Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and Ex-Combatants (Law, Conflict and International Relations) (8 page)

Beyond the specific example of Burundi, the question remains, just what the exact modalities of the PBC’s engagement with transitional justice mechanisms should be. Particularly once transitional justice mechanisms have been identified as a priority by the PBC in a given country, the question of how those mechanisms should relate to and be coordinated with other priorities is also raised. One such area is that of DDR, which, together with transitional justice, forms one of the pillars of the strategic framework in Burundi.

DDR and the United Nations System

DDR programs have become a staple of post-conflict programming, with some 34 DDR programs created between 1994 and 2005.
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The UN defines DDR as a:

In addition to the last seven peacekeeping operations established by the UN Security Council, which have all included DDR in their mandate,
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the UN is also supporting DDR programs in many countries where there is not a UN peacekeeping operation.
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UN support for DDR programs may come from the DPKO, the UNDP, or a combination of UN entities.

With a historic focus on short-term security and trading guns for cash, many DDR programs have been criticized for their “narrow focus and short-term approach.”
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Over time, the disappointing results of many DDR programs, particularly when it comes to the reintegration component, have led the UN to stress
the need for a more “integrated” approach.
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This culminated in the 2006 launch of the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS), a policy guide that sets forth best practices for DDR programming and the various ways in which it can and should be linked with other post-conflict programmatic areas, including transitional justice.
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Transitional Justice and DDR; Tensions and Overlap

Bringing together the pillars of the United Nations—peace and security, development, and human rights—into an integrated approach to peacebuilding is a task fraught with both difficulty and exciting potential. This is especially true in programmatic areas that share some overlap and common purpose, but which also have the potential to conflict with each other. DDR and transitional justice are two such areas. In the post-conflict context, there is often a tension between the needs of stability and security on the one hand, and the exigencies of accountability and human rights on the other. When any institution, including the PBC, starts to grapple as a policy matter with the intersection of DDR and transitional justice, it too must confront these tensions.

Historically, DDR has not been thought of as an element of transitional justice, and there have been few formal institutional linkages between DDR programs and transitional justice mechanisms in practice.
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The lack of coordination has at times resulted in lost opportunities. For example, it has been reported that some former combatants in Sierra Leone feared that the national commission for DDR was sharing their photographs with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Better coordination, in this instance, might have resulted not in sharing the type of information feared by the former combatants, but in anticipating the confusion at an earlier stage and working to quell such misinformation at multiple levels.
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Improved coordination between DDR and transitional justice programs might result in new opportunities, an idea that will be explored in more depth later on in this chapter.

Part of the reason for the disconnect between the two realms is that transitional justice and DDR are seen to serve different constituencies for different purposes. If transitional justice practices, such as truth-telling and prosecutions, serve the needs of “victims,” DDR serves those of “perpetrators.”
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If transitional justice mechanisms focus on the needs of justice, accountability, and the rule of law, DDR serves the needs of military and short-term security objectives.
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However, despite the potential to work at cross-purposes, DDR programs and transitional justice mechanisms share a number of common goals. According to one UN definition, the aims of transitional justice include ensuring accountability, serving justice, achieving reconciliation, and the prevention of human rights violations in the future.
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The IDDRS similarly underscore the centrality of DDR programs to preventing renewed violence, encouraging trust and confidence, and reconciliation.
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The importance of furthering the shared aims of trust-building, prevention of renewed violence, and reconciliation, and of simultaneously managing potential tensions, underscores the need for better coordination.

In practice, the tangled web of victim and perpetrator in post-conflict societies presents enormous peacebuilding challenges. Treating these groups as discrete categories or constituencies to be served by entirely separate processes, or the “separate tracks” approach, can prove to be problematic for both DDR and transitional justice programs. For example, provision of reinsertion and reintegration benefits to former combatants, when victims in the same community receive nothing, could lead to the impression that combatants are being rewarded for bad behavior, and potentially hinder reintegration.
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In a similar way, fear of truth-telling and other transitional justice processes on the part of ex-combatants, fueled in part by the perception that these are victim-only affairs, might hinder reconciliation. The reality is that both groups, victim and perpetrator, must live together in the aftermath of conflict. Going forward, addressing the needs of both constituencies in a more integrated way might be accomplished through better coordination between DDR and transitional justice programs.

The IDDRS is without doubt a large step forward in building on best practices from previous programs and making integrated approaches to DDR a reality. At the same time, the permissive modalities it establishes for coordination with transitional justice programs do not go far beyond the case-by-case coordination that could have existed prior to its publication. For example, the IDDRS indicates that any necessary coordination can take place between OHCHR representatives and DDR practitioners or between human rights officers who work as part of the UN peacekeeping missions and DDR initiatives. While these are important channels of communication, and the establishment of working-level “focal points” for both DDR and transitional justice within different agencies would be a positive step, it should also be noted that OHCHR may not always be involved in transitional justice processes around the world where the UN nevertheless finds itself working. Individual human rights officers working in peacekeeping missions may find themselves overwhelmed with ordinary reporting duties or lack the big picture perspective or expertise to help devise integrated strategies. Thus, the need for day-to-day coordination at an operational level is essential, but avoiding the tensions between DDR programs and transitional justice initiatives and exploiting synergies arising out of common goals will also require high-level planning and forethought. The “symphony conductor” for such a process is a role that could in many instances be played by the PBC, at least for those countries on its agenda.

The Challenge of the PBC: Towards a More Integrated Approach

Although individual states and some institutions might choose to continue to view DDR through a primarily military and security lens, the PBC does not have this luxury. The UN has wide-ranging commitments to human rights and accountability, and has mainstreamed rights-based approaches throughout much of its programming. Peacekeeping operations have been increasingly mandated to promote and protect human rights and to help build the rule of law. The IDDRS
has established the importance of more integrated approaches to DDR, including better coordination with transitional justice processes. Taken together with the PBC’s core mandate to develop and propose integrated solutions to peacebuilding challenges, bridging the gap between DDR and transitional justice programs is a challenge that the PBC must face.

Exactly how the PBC should go about bridging the gap between DDR programs and transitional justice initiatives remains an open question. One serious challenge for the PBC in this regard is that, because there have historically been no linkages between DDR programs and transitional justice mechanisms, there are few if any best practices when it comes to better coordination. The PBC might also face resistance in some quarters from DDR practitioners who argue that linkages with transitional justice mechanisms go beyond the scope of DDR, resulting in a danger of dilution and overreach.
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One might argue that it is hard enough to do DDR well, even with a narrowly focused program, and anything more risks becoming unmanageable. In partial response, it might be said that DDR programs have failed in the past in part because they were narrowly construed and they too easily traded off the quantifiable “deliverables” of guns collected and cash dispersed against the more vexing and long-term goal of reintegration.
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Given past failures in this regard, there is likely much to be gained from new approaches. It should also be noted that one further challenge to better coordination is that DDR programs are often carried out in the immediate aftermath of conflict, whereas transitional justice programs often take years to be initiated. If this lack of synchronicity occasionally alleviates some sequencing challenges, such as the likelihood of prosecutions taking place concurrently with disarmament, it may also result in missed opportunities, such as the chance to better dovetail the reconciliation components of transitional justice programs with DDR reintegration efforts, as discussed in more detail below. Finally, it is worth recalling that the PBC does not work from a blank slate, as the parameters for potential peacebuilding activities are often shaped in part by the peace settlement itself, including power-sharing arrangements and some of the modalities of DDR.

The development of more integrated approaches to the various pillars of peacebuilding, including DDR and transitional justice, would not require wholesale reinvention of the respective fields, nor is integration a fetish to be pursued for its own sake. It is not a question of turning DDR into an arm of the transitional justice enterprise, or removing the focus on accountability and victim empowerment from transitional justice. Rather, the development of more integrated approaches to DDR and transitional justice through better coordination would likely involve incremental strategic shifts in planning and praxis to better serve the common goals of both fields.

At a policy level, focus on the goals common to both DDR and transitional justice might involve several shifts. First, a more integrated approach to both fields would involve greater emphasis on the often forgotten “R” of DDR, reintegration, “the weakest link in the DDR chain.”
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There is much room for improvement over previous efforts. For example, a 2007 study on DDR in Sierra
Leone concluded that combatants who did not participate in DDR were reintegrated as successfully as those who did.
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One of the most powerful means of furthering reintegration of perpetrators may be through reconciliation activities at the community level. To this end, practices associated with transitional justice could be an important component.
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For example, truth-telling on the part of both victims and perpetrators has been an important component of reconciliation efforts in many countries. While fear of prosecution is often thought to limit willingness to participate in DDR programs, in practice most prosecutions after mass atrocity are limited to the biggest perpetrators. With proper sensitization of key constituencies, this may have the effect of satisfying the victims’ need to see justice done, while making it clear that most combatants were not among the worst offenders and can be reconciled to their community.
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In sum, it can be argued that, in order to accomplish the goals of DDR, the “R” for reintegration must also stand for greater emphasis on reconciliation.
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This in turn implies that the security and stability that come with proper reintegration of ex-combatants are not merely a function of disarmament and jobs as suggested by the current UN definition,
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but disarmament, jobs, and reconciliation, which cannot be separated from broader justice initiatives.

In tandem with greater emphasis on reintegration and reconciliation, a more integrated approach to both fields would involve a shift from emphasis on a single constituency, be it perpetrator or victim, to one that takes greater account of multiple constituencies and blurred constituencies (such as those who have been both perpetrator and victim), and their need to live together in the aftermath of conflict. As is increasingly recognized, to achieve success, DDR programs must focus not just on combatants, but also on the communities where they are to resettle.
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In a similar way, transitional justice initiatives such as truth commissions cannot serve all of their intended purposes without fuller participation of perpetrators.

Beyond emphasis on reintegration, a more integrated approach to both fields would likely involve greater focus on human-rights-vetting to ensure that abusive former combatants are not simply channeled into reconstituted security services, hampering reconciliation efforts and the credibility of reforms. Linking DDR to larger security sector reform in this way would serve the common goal of both DDR and transitional justice to prevent recurrence of violence. Finally, a more integrated approach to both fields would suggest a greater incorporation of human rights sensibilities into the design of DDR programs from the outset. Such a justice-oriented approach to DDR would perhaps more instinctually look to gender concerns in the DDR process, which has historically been a blind spot in many DDR programs, with many women associated with fighting forces unnecessarily excluded from the process.
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