Vicky Esquivel-Korsiak

On November 15, 2012 JRP hosted its first annual Dissemination Forum to showcase five publications produced in the past calendar year. The Forum drew 65 participants from across northern Uganda and Kampala representing victims groups, religious leaders, advocates and other stakeholders. Through the Forum, JRP was able to highlight issues and recommendations arising from its research, including how these recommendations can be carried forward by activists and communities. The Forum also provided an opportunity to elicit feedback on the reports and how JRP can continue to improve its work.

The reports disseminated included:

The Day They Came: Recounting the LRA’s Invasion of Teso Sub-Region through Obalanga Sub-County in 2003. This field note explores the impacts of the LRA incursion into Teso sub-region using case studies and victims’ testimonies from the sub-county of Obalanga in Amuria District.

When a Gunman Speaks, You Listen: Victims’ Experiences and Memories of Conflict in Palabek Sub-County, Lamwo District. This field note focuses on Palabek’s history from 1986 to the present based on victims’ testimonies and information provided by interviewees.

Paying Back What Belongs to Us: Victims’ Groups in Northern Uganda and their Quests for Reparation. This report serves to illuminate the current state, emergence and development of different victims’ groups and associations throughout the Greater North of Uganda and to highlight their activities and demands.

Gender and Generation in Acholi Traditional Justice Mechanisms. This report seeks to understand how traditional ceremonies are helpful to women and youth, and whether such ceremonies are relevant to the unique concerns women and youth face in post-conflict recovery.

The Uganda Reconciliation Barometer 2012. This report measures the attitudes and perceptions of northern Ugandans on critical justice and reconciliation issues since the end of the LRA conflict in Acholi sub-region.

 The reports were well received by all stakeholders and JRP was encouraged to continue improving its research through the use of new methodologies such as that employed in the UG Barometer report.  Across the various discussions participants continually returned to the plight of victims and survivors. Across the North, reparations and compensation are seen as key to communities rebuilding and moving forward. Participants discussed whether a national or regional compensation policy would be more appropriate, and whether the government, who comes up with the policy, should also be in charge of its implementation given the alarming rise of corruption in Uganda. Participants agreed that future meetings should try to bring more government representatives to the table not only to learn about JRP’s research, but to engage in a true dialogue about possible solutions to the plight of victims and survivors.

JRP plans to repeat the forum in late 2013 where it will present four new field notes and the next phase of the UG Reconciliation Barometer focusing on Lango sub-region. 

Oryem Nyeko

FOLLOWING A LAUNCH  in Kampala, the Justice and Reconciliation Project and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) held the Gulu launch of their most recent report “Unredressed Legacy: Possible Policy Options and Approaches to Fulfilling Reparations in Uganda” on Thursday, 21 February 2013. The event was attended by representatives of northern Uganda CSOs and war victims’ associations such as the Kitgum Women Peace Initiative, the Women’s Advocacy Network and the Moyo Town War Victims Association. It served both as the official launch for many that contributed to its content and as an opportunity for discussion and feedback on the way forward for reparations in Uganda.

A “practical document”

Intended to be a “practical document” for to be presented to the government, the report makes clear what direction reparations in Uganda should take in the view of the ICTJ, JRP and victims’ groups. Drawing on challenges and successes of reparation policies in Peru, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste, the report discusses the need to establish a legal reparations framework and how such a policy should be framed and implemented in Uganda.

Why now?

The report notes that under international law the state is responsible for reparations for its own actions as well as those of the LRA and other non-state actors as “the primary duty bearer for guaranteeing human rights, pursuing accountability, and delivering justice and reparation to victims”.

Discussions on reparations, and the form they should take, have been on the table since the Juba Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation was signed in 2007. Despite this, the Government has implemented only ad hoc initiatives in the form of development and humanitarian aid programmes. This report suggests that now is the time to design and implement a comprehensive reparations programme for victims of conflict in northern Uganda that is distinct from these past interventions.

A reparations policy for whom?

The report proposes that the Government implement both an urgent and a comprehensive reparations policy. It stresses the importance of specifically defining who should be eligible, why, and when to avoid ambiguity and the creation of unrealistic expectation – ultimately, the policy should acknowledge as many victims as possible and allow specific material forms of reparation while prioritising those that need them most. For each component of the proposed programme, the report suggests potential lead institutions, such as the Ministry of Health and District Local Government for meeting psychosocial support needs, and identifies the steps required to move forward as well as the potential delivery modalities.

Way forward, recommendations, discussions and implementation

Implementing the programme would require consultation with local government and communities, working with war victim associations, supervision of the implementation at community level by technical government staff, as well as constant dialogue with existing service providers, such as local school teachers, hospital administrators and social workers, who may provide some of the solutions to practical problems. On the issue of funding, the report calls for the creation of a reparations fund under the national budget, narrowing the types of violations which would be eligible for reparations and limiting the amount to what government can deliver over time.

An English version of the report and summaries in Lugbara, Acholi, Langi and Iteso were distributed and are available on JRP’s website. 

Grace Acan

DURING THIS QUARTER, the Gender Justice Unit was able to implement the following activities under its three programmatic areas.

Under our Legal Programme, we have been conducting a survey on gender needs in transitional justice in northern Uganda. The purpose of the survey was to establish unique needs of both women and men in post conflict northern Uganda as well as to identify gender gaps in ongoing transitional justice processes. Last year we conducted interviews and focus group discussions in five Districts and this year we have been compiling the data as well as preparing to begin verification workshops in the five Districts. We hope to launch the findings in early April.

Under the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN), the department held two meetings with the representatives of various groups belonging to WAN. The purpose of these meetings was to review activities implemented by WAN last year as well as discuss which activities WAN will be conducting this year. During the meetings, the members agreed to expand community outreaches from four communities to six communities, discussed topics of the radio talk shows and the need to continue with activities from last year which include mediation and tracing of children’s paternal families, a very important aspect of the Acholi culture. They also discussed doing advocacy both at local and national level..

Under the Ododo wa program, the department integrated three new groups. These groups are based in Pader, Koch and Atiak. The department held a first meeting with the groups to introduce themselves, the project as well as assess the needs of their members. We shall be meeting the groups quarterly to hold storytelling sessions with them.

Other activities that the department implemented included an end of year evaluation meeting.  Since the department was established at the beginning of 2012, the meeting was important to evaluate our work, its impact, lessons learnt and way forward. During this meeting, the department was able to decide activities and priority areas to work on in 2013.

The department also conducted a gender mainstreaming workshop for the organisation. The objective of the one day training was to train staff on gender and how to incorporate gender aspects in the work of the various department. 

Oryem Nyeko

IN RECENT MONTHS, the LRA conflict has been the centre of a wave of international interest that seemed, on the face of it, to come out of nowhere. It started in 2012 when a worldwide internet campaign was used to bring the conflict, its alleged perpetrators and its after effects to the forefront of global consciousness. The most recent development is under the ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme, an initiative of the United States’ State Department, which has brought the hunt for Joseph Kony and the remaining commanders of the rebel group back to the fore.

‘Rewards’ is essentially a bounty-hunter’s dream – millions of dollars are being offered by the US Government for information that will lead to the capture of notorious wanted international criminals. The programme was initially focused on combating international terrorism and drug trafficking. Since its inception in 1984 it had paid up to $125 million in rewards. Following the recent storm of media attention on the LRA conflict, US President Barack Obama signed in early 2013 into law a Bill that extended the programme to indictees of international tribunals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide this year. While Joseph Kony was not initially listed as wanted under the programme, he’s been one of several ‘poster boys’ for the new law. In an official statement issued when the law was passed President Obama said:

This powerful new tool can be used to help bring to justice perpetrators of the worst crimes known to human kind. This includes individuals such as Joseph Kony and other leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), as well as certain commanders of M23 and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) … We have made unmistakably clear that the United States is committed to seeing war criminals and other perpetrators of atrocities held accountable for their crimes, and today’s legislation can help us achieve that goal.

‘Rewards’ is just one in a series of initiatives that reflect increased commitment to ending the LRA conflict by the international community. In 2011, military advisors were sent by the American government to lend support to the Ugandan, Congolese and Sudanese governments in order to “kill or capture” Kony and in 2012 the African Union announced that it was sending 5000 troops to conduct that hunt. What do these kind of efforts mean for transitional justice in northern Uganda, where the brunt of the war was felt the most? And does it matter that they are being made now, decades after the conflict began?

“At the peak of the conflict, there were cries of agony and pain from the suffering people of northern Uganda asking for international help and support,” retired Kitgum Diocese Reverend Bishop Macleord Ochola told me in an interview earlier this year, “Unfortunately, [the] international community neither had eyes to see us, nor ears to listen to our cries. We became invisible people.”

In 2008, Operation Lightning Thunder, an offensive by the governments of the DRC, Uganda and Sudan with support from the US, famously resulted in the killing of up to 100 villagers in the DRC as an act of retaliation by the LRA. Bishop Ochola, who participated in the 2007 Juba peace talks, and as recently as 2012 traveled to Banjul in the Central African Republic with other Acholi religious leaders to attempt peaceful discussion with the LRA, was wary of the timing of Rewards for Justice.

“When the Government launched Operation Lightening Thunder [in 2008] there were cries of agony and pain from the people of [the] DRC, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, but the international community kept quiet. After three years they raised the profile of Joseph Kony. The question is – why now? Why should they have special interest to put an end to the conflict of the LRA, when in fact during the peak of the conflict they kept quiet?” he asked.

It must be noted that these kind of military interventions are aimed not just at ending the conflict or capturing Joseph Kony, but at protecting civilians from abduction, torture or death. In the past few years, the LRA has been reported to have been responsible for attacks on several villages and towns in the region, resulting in the forced displacement of many families. According to a 2011 UNHCR report, there have been abductions, indiscriminate killings as well as torture and mutilation in villages and towns in north-eastern Congo by the LRA.

To put this into context: all of this happened after the Juba peace talks collapsed in 2008 when Joseph Kony withdrew from the talks, citing his fear of capture and trial by the ICC. Also, in May of 2012, the period for amnesty set up in Uganda’s Amnesty Act expired – meaning that LRA returnees are not guaranteed protection from being prosecuted for their actions while they were in the bush. Furthermore, the question of amnesty is still up for review with former LRA commander, Thomas Kwoyelo’s, eligibility being under deliberation by Uganda’s Supreme Court.

Is the hunt the only solution?

Despite the efforts of the regional governments and the United States to end the conflict over the years the fact is that the LRA remains alive. Numerous alternatives to military interventions exist – many of which have been documented by organisations like JRP – such as those examining the effects of traditional justice, the value of truth-telling and the importance of disseminating accurate information about the ICC and other international justice mechanisms to both victims and perpetrators. Transparent, expedited prosecution processes may also incentivise Kony and other rebel leaders to return peacefully, as could resolving the ambiguous amnesty issue.

Ultimately, international attention should be focused on finding solutions that both resolve the conflict and give the opportunity for accountability that is sensitive to the interests and experiences of the actual victims of the conflict. This would go a long way to securing peace in the region and satisfying the need for answers about what happened during the two decade conflict. 

Katherine Payne, Lizzy Chenery and Marijn van de Geer (Resolution:Possible)

RESOLUTION:POSSIBLE WAS FOUNDED in 2010 as a UK based campaign against the Lord’s Resistance Army. Very soon it became clear, through conversations and interactions with people in and from the region, that the situation in northern Uganda was far more complex than we had been led to believe. Through further research we realised that all the tensions and conflicts in the Great Lakes Region are very much connected. We were therefore no longer comfortable being a ‘single issue campaign’ presenting issues with clear cut solutions. Instead we realised there was an urgent need to get as much information from as many different voices on the table as possible.

 What happens when we only hear the loudest voices

The stories that we hear through British media about justice relating to conflicts in Africa are within the context of international courts such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone and now the International Criminal Court (ICC). No mention is made of local or national justice mechanisms, which leads people here to believe that these are the only judicial routes available. Here in London, it can therefore be easy to assume there are no national judicial systems in place in the country in question.

Recently President Obama announced amendments to Rewards for Justice, extending rewards to anyone who can provide information that leads to the arrest of people indicted by the ICC. To an outsider, the combination of these schemes of international intervention can look as though Africa does not have the mechanisms to deal with these crimes themselves. An international court in The Hague is needed to try their criminals. An international monetary incentive is needed to capture their criminals. These are the ‘loudest voices’ in the West, and so it is no surprise that this is what most people believe.

During our trip in the African Great Lakes region in October we spoke to various people who made it clear that the ICC is not as unquestionably accepted as it is in the West. Accountability was high on the agenda in almost all of our meetings. People we spoke to raised questions of the integrity and also the relevance of the ICC, and other incentives like it, for those people actually affected by these conflicts. Is there a space for local justice systems such as mato oput when talking about accountability and prosecution? Is it enough for local people to have perpetrators go through mato oput, or do they place more value on a high profile trial in The Hague? Perhaps a combination of the two is preferable, where integration back into society is also a priority.

 A TRC for everyone

In the wake of the recent corruption scandals in Uganda, a politician told us that the only way out of the cycle for Uganda and East Africa was a full truth telling commission; A space for transparency about the history of the region. Only through this space for learning and sharing could there be a chance for a fair society.

The idea of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is of course nothing new for this region, with the TRC dealing with the 1994 killings in Rwanda in 1994 and Burundi having one in the pipeline for over 10 years. What if we were to increase the scope of the TRC? Through our research it has been very clear how connected the conflicts in the Great Lakes Region are to each other, and the rest of the world.  What if there was a TRC that looked at all parties involved, currently and historically? Not just those people who are obviously involved such as Joseph Kony, but also the governments in the region as well as western politicians involved in the region? We should then also look at the CEOs of corporations active in these countries and even ourselves here in London, paying our taxes, buying our mobile phones, donating money, buying imported food and flowers.

 Creating connections

With our case study region of the Great Lakes Region, which we chose because of our initial interest in the LRA and northern Uganda, we look at the mineral wealth of the region, and how it feeds into our economies back home. We look at how our donations to certain charities are spent, how our taxes are spent by our governments on international aid, how our banks invest our money. And then on the next level, how all countries in the African Great Lakes region are connected from a historical, political and economic point of view as well as western countries historically and now with many economic stakes.

Ultimately, we truly believe that fair justice and sustainable peace cannot exist so long as not all parties involved in the conflicts are held accountable. We need to look further than placing the blame on individuals. We hope for a more comprehensive way of looking at accountability, incorporating all parties involved. 

 Resolution:Possible is a discussion platform focused on conflicts, their causes and our connections to them. Find out more about the organisation at http://www.resolutionpossible.org.

Kasiva Mulli and Olive Ederu

The conflict in northern Uganda was a bitter pill to women who became victims of various forms of sexual and gender based violations. Those who were abducted were forced to marriage at a very young age, subjected to rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancies and infection of sexually transmitted diseases. Those who managed to avoid abduction did not escape this form of violence. Camp life was often characterised by rape, infection of HIV/AIDS and a lack of proper reproductive health services to respond to these violations. The Government of Uganda in its response to the sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) related crimes that were committed during the conflict, agreed and signed the Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation negotiated during the Juba peace talks. The agreement sought to address “serious crimes, human rights violations and adverse socio-economic and political impacts” and stipulated that special needs of women and children need to be recognised and addressed.

In July 2008, the Government established the International Crimes Division (ICD), a specialised division of the High Court of Uganda with jurisdiction over international crimes including crimes against humanity and war crimes. In May 2010, the Rome Statute was domesticated in Uganda and adopted as the International Criminal Court (ICC) Act 2010 and expressed the Government’s commitment to investigate and prosecute international crimes in Uganda’s domestic courts. In addition to this the Juba Peace Agreement incorporated gender aspects in line with international instruments such as the United Nations Security Council resolution 1325/00. The big question is: how has prosecution as a mechanism of transitional justice responded to these crimes committed in northern Uganda?

In 2004 the International Criminal Court opened investigations into the Ugandan situation and issued arrest warrants for five top commanders of the LRA. Currently only three arrests warrants stay effective as the other two commanders are presumed dead. Among the three, only one commander, Joseph Kony, is charged with sexual slavery as a crime against humanity.  In 2011, the ICD commenced its first trial of Thomas Kwoyelo for war crimes and crimes against Humanity. Thomas Kwoyelo was a commander in charge of the sick bay in the LRA and out of the 73 counts with which he was charged with, none includes offenses against SGBV related crimes.

In addition to this, the Rome statute which was domesticated in 2010 cannot be applied for prosecution of crimes that occurred before that date under the principle of non-retrospectivity. Thus sexual and gender based crimes committed before 2010 can only be tried under the provisions provided for in the Penal Code as well as provisions of the Geneva Conventions on international humanitarian law which have also been domesticated in Uganda. These laws are not adequate to deal comprehensively with sexual and gender based crimes that occurred during the conflict. The Geneva Conventions provide for the crimes of sexual and gender based violence as outrages upon personal dignity but they are not treated on the same level as torture or murder. In addition to this, women who were sexually abused but engaged in combat and were presumed combatants are not protected by this clause.

The same simplification is also applied to the definition of these crimes under the Ugandan Penal Code where they are treated as offences against morality but not offences that affect the physical and mental wellbeing of girls and women. Furthermore under the Ugandan criminal justice system which primarily relies on the Penal Code Act, the standard of proof is “beyond reasonable doubt”. Where a person is accused of rape, the prosecution must produce cogent proof, such as medical evidence, to pin the accused person in addition to other evidence such as the identification of the accused by the victim(s). Considering that in conflict situations where the victim will most likely not undergo medical examination or be able to identify the perpetrators in the cases of gang rape, it is often impossible to adduce satisfactory evidence against the accused person. Thus perpetrators often escape conviction because the prosecution is unable to attain the set standards of “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Another inadequacy in international law is the lack of provisions which address the crime of forced marriage The drafters of the Rome statute argued that the crime of sexual slavery comprehensively covered elements associated with crime of forced marriage but this stance has started to be questioned especially because of the conflict in Sierra Leone where forced marriage was rampant. The Appeals chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the case of P vs Brima, Kamara and Kanu held that forced marriage was a distinct crime different from sexual slavery because unlike sexual slavery forced marriage included the tag “wife”. Girls were forcefully assigned to men and were expected to undertake domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning and carrying loads. In return they got protection from their “husbands” as well as provisions. This is not comprehensively covered under the crime of sexual slavery. Many scholars have described this crime as ‘conjugal association’. 

Since the war in northern Uganda began in 1986, many young girls were abducted by the LRA and in addition to becoming porters, escorts and/or being forced to engage in combat, they were forced to become “wives” to the male fighters and commanders. The LRA were very strict on “marriage”. This was the only way one was supposed to engage in any sexual activity. Thus this conjugal association goes beyond sexual slavery because sexual offences only formed part of the crimes subjected to the girls while, other non sexual elements like abduction, enslavement, degrading treatment do not form part of the elements of sexual slavery. Those who suffered sexual violence under the hands of the UPDF also do not have access to justice for those crimes.

Thanks to ad hoc tribunals and much lobbying from female advocates and gender activists, the jurisprudence regarding prosecution of sexual and gender based violence has grown tremendously. In fact, the codification of these crimes under the Rome Statute is credited to the work of these tribunals. However, prosecuting these crimes has always proven to be a challenge. Prosecutors are always shy to include these charges in indictments citing difficulty in investigations, getting witnesses to testify among other reasons but this is not reason enough to ignore these crimes.

 As much as Uganda’s legal framework secures accountability for SGBV related crimes, it is important to note that poor implementation has greatly hampered its intentions. The failure to charge Thomas Kwoyelo with having committed SGBV related crimes, to acknowledge forced marriage as a crime, to design a legal framework to respond to SGBV related crimes committed before adoption of the ICC Act 2010 reflecting their unique elements, by a way of a retrospective law has left women survivors of conflict still yearning for accountability. Because women suffer a lot in conflict situations, the body of a woman has been a battle field and not having a comprehensive way to deal with these crimes sends a message that victims of such crimes are secondary. 

Isaac Okwir Odiya

IN THE YEAR 2012, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) and the Grass Roots Reconciliation Group (GRG) entered into a partnership to implement the Community Theatre Programme, a pilot project with two victims’ groups in Lamwo District Palabek Sub County. The theatre project was designed to promote healing among conflict affected community, seek redress for rights violated during conflict through advocacy and to promote reconciliation among members of the community affected by conflict.

This pilot project provided a platform for victims of the LRA conflict to creatively share their conflict experiences as well as to identify major challenges impeding healing, reconciliation and the process of peace building in their communities. It also provided an avenue for promoting unity among members of the group and the community at large, taught members of the group and the general community how to handle post conflict challenges and above all it helped to learn advocacy skills so as to demand for their justice needs in relation to rights violated during and after conflict.

The community theatre programme adds onto the advocacy skills of community groups by introducing creative ways of telling stories in order for every member to comfortably tell their story. It also guides members of a these groups to identify common issues that affect the group or community the most from the different stories told and to prioritise them as group or community problems. It guides the group on how to logically present their advocacy points and also provides options of presentation methods such as the use of performance, song, poetry, drawing and speeches to present their advocacy issues in a way that is friendly to their capability. Using the theatre approach, community groups learn to identify the audience for advocacy concern and to speak together over their priority issues.

During focus group discussions with members of the different groups, victims showed concern over abuses inflicted upon them right from 1986 to 2007 by different armed groups. They claim that their state of inability to function normally, that is to meet their basic requirements of life in order to live a descent and meaningful life, is attributed to violations suffered during the wars which no step has been taken by any stakeholder to address. It is on this basis that victims groups find it important to advocate for accountability for the abuses they experienced during conflict.

Through a well organised formal gathering, members of the group will present their problem with suggested solution as they advocate to key stakeholders in demand for justice over issues they hold importance to them. Key persons will be invited to attend the presentation and will be accorded time to discuss advocacy points of the groups. The discussion during presentation will provide an entry point to follow up advocacy needs of the group for possible intervention to ensure that justice is met.

It is therefore important to pay attention to this theatre groups’ approach in demanding for rights that were violated. Members of the public, Local Government and policy makers should pay attention to their advocacy points and use it as an entry points to foster accountability for right violated during conflict and to establish mechanism that will avoid repeat of such violation on future generation.

Borrowing from the impact of the programme on to the community members in Palabek in 2012, JRP in collaboration with GRG will engage ten community groups in Acholi sub region (five groups in Lamwo District, two in Gulu and three in Amuru) in 2013. During a pre-theatre meeting with these groups, we learned that all these groups have shared conflict experiences and have a similar vision for handling post conflict challenges. Common conflict experiences expressed by the group members include lost lives, lost properties, disrupted education, displacement, torture, looting of livestock, sexual abuse and many others which have turned them to live a life of helplessness. Victims also express dismay at the lack of accountability for abuses inflicted upon them during conflict. They therefore hold the need to account for the losses they suffered during conflict highly, but identifying which way to take is an obstacle. It is on this basis that JRP in collaboration with GRG will use community theatre programme to build the capacity of victims groups to advocate for their justice needs for accountability. 

Evelyn Amony and Olive Ederu

IN 2008, THE GOVERNMENT of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army signed the annex to the principal Agreement of the Juba Peace Agreement on accountability and reconciliation which elaborates how perpetrators should be held accountable for crimes committed during the conflict. In line with this, the Government of Uganda established the International Crimes Division of the High Court to try individuals accused of committing war crimes, crimes of genocide, terrorism and crimes against humanity. The Court fired into action in 2011 by opening the trial of Thomas Kwoyelo who was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

During a dialogue held by the Gender Justice Department at JRP with the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) on prosecution as a transitional justice mechanism in September 2012, the women members presented a number of cross cutting issues which premise on the effectiveness of prosecution in delivering the desired justice and reconciliation. As much as accountability for crimes committed during conflict has been welcomed by women survivors, the lingering question has been whether all the “perpetrators” will be investigated and subsequently prosecuted.

 The conflict in northern Uganda produced three categories of survivors: the formerly abducted and the formerly displaced or a combination of the two. While many women who were abducted were widely believed to have been violated (raped, forced into marriage or sexual slavery among other violations) by the LRA, those who were who were forced into internally displaced persons camps during the war also endured sexual violations at the hands of their supposed protectors, the Government soldiers and a few by the rebel forces. An example is Adong (not her real name) who after her abduction was forced to become a wife to an LRA commander. She lived in captivity for three years and begot two children. Upon her return, she was forcefully taken by a Government soldier and forced to marry him. The soldier even threatened to shoot Adong’s mother if she objected and went as far as criticising the locals for “freely” giving out the daughters to the LRA and not the Uganda People’s Defence Force. Many girls who escaped from captivity were tortured and raped by the Government soldiers after their “rescue”.

Yet another tale is told of one of the Aboke girls who after being shot on the leg sought refuge from the UPDF who instead raped her to death. In other quarters, men have opened up and given chilling testimonies of being sodomised by UPDF soldiers. The people of Atiak will never forget the day a commander of the UPDF stormed the market on auction day and demanded the people to give up the relatives of LRA commander Otti Vincent. When the people refused to comply he coughed as a sign for his troops to fire. What happened in the next minutes can only be described as a scene in a horror movie with the soldiers firing indiscriminately at the people with bullets and killing about 200 that day. A young girl at the time described the scene:

The soldiers begun shooting randomly at the women and they started falling down. I was hidden under a bale of clothes. It was my first time to see a dead body. The women seemed to be sleeping but blood oozed from them.

Such are but a few examples of experiences of the many who suffered violations from both warring parties.

 A perpetrator turned dispenser of justice

Another issue is that many perceive current transitional justice mechanisms as reflecting a scenario where the perpetrator has turned prosecutor and dispenser of justice. Government soldiers allegedly committed atrocities and therefore to have the same institution championing prosecution seems to many to be a mockery of justice. The fear is that the targeting LRA Commanders reflects a level of impartiality which is undesirable. The scenario can best be expressed by the saying “nobody can prick his or her own eyes”.

Related to this is the aspect of witness protection. Fear of losing one’s life and that of immediate family following testimonies for or against an accused continue to linger in the minds of potential witnesses, this coupled with the risk of having the prosecutorial guns turned on a witness (though the later has been somewhat dispelled by grant of certificates of amnesty) raise pertinent issues and show the challenges that lie ahead in accomplishing the objectives of accountability for past violations through prosecution. It is a rule of thumb that for a mechanism to succeed it requires local support and participation thereof and since prospective witnesses are usually the local population if they refuse to testify in cases and cut tail the whole agenda.

 From the above excerpts, to beat the drum of accountability by way of prosecuting the alleged “perpetrators” while targeting one party and ignoring the other by no means results into meaningful justice. If proper accountability is to be achieved, then both the LRA and the UPDF commanders should face trial at the ICC or the ICD in order for the weighing scales of justice to balance. The other side of the coin should be flipped, otherwise we may never know what lies beneath and past events may never be resolved. 

Nancy Apiyo

In our work at the Justice and Reconciliation Project, we have found that survivors of the conflict tend to have different views on prosecution – while some think there is need for prosecution others think that it is better to forgive and move on. Some of the views of the victims change over time depending on various factors such as lack of trust in the prosecutorial institutions both locally and internationally or lack of knowledge on transitional justice processes. The different views of the women on the same subject illustrates that transitional justice processes should be enforced together to complement each other depending on the society, nature and context of the conflict.

Jolly and Maggie* were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army and stayed for over five years in captivity. They have differing views on prosecution as a form of accountability for the atrocities committees during the war. In this interview with Gender Justice Project Officer, Nancy Apiyo, They share their views with us.

* Not their real names.

Jolly

Voices Magazine: What is your view on prosecution?

Those who were responsible for heinous crimes should be prosecuted so that they are accountable for what they did, if not it will continue. When they want to repeat the same thing in the future they will know that they can be held accountable. If people are prosecuted it will stop others from doing the same. It is good for people to be accountable for what they did. There are laws that forbid actions committed during the war [and] everyone is subject to those laws.

Who should be prosecuted for war crimes?

People should be prosecuted depending on their crimes or what they did. Low ranked soldiers should be punished even if they are given a lighter punishment. Not only top commanders have to be punished. For example junior commanders also raped women without Kony’s orders. Therefore they should be given punishment and not let to go free because they can also go to the bush on their own. They broke orders and brought problems to top commanders by committing crimes which the commanders had forbidden.

Can prosecution lead to restoration?

If those who committed atrocities are prosecuted people can heal from what they did. If they are left to go free people feel bad. It should be up to people to decide the time of sentence depending on if people have forgiven the person or not. Some commanders also feel safer and have less guilt conscience when they are in prison. The punishment should not be death sentence but just a few years to make them pay for what they did.

Should women who committed crimes be punished?

No woman in the Lord’s Resistance Army committed crimes that deserve punishment. They had children and could not get time to commit crimes. They had to protect their children. Women went to loot food most of the time to survive.

[But] if women committed heinous crimes they should also be accountable and prosecuted so that other women do not do the same. People have to abide by the law and not vice versa.

Maggie

What is your view on prosecution?

It is not good to prosecute because people who are still in the bush may decide not to come back home. There is no need for prosecution. Everyone is capable of committing a crime. If someone is forgiven he can become human again. It also helps those still in the bush to return. It is not right to prosecute when other people are still in the bush.

What if everyone had returned?

It is not good to prosecute. If someone asks for forgiveness they should be forgiven. If there is genuine forgiveness people should be let free. No one went to the bush willingly. No one went to a training wing so as to join the rebels. Everyone was abducted. Everyone should be forgiven. It is not good to imprison. It is important to know what crime someone committed. There is no need of imprisoning someone innocent. 

How can people be held accountable?

If someone accepts committing the crime, he or she is already accountable. When he or she asks for forgiveness that is accountability.  If he or she asks for forgiveness from the government, he or she should be forgiven. Forgiveness is very good. If someone surrenders from fighting he or she has asked for forgiveness. By the time someone asks for forgiveness, it is as though he or she has said ‘I am sorry I did bad and I want to return to stay with people’.

How can impunity be stopped?

If the person asks for forgiveness and does not repeat the crime, it means he is remorseful and will not do it again.