AlertNet VoxBlog: Peace or justice in northern Uganda?
Blogged by: Megan Rowling
LRA leader Joseph Kony speaks to journalists in November 2006. REUTERS file photo by Stuart Price
As the Ugandan government and Lord's Resistance Army rebels head into phase three of peace talks, they face what's likely to be the toughest challenge yet. On the table for discusson: the hyper-sensitive issue of accountability.
Fugitive LRA leader Joseph Kony and four of his commanders are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Kony - who's charged with massacring civilians, rape and abducting children as recruits - has vowed not to sign a peace deal until the indictments are scrapped.
This week, the deputy head of the government's negotiating team, Oryem Okello, said the guerrillas had been advised that making peace first was the best way for them to avoid prison.
While Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni initiated the ICC process, he changed his tune last summer, suggesting that arrest warrents could be cancelled and offering Kony total amnesty if the LRA joined talks and gave up "terrorism".
For now, the situation remains as clear as mud.
At a recent debate on war crimes trials at the London School of Economics, the former chief prosecutor of the U.N. International Crimes Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Richard Goldstone, said Museveni could not simply withdraw his referral of the case to the ICC.
But there is an alternative. "If Uganda wants to avoid the ICC tribunal, it could set up its own credible trials," Goldstone explained.
The emphasis here is on credible. "Sham national proceedings aimed at shielding the accused from responsibility, unfair trials, or even meaningful prosecutions accompanied by a slap-on-the-wrist sentence will not pass muster with the ICC judges who will ultimately decide whether a trial in Uganda is an acceptable alternative," argued Elise Keppler and Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch in a comment piece in the Ugandan Monitor newspaper.
A total amnesty certainly wouldn't fit that bill. Neither, it seems, would the suggestion that's been floated by Kony's tribe, the Acholi, of traditional "Mato Oput" justice. That would involve a reconciliation ritual in which a murderer faces relatives of the victim and admits his crime before both drink a bitter brew made from a tree root mixed with sheep's blood.
Human Rights Watch asserts that only "fair and credible trials" of LRA and Ugandan army members responsible for the conflict's worst crimes will send the message that such atrocities won't be tolerated under the rule of law. This echoes a key criticism of the ICC's approach, which has not charged any Ugandan troops so far, despite what Goldstone described as "overwhelming" evidence of war crimes committed by this side too.
Whether trials involving one or both parties will actually take place - either under national or international jurisdiction - is hard to predict. But one thing experts agree on is that northern Uganda highlights the pitfalls of the wider trend towards "justice in real time", as Leslie Vinjamuri, assistant professor at Georgetown University, calls it.
"Indicting the LRA during a time of war and peace negotiations has very high stakes," she argued at the LSE debate. "When (war crime trials) are least likely to be effective is when the parties participating in the war are also taking part in the peace."
But timing isn't the only issue. Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, suggested in this month's edition of Prospect magazine that the ICC should be more sensitive to local contexts and non-Western concepts of justice and reconciliation.
"Surely it is better for the LRA leaders to perform some ritual and to be given pensions, cars and houses, and for the war to end, than for them to face trial thousands of miles away, with a result that means nothing to their victims while the war continues," he wrote.
A controversial suggestion perhaps - but one that has resonance among the 1.7 million northern Ugandans forced from their homes during the brutal two-decade insurgency. As this Reuters feature reports, for them the priority is peace and the opportunity to resume some kind of normal life.
"We shouldn't overstate the importance of accountability for victims," said Vinjamuri. "There is a gap between what the international community wants and local populations, who have different norms and ways of forgiving."
Thanks in no small part to civil society groups, accountability for war crimes has come to be seen as an issue that should be dealt with not after the transition to peace, but during it.
That raises a whole new set of questions about the complex relationship between justice and peace.
We'd like to hear what you think. Is peace reconcilable with justice in northern Uganda? And what about in Darfur and elsewhere? Are there lessons to be learned from Bosnia, Rwanda or Sierra Leone?
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9 responses to “AlertNet VoxBlog: Peace or justice in northern Uganda?”
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09 May 2007 22:05:09 GMT
Peace. If the people of northern uganda are willing to forgive the LRA in return for peace, given that they are the ones who have been through the nightmare first hand, I think that the ICC should accomodate their needs, over their own self-seeking agenda.
10 May 2007 08:21:01 GMT
Is peace reconciliable with justice" for me I should have said "is justice reconciliable with peace? yes.authorities and those opposed to them can aggree on bringin a sorte of calm or order which is not peace.For peace to be reconciliable with justice there are more factors need to be follwed otherwise...,There have to be respect between gov and rebels authorities on their aggrements instead of one violate them and blame the others and the sufferer are always civilians.
10 May 2007 13:08:02 GMT
The answer to this question is not simply yes or no-Interestingly many of those who are suffering most are from Kony's tribe. So if those children and thier families whom the LRA soldiers have cut lips,ears,teeth, hands and other body parts want to "forgive", fine. But who is funding Kony?Ordinarily these kind of behavior should not be tolerated in this time and era. On other hand nothing much is said about the atrocities committed by the Government of Uganda in northern Uganda. Is ICC saying that the Government army's activities are alright. These are issues that must be factored into any peace process.There must be equitable dispensation on justice for inner peace to reign
10 May 2007 14:48:18 GMT
peace is what we need,criminal trials are important but in a situation where so much pain has been caused, truth and reconciliation may be the way to go. But if Kony and the government troops are pardoned what does that leave for the future? In Darfur etc, wouldn't the same trend be followed? People massacrering and raping knowing that they will later lay down their guns and be pardoned? It is a very complex situation, but hope is on the way.
10 May 2007 17:07:20 GMT
As always the west views peace and justice through the prism of their culture. Let the Ugandan people decide how to dispense justice and upon whom. It is their country, their conflict, their lives that have been uprooted and destroyed.
The ICC is a wonderful court, but should be used only with the consensus of the people involved in the conflict otherwise it may not bring the desired results (peace and justice) and the same people will suffer again.14 May 2007 08:27:59 GMT
Chinese proverb: âIf the roots are not removed during weeding, the weeds will grow again when the winds of spring blow.â Moral: It is essential to finish the task thoroughly or the effort would be wasted. Justice is finishing the task.
I support the ICC and their formidable task, humanitarian law for all, and ardently hope that the Ugandan government's troops who have perpetrated crimes against humanity be brought to justice also.15 May 2007 11:18:41 GMT
The idea that justice and human rights should mean one thing in comfortable western countries, and something completely different in impoverished parts of Africa is, at heart, a racist relic of the colonial era. Trite clichés about "cultural prisms" and "the healing power of forgiveness" are misguided and unhelpful when faced with a situation as extreme as that in Northern Uganda. After World War II, there were Christian leaders in Germany urging a general amnesty for Nazi politicians in the name of "peace". They were wrong then, too.
There is no "cultural prism" when it comes to the value of human life and the rights of victims. There are many in Northern Uganda who want to see real, criminal justice for the abuses they have suffered, not politically-expedient sham "healing ceremonies". The right to justice is as inalienable a right as the right to life and the right not to be tortured. It cannot simply be annulled at the whim of a politician, self-styled "community leader" or misguided Christian bishop. Those victims in Northern Uganda who want to forgive - and think that forgiveness entails giving up their own right to seek justice - are entitled to their views. But neither they nor anyone else have any mandate to take that right away from the many victims who do want to see Joseph Kony and his coterie of killers held to account in a court of law.15 May 2007 15:12:40 GMT
Very good piece Megan. I think that you captured the complexities of the situation and the range of options very well. Musseveni does not have the power to withdraw the indictment (and nor does the ICC prosecutor) but the UN security council can suspend the prosecutions for a renewable 12 month period and that could give time for the sort of alternatives that you have discussed to be attempted.
22 May 2007 08:24:35 GMT
Julie, the West as a culture has no choice but to see issues though their 'cultural goggles', as does every other civilization on earth; the West must therefore must be sensitive when acting on behalf of other nation's. Richard is correct that some aspects of humanity such as respect and honor for human life certainly crosses any and all cultural lines and must be upheld and fought for in human interactions.
Peace and justice are mutually exclusive. They are not interdependent. We must work towards them BOTH regardless of percieved progress or regression in either. Imperfect humans must not demand perfection in this, but should rather find a balanced middle ground on which lasting progress can be built. Let's not forget that when 'two elephants fight, it's the grass beneath that is killed'. The 1.6 million displaced people of N. Uganda, as well as hundreds of thousands in the surrounding regions, must remain the central concern of our advocacy towards peace here. Restoration of dignity and normalcy for 1.6 million people IS possible and we must fight for that!