addressing the alleged violations even if the rights are provided
under the charter and the notion of imputing private persons’ responsibility onto the
government could be raised as a violation. . The Respondent State also contended that
since “the authors also say that the northern part of Uganda was very insecure thereby
making the gathering of information impossible…one wonders that if this was the case,
then this evidence being used came from nowhere but from rumors, sensational media
reports, publications and the CSOs which already had pre-conceived views against the
positive measures that Government was taking”.
30.
An argument has also been made that due to the fact that a case against the
LRA was referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the Government of
Uganda on 16th December 2003, and since the subject matter of this Communication is
related to the matter before the ICC in the above case against the LRA, there are two
parallel processes, and that the Communication does not comply with the requirement
on admissibility.
31.
The Respondent State has also challenged the assertion by the Complainants
that there were no available, effective and adequate channels of redress in Uganda due
to the impact of the war and that the area was very insecure to move by road and that
due to the big number of victims involved, the Government of Uganda and its channels
of redress would not have been able to handle the magnitude of the case. Among
others, the respondent State contended that it is not true that the only means of
transport was by air because several people were moving by road and security forces
were put at intervals; at no time in this episode was any part of Northern Uganda