Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and Ex-Combatants (Law, Conflict and International Relations) (49 page)
Authors: Unknown
The Lord’s Resistance Army has fought against Museveni almost from the moment that Museveni assumed power. For the most part, however, he has done little to quash their rebellion. One MP speculated openly about the reasons why Museveni has done little to end the conflict:
First, he wants to leave the door open for the inflow of international funds, and so fuels the conflict. Second, Museveni knows that the North is full of opposition; if they were pacified, they would mount serious political opposition, so it’s better to keep them disconnected and devastated politically, socially, and economically. Third, ideologically, Museveni believes that an impoverished society is easier to manage, so it’s better to keep the situation in the north in turmoil.
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Aside from brutal campaigns waged by the UPDF, such as Operation Iron Fist (2002), Museveni seems to have been reluctant to do anything to halt the conflict with the LRA, or to bring them to justice. Throughout all of their interactions, the UPDF has failed to capture the members of the LRA against whom warrants have been issued. There is wide speculation that Museveni simply lacks the heart for their capture.
Even if he could catch them, Museveni has, in fact, backed away from at least two mechanisms of justice and accountability which he put into place. The first is the Amnesty Act (2000), discussed above. As an indication of his unhappiness with the Amnesty process, Museveni formally requested that the ICC investigate the actions of the LRA in December 2003.
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This meant that the future of the Amnesty process was put in doubt. Yet his subsequent indecision regarding the ICC, the establishment of the War Crimes Division of the High Court, and the mounting speculation that Uganda will appeal to the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Court under the “complementarity” clause of the Rome Statute, or the “admissibility” clause, seems to indicate that Museveni has backed away from the ICC referral as well.
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It should be noted that ordinary national courts exist for the hearing of lesser cases in this regard—although these are rather dismally understaffed, “inadequate, vandalised and in some places non-existent.”
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Very few of those cases have, however, ever been heard in any of the available courts. Indeed, the
amnesty has removed much of the need for this, since ex-combatants, once granted amnesty, may not be tried for the same crimes.
While it is the case that, during the height of the conflict, the community in Northern Uganda claimed to want “Peace First, Justice Later,”
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this has now changed. The people of Northern Uganda
do
want accountability, but they are also sensitive to the extreme needs of their community, including what to do with ex-combatants who were abducted; how to deal with those who aided and abetted LRA soldiers, mostly their own young children; and how best they can resume their lives after conflict.
It is particularly interesting to juxtapose the strong and strident outrage that emerged from within communities across Uganda to the perceived imposition of the ICC against the relative silence from those same groups on the emergence of a War Crimes Division of the High Court at the national level, since both bodies are essentially aiming at the same outcome: the prosecution of senior LRA officials. While there has certainly been debate, many from within the international community have been part of the dialogue and have provided technical expertise surrounding the development of the War Crimes Division, now called the International Crimes Division (ICD), including scholars and the diplomatic and donor sector. Likewise, while many voices in Northern Uganda and elsewhere can be heard lamenting the fact that the Court will try suspects in Kampala and that they will not be tried via traditional justice mechanisms, such as
mato oput
, these voices are considerably more muted than on the ICC question.
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This silence is due, in part, to the complexity of the situation, in which many people who have committed crimes have done so because they were forced, through abduction, for example. It is also due to an uncertainty about how the ICC will interact with those measures already in place in Uganda.
Security-Sector Reform
Questions related to the implementation and consolidation of transitional justice are clearly linked to peacebuilding—both in the programmatic and the policy decisions that are being made. One of the most important is the issue of security sector reform (SSR), which is pledged in any number of ways in the documents examined above. For example, the
PRDP
discusses military operations by the UPDF, demobilization of rebel forces, and disarmament of the Karamojong and others
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and pledges to address these and other issues through its “consolidation of state authority” objective.
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It speaks more specifically to reform of the Uganda Police Force,
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the Uganda Prisons Service,
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and the UPDF.
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The
PEAP
, too, notes the critical nature of security needs.
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Yet SSR remains hung up on development-related problems. Further, security force and local defense unit members were involved in killings and extreme torture. Prison conditions were severe. And “the UPDF continued to be constrained by limited resources, including low pay and lack of vehicles, equipment, and training.”
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What ought to be an important facet of any successful peacebuilding or transitional justice strategy is stalled. As such, SSR is not currently being used
to strengthen any of the proposed, existing, or non-existent peacebuilding or transitional justice programming.
DDR
Indeed, questions of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration are also central to both peacebuilding and transitional justice. Yet “DDR” as understood in Uganda is not DDR as understood in the scholarly literature on the topic. Although Uganda has “no formal demobilization process for captured, escaped or rescued LRA child soldiers,”
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the Amnesty Commission is involved in a limited fashion in demobilization and resettlement through a series of satellite teams, called Demobilization and Resettlement Teams (DRT), which operate in districts around Uganda. These teams are responsible to “decommission arms, demobilize, resettle and reintegrate reporters.”
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However, these responsibilities are largely left to other agencies to carry out, and the government plays a fairly minor role overall. “There are six DRT offices around the country … all of which rely heavily on other government agencies, civil society organizations, the community and donors for successful implementation.”
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Non-governmental actors working in Northern Uganda on programs for formerly abducted child soldiers provide the majority of assistance, including psychosocial reintegration and rehabilitation, along with physical treatment. At the height of the conflict, 13 reception centers were in operation in Northern Uganda.
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There is mounting evidence to suggest that a number of ex-combatants failed to pass through the reception centers, although firm numbers are not available.
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Other agencies have also been involved in the rehabilitation of ex-combatants, though outside of the formal reception center model.
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Another form of DDR in Uganda is child recruitment by the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF)—although this is not legitimately DDR, by any definition. When ex-combatant children are captured by the UPDF, they are typically handed over to Child Protection Units for debriefing and medical care, and then transferred to reception centers, discussed further below. There are reports indicating that that some children are being absorbed directly into the UPDF without being sent into the rehabilitation programs.
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There is a long record of ex-combatants being absorbed directly into the ranks of the UPDF; many ex-combatants report being strongly coerced to join.
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Some children, further, report harassment, beatings, and other forms of mistreatment there.
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[T]here is a policy of actively recruiting younger men into local defence forces or into the UPDF, allegedly with a degree of compulsion. A special battalion of the UPDF, the 105th, has been established specifically for this purpose. By the end of 2004, almost eight hundred had been integrated in this way (to the considerable unease of UNICEF and other agencies, because many had participated in atrocities and some were thought to be under-age for recruitment).
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This recruitment or absorption is seen as something of a third option for viable DDR by many in Uganda, along with giving ex-combatants the opportunity to pursue further education, and offering vocational training, although this is certainly not the perspective of the United Nations and other agencies.
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Traditional leaders have also played a strong role in the rehabilitation of formerly abducted children. Simultaneously, and in collaboration with the work of the rehabilitation centers, the Acholi traditional leaders,
Ker Kwaro Acholi
, have taken an active role in reintegrating children back into the community.
Ker Kwaro Acholi
routinely assist returnees to carry out traditional cleansing ceremonies. One is a ceremony called
mato oput
(drinking the bitter herb), and another is called
nyono tong gweno
(a welcome ceremony in which an egg is stepped on over an
opobo
twig). Overall, the ceremonies allow the Acholi to acknowledge that this person has been accepted back into the community, and that the community is pleased to have them back.
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In many cases, these ceremonies appear to have more cultural relevance than other initiatives.
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However, some of the literature has been quite critical of these.
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Rule of Law
The GOU recognizes the “[d]eterioration of law and order … certain districts, particularly in North Eastern Uganda, are affected by continued lawlessness, weak state authority and inter-ethnic clashes”;
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“Law and order … remains weak.”
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As such, the
PRDP
proposes to establish law and order and enhance the functionality of judicial and legal services under its objective to “consolidate state authority.”
While the GOU has pledged to spend approximately US $6,89 million on judicial reform,
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this amounts to just over 1 percent of the total
PRDP
spending— and is roughly one-tenth of what will be spent on areas such as “Woodcover and Community Forestry.” More is budgeted than what the GOU has pledged. The balance of spending in this sector is expected to be picked up, presumably, by international donors.
It is certainly clear that a compelling argument could and should be made concerning the link between rule of law programming and the successful carrying out of transitional justice policies. The consolidation of law and order throughout the country and the rebuilding of the judicial infrastructure would provide a basis for understanding the kinds of accountability measures that might be put in place, as well as prevent more abuses from occurring. Unfortunately, this kind of nuanced argument is completely missing.
Combining Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice: Together, But Not Integrated
In Uganda, processes of peacebuilding and transitional justice are not being run side by side; they are being programmed together. Yet, as demonstrated above, the GOU’s intertwining of peacebuilding and transitional justice, and, further,
with broader development goals, has not managed to improve the promotion of either one. The peacebuilding and transitional justice activities spelled out in the documents outlined above have only partially been achieved. Many have failed outright, or have never been given the chance to succeed.
Given the two competing claims prominent in the literature, that attempting to promote accountability would undermine peacebuilding efforts, or that accountability is essential to peacebuilding, one might expect that the intricate linkages between the two would result in stronger programs on both sides of the equation. In Uganda, quite the opposite is true; accountability and peacebuilding programming is weak throughout the country, and particularly in Northern Uganda. Coupled as it is with development policies and plans, peacebuilding and transitional justice appear to get lost in the jumble of ideas that are thrown around in post-conflict settings. In the end, very little of either one is actually carried out.
Transitional justice has failed in Uganda; peacebuilding has not succeeded either. Rather than finding evidence of any clear will to carry out either one, many of the ideas presented in the national plans and discussed here amount to no more than a “wish list.” While transitional justice and peacebuilding efforts certainly need to be funded to a much higher degree, and taken more seriously than has been done until now, this is only part of the story. The coordination of actors and programs in both peacebuilding and transitional justice also requires a significant level of care that is missing at the present time.
Uganda is a country in which “transitional justice” is being applied before any kind of actual transition has taken place. If the use of transitional justice in Uganda is premature, it might only be natural for problems endemic to pre-transitional situations to abound. The expected outcomes in this case cannot be the same as for truly transitional societies, and expectations will have to be adjusted. It is, however, difficult to tell whether accountability measures already in place in Uganda actually affect the overall peacebuilding process.
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The GOU has been forced to deal with questions of accountability—or, at least, to make it look as though it is doing so—not least because of the presence of the ICC and the situation under review by the Court. To be sure, the referral of the situation in Northern Uganda to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC in many ways triggered a series of inventions and interventions which remain, still, to be clarified. The legitimacy of those who negotiated the Juba Agreements and the outcome of these agreements are also unclear.