All posts by Grace Acan

Joining hands for regional reconciliation

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A woman speaks during a dialogue held in Abia, Aleptong district as part of JRP's Regional Reconciliation project, 5 June 2015.
A woman speaks during a dialogue held in Abia, Aleptong district as part of JRP’s Regional Reconciliation project, 5 June 2015.

The Justice and Reconciliation Project’s Regional Reconciliation initiative is a one year program designed to foster social cohesion and reconciliation in northern Uganda following the growing tension among communities in the north. Northern Uganda went through a number of conflicts and the most recent was that of LRA war that left a land mark effect on the population: the violent nature of the war caused tension among ethnic groups in northern Uganda as some ethnic groups are accusing other ethnic groups for their suffering during the war. To improve on the fragmented social fabric of life in northern Uganda, JRP’s project seeks to reconcile the people of Acholi and Lango sub regions by combining the effort of every stakeholder in peace building processes.

With funding support from USAID’s Supporting Access to Justice, Fostering Equity and Peace program, JRP worked in four districts in northern Uganda (Amuru, Gulu, Lira and Aleptong) to foster social cohesion and reconciliation among the Acholi and the people of Lango sub-regions. In enrolling the project in the four districts, we introduced our organization and the project to districts, sub-counties, cultural institutions and civil society offices to help them understand the initiative and to seek their collaboration in fostering reconciliation within communities and between the people of Acholi and Lango. With great enthusiasm, local government officials in the districts and sub counties, CSOs, cultural and religious leaders, peace committees and victims and survivors of war all embraced the program and joined together to support regional reconciliation initiative.

“This is one area that no one has taken seriously during this post conflict reconciliation era,” said the LC III Chairperson of Agweng sub-county in Lira, “The war left societies torn apart and people are living in fear of each other including people in my area. I’m so much in support of this reconciliation project and I will give full support to the program.”

A man speaks during a community dialogue in Abia, Aleptong district as part of JRP's regional reconciliation project, 6 June 2015.
A man speaks during a community dialogue in Abia, Aleptong district as part of JRP’s regional reconciliation project, 6 June 2015.

 

In order to make total peace possible in this post conflict period, forgiveness and reconciliation are two things that needs to be emphasized. Having been hurt and violated immensely during the conflict, many individuals, communities and groups still point fingers and blame one another for making them suffer as individuals, community or as an ethnic group.

Since the introduction of regional reconciliation project in Lango and Acholi sub regions, there has been overwhelming positive responses and support from local government leaders, cultural and religious leaders and the community members to contribute to addressing the legacy of war in northern Uganda to avoid re-occurrence of further conflict. In Atiak sub-county, Amuru district, the sub-county Community Development Officer (CDO) expressed with deep sorrow the bitter relationship that exist between the Acholi people of Atiak sub county and the neighbouring Madi of west Nile that escalated due the LRA war. This has affected trade and intermarriages between the two communities. To him the reconciliation process is desperately needed in northern Uganda. While in Abia sub-county, Alebtong District, victims and survivors of war bitterly expressed their anger for bearing the consequence of the war and for not being repaired for the atrocities committed to them. However, they showed the heart to forgive and reconcile and to cooperate with other stakeholders in the social reconstruction process.

The willingness and active participation of various stakeholders in this project is a big boost to the project success and in enhancing sustainability of reconciliation process in northern Uganda. For example, CDOs, Sub- County Chiefs and LC III’s are far playing lead roles in mobilizing for reconciliation processes in each district while traditional and religious leaders are providing technical support to achieve reconciliation within communities and at regional level. Mobilization efforts and technical skills being provided by CSOs in facilitating capacity building workshops on reconciliation themes is also acknowledged in contributing to the success of regional reconciliation.

It is our hope that when this collaboration is enhanced, regional reconciliation will definitely be achieved on a silver plate.

Grace Acan is a Project Assistant with the Justice and Reconciliation Project’s Community Mobilisation department.

How the people of Odek are remembering the past and honoring their loved ones

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A sign for Odek Primary School in Gulu District.
A sign for Odek Primary School in Gulu District.

Memory refers to the processes that are used to acquire, store, retain and later retrieve information. It is also the process of creating meaning over the past events. In lay man’s term I can say that ‘making the past becoming part of me i.e. looking at the past conflict events positively’. Memorialisation is honoring the lives of people or events by preserving memories which is one of the key parts of transitional justice that is vital for promoting recognition and acknowledgement of past violations of human rights and also bringing healing, reconciliation to those whose rights were violated.

Odek is a sub-county located in the eastern direction of Gulu District in northern Uganda near to the border between Lango and Acholi that was also severely affected by the two decade war. It is also the birth place of the LRA leader Joseph Kony the LRA leader. This is one area that also experienced two remarkable massacres that were perpetrated by both government soldiers and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Last year, JRP documented the experiences of the community in its field note, “Forgotten Victims”.

For long, the people of Odek have spoken about wanting to honor their loved ones who were massacred during the conflict. This year, with support from USAID-SAFE, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) is working with Odek as one of seven northern Ugandan communities that will be supported to implement a memory project.

To do this a Community Reconciliation (CORE) team, a team of five people that were selected to represent Odek community from the Kica Ber (forgiveness is good) group, were trained on various topics and among which was Memory and Memorialization. During the training, the team went through a process to come out with what their ideal memory project would be, which they chose as the construction of a monument.

During our recent monitoring and support visit, the chairman Local Counselor (LC) III of Odek said: ‘For long the community of Odek has desired to have a monument constructed here and at last we are going to have one. I am very grateful to JRP for their interventions here in Odek. The first one was the documentation of the Odek massacres that created awareness to other groups like the ICC [which] has now visited Odek to seek our opinion on Dominic Ongwen’s case.’

JRP will continue to work with Odek as part of the project ‘Across Ethnic Boundaries: Promoting Regional Reconciliation in Acholi and Lango Sub-Regions’ which aims to promote conflict memory and promote reconciliation at community and regional level through community and public dialogues as well as training on transitional justice. Other communities JRP is working with are Lukodi, Burcoro, Atiak, Parabongo, Abia and Barlonyo.

What It Means to Be A Survivor

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I was invited to attend two days’ conference on Surviving Armed Violence: Comparative Perspectives organized by the Center for Foreign Policy Studies (CFPS) in conjunction with Child Soldiers Initiative and Resilience Research Center at Dalhousie University in Halifax – Nova Scotia. I was asked to make a twenty minute presentation on the importance of storytelling after mass atrocities, and my work with Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) at JRP.

I was delighted to give my presentation as follows on how storytelling helped made a difference on the life of women we work with. This may not be very easy for someone who has not been closely following what we do to understand what I am about to share with you and may want to see a documentation to believe but I tell you, this is real!

There are many advantages of this storytelling to these ladies. We started with less than ten women but later the number expanded. It is not usually very easy for someone who has gone through a difficult situation to just start sharing their painful experiences except when there is trust and confidence among those involved. This is how the story began and made a difference in the lives of these ladies.   At first others were shy and afraid of the outcome of what they may say. But since the storytelling sessions occur in an informal setting, it reduced the amount of intimidation that a woman might feel as she narrates her experience. As she listens to one another’s story, she begins to feel that she was not the only one who suffered but one of many which encourages her to speak more. And the more and more one speaks of something painful gradually that person begins to feel better or get relieved of the burden she was carrying as a result of silence.

In Acholi culture, women are familiar with using stories as a way to communicate. Because women are able to provide peer support and advice to each other, they form a vital community for the women, something especially important for women whose family members have disowned them because they were abducted. Another advantage is that minimal materials are needed to conduct the storytelling sessions. Furthermore, besides using an audio recorder to document the sessions, supplying paper and other craft materials when we draw body and life maps, and sometimes providing snacks and transportation for the women, the costs associated with the project are minimal in comparison to its effectiveness. These are very important in the reintegration process since there is need to have confidence and trust in the people they are going to live with and the community they are going to be living in.

I also shared just one of the many poems called The Things We Carried from a book that I am writing with Julie Bitek called Stories from the Dry Season which is an illustration of the burden girls and women bore during war in Northern Uganda. So many who came to the art exhibition were touched and I believe it gave them a sense of what it means to be a survivor and they learnt what happens to people especially women during war and in particular the one that took place in Northern Uganda.

During the conference, whose objective was  to identify what survival means for those who have lived through violence or understand what survival means, I learnt that in times of crisis and in particular during armed conflict, the affected  people always find ways of surviving the problem, stopping it or seeing that the perpetrators are brought to justice. This is in line with the contribution of survivors both during and after the crisis.

The following are some of the ways in people use to survive violence and how people survive on a daily basis; sleep standby, spend nights together while monitoring what is going on. This helps to reduce the effect of war on individuals. They would also tell stories quietly through the use of all means of communication. When all schools were closed during the war, some people kept one school open through negotiations with armed actors. Engagement in doing something in times of fear like doing exercises helps to overcome fear. I think some of these methods used in pursuit of justice are an example that survivors should follow, even if nobody listens to them today. Tomorrow someone might just like this survivor who I learnt about during the conference in Peru who survived to see the one who killed his son in 1983 prosecuted in 2011

I also happened to travel the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in the fall when the leaves are turning red in preparation for winter season. It’s hard to believe and express that beauty in words. This is a place located along the coast of Pacific Ocean with a wonderful view of snowcapped mountains as one heads to Whistler, one of the most cold places in the world during winter. During my last days in Vancouver I visited Whistler too and went on a plane moving on top of ranges of mountains that have snowcapped and with snows that have lasted for thousand years ago melting when the temperature was 5 degrees centigrade. I could not believe I was seeing the glacial features that I learnt about theoretically in my Advanced Level Geography. When I was over the mountains, I felt humbled as a human being.