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Cultural leaders and war-affected women develop action points to reintegrate children born of war

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Members of the Women's Advocacy Network present during a dialogue between war-affected women and cultural leaders on the reintegration of children born of war in northern Uganda, held in Gulu on 28 April 2016.
Members of the Women’s Advocacy Network present during a dialogue between war-affected women and cultural leaders on the reintegration of children born of war in northern Uganda, held in Gulu on 28 April 2016.

JRP and the WAN hold dialogue on reintegration of children born of war

GULU – Children born of war and their mothers still face challenges reintegrating into their communities and families in northern Uganda. This was the key message sent during a dialogue between cultural leaders and war-affected women organized by the Women and Advocacy Network and the Justice and Reconciliation Project on 28 April 2016 in Gulu.

The event, which brought together participants from Acholi, Lango, Teso and West Nile, offered a space for women survivors of conflict to share their experiences with representatives of cultural institutions from the Greater North.

The dialogue was punctuated by a presentation from the WAN members appealing to cultural leaders to help reintegrate children born of war into their communities.

Nighty, a member of the WAN, spoke about how when she returned home from the captivity of the LRA she discovered that a child of hers she had been separated from had been mistakenly placed in the home of another family on his return.

“I would like you, my elders, to help let my child come back home,” she asked the cultural leaders in attendance.

The WAN spoke at length about the difficulties they and their children are undergoing today. Many children are unable to trace their patrilineal lines and are consequently unable to access land and other life necessities that are linked to their fathers.

On their return home, some children have either not been reunited with their actual families or have been taken in by the wrong families. As explained by WAN Chairperson Evelyn Amony, this has partly been so because while in captivity their parents would have used fake names to protect their families back home. On return, this has created a problem for mothers, fathers and children eager to trace families that were separated.

Poverty also was cited as the biggest social problem facing children born of war and their children, with facilitating education and health care provision being very hard if not impossible. The issue of land is yet another problem, with children and their mothers landless due to stigma and poor community acceptance.

In attendance of the event was His Highness Drani Stephen Musali Izakare, the Lopirigo of Madi, who appealed to the cultural leaders present to address the issues that arose during the discussion.

“Culture is not static, [it] is dynamic and cultural change is inevitable and welcome where change is needed,” he said, “In Madi, there’s no right way to have a child because children are all of ours.”

At the close of the event, the WAN members and the cultural leaders in attendance worked together to come up with action points for how cultural institutions could be better involved in the reintegration of children born of war.

Some of the commitments generated during the group discussions included to hold clan meetings to create clan laws that would prohibit stigma within communities, integrating war-affected women and their children into cultural leadership at community level and collectively engaging the Ugandan government to address the issues raised.

The meeting was held as part of a JRP project aimed at ensuring the reintegration of children born of war through family reunions in partnership with the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice and the Women’s Advocacy Network.

By Benard Okot, with additional writing from Oryem Nyeko

JRP Podcast Episode 2 – Mapping regional reconciliation in northern Uganda and Dominic Ongwen

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(Oryem Nyeko) Hello and welcome to the second episode of JRPs’ podcast. I am Oryem Nyeko, I am  with my colleague Okwir Isaac Odiya of JRP  to talk about a report title ‘ Mapping Regional Reconciliation In Northern Uganda: A Case Study Of Acholi And Lango Sub- Region.

(Okwir Isaac Odiya) Across Ethnic Boundaries project came from the background of our interactions with the community of Acholi, Lango, Teso and West Nile which we learned about the poor relationship and the accusations that is within these communities. We thought of doing this regional reconciliation project to understand whether there is need for regional reconciliation in northern Uganda. This made us to do a baseline study which we came out with the result. This baseline study or the regional reconciliation survey that we did was meant to provide us a baseline for peace building and reconciliation undertaking in northern Uganda. Basically to inform us whether it is true that there is need for reconciliation between the people of northern Uganda and what mechanism therefore should be adopted in order to foster reconciliation in Northern Uganda.

(Oryem)  So the baseline is reported in this report that we are talking about…

(Isaac) Exactly, the ‘Mapping of Regional Reconciliation in Northern Uganda’ is the result of the baseline survey that we did.

(Oryem) So what are some of the findings in the report? What did you find out about the need for regional reconciliation?

(Isaac) From the report, we came with key findings and one of it is the negative perception about the civil war – the war that was fought between the government of Uganda and the LRA. We realized that many people perceived the war as a war that was planned by one ethnic group against the other which basically in many communities that we interacted with, they claim that it was an Acholi war made to make other ethnic groups suffer. So that is one of the findings we realized on the ground.

The second finding is about the tension which is among the ethnic groups in northern Uganda as a result of the crimes that were committed among these communities. There is interpersonal community and ethnic tension which basically people think they were made to suffer because of some other individuals, because of some other community or because of some other ethnic groups.

From the survey that was conducted, we noted that 62% says that there is poor relationship among the people of Lango and Acholi which is as a result of LRA war. They feel that the people of Acholi planned to kill the people of Lango so because of this, there is that poor relationship between the people of Acholi and the people of Lango.

We also noted that in the communities or among the different communities there is fear of revenge by other communities because of what they did maybe. In some of the communities there are some individuals that were involved in some of the atrocities and because of what they did in the atrocities that they feel that their counterparts are going to revenge on them. So there is that fear of revenge within the communities. So generally there is that accusations among the communities, they claim that they suffered because of that individual or that community.

We also found that the community and the individuals are so bitter for lack of accountability and reparation programme. Many individuals and many communities were made to suffer but there is no acknowledgement of the crimes committed on them, there is no accountability for what they underwent and there is no programme to repair them. So the communities are so bitter on the government, they are so bitter on their leaders, they are so bitter on each other within the community because they feel they are not being repaired, they are not being acknowledged for the wrongs that happened to them. Generally the communities feel that they are being segregated in post-conflict service provision. There are a number of programmes that are enrolled by civil society organisations, by the local government but they feel that the services are balanced. It’s not reaching them all, it’s only being directed to one section of the community. Because of this they feel that there is segregation in provision of these services that should really help them to come out of the problem they went through to repair them, to recover from the shock of the war. And because of this segregation, they feel that they are not being honored, they are not being acknowledged as people who also suffered.

In our own analysis we feel that this is another potential source of conflict in that if they feel that one section of the community is being supported to recover from the problem, it means they are not being supported and easily they can begin to revenge, they can begin to cause another conflict on the government or on the communities that are benefiting from some of these services.

 (Oryem) I’m curious, what do you think are some of the root causes of what you are talking about – the segregation; some communities not receiving the programmes that are meant to address the legacy of the war. What’s the cause of that, do you think?

(Isaac)  I think there is lack of a baseline study to understand the different needs of the communities and what they went through. Our service providers – it looks like they don’t understand our communities, what they went through and the kind of services they need so they are kind of neglecting some of these communities to benefit from some of these services. To me I feel that they are not informed, they don’t know what services are supposed to be provided for which communities, which is a gap and that is the only gap I feel.

But also, it is important that we need to train our service providers to know how to work with the victims of conflict. In a way we may also be causing conflict by failing to understand the circumstances that our communities went through. Like when we were interacting with this communities, the people of Odek made mention about the kind of segregation that they are going through. We were made to know that the people of Odek are being considered as Kony, in that they have supported Kony, they groomed Kony to be what he is and Kong is now affecting.  So they contributed in making Kony who he is, and because of that they are being treated as Kony. So I feel that the service providers should be able to separate the people of Odek and Kony himself, taking the fact that they also suffered a lot in the hand of Kony.

(Oryem) So what needs to be done? I mean, you’ve elaborated a bit on that with service providers maybe needing to be more informed about the needs and experiences of the various communities, but what’s a next step in terms of reconciling some of these issues?

(Isaac) In line with service provision, that is basically one of the reasons why we did this report. We want this report to inform transitional justice processes in Uganda and in northern Uganda. We want these key findings and recommendations in this report, Mapping Regional Reconciliation, to really inform the different stakeholders – peacebuilders and reconciliation activists to really know what are the gaps in the community and then what are some of the steps that are required to be taken in order to mitigate or to provide remedies to some of these gaps in the community. So that is the first step.

I would urge the different stakeholders to really pay attention to this report so that they can learn the kind of community we are working with, the gaps in the community and the kind of careful steps they should take in order to provide reconciliation within these communities.

Secondly, it is important to work in partnership, the different civil society organizations, the NGOs and the government, the local government. We need to be coordinating so that we inform each other on the gaps on the ground and then the best step, we can brainstorm on the best steps that should really be taken so that we really reach this community so that we address the specific gaps in this community. And by doing this we are going to act in the interests of the community we are serving.

I want to mention another few things in regards to reconciliation gaps. What requires to be done. We also noted that there is a lack of platform to foster reconciliation, in that victims’ communities are there in the community, but they lack forums to which they should really communicate, to which they should really engage to address some of their own problems. This is also coupled with the criminal prosecution process that is going on, the trial of Kwoyelo, the trial of Dominic Ongwen, which is kind of fueling more conflict in the community. So there is also this problem that is existing in the community following the survey that we conducted, or working with these communities. Which my recommendation would go to the various stakeholders to really support the peacebuilding and reconciliation structures that we have on the ground or to establish more, so that they provide pillars to these conflict affected community to interact with, to discuss their issues, to support them in their reconciliation and recovery programme.

It’s all about providing a platform for these people to interact, to really try to see the best way of addressing some of their issues, to channel their problems so that it is heard and addressed by the stakeholders.

I would also recommend for a trauma healing project to really be enrolled in the community so that people find ways to move out of their problems instead of getting stuck. Much as accountability has not been done, much as there is no adequate reparation they still need to move on with their lives. So it is important to have such programmes.

(Oryem) Can I just ask how do the criminal proceedings fuel conflict in these communities?

(Isaac) From the interaction we had with these communities, we learned that they have varying interests in line with the result of the verdict. In the case of Dominic Ongwen’s trial, there are those who want to see Dominic Ongwen prosecuted, they want to see him guilty and there are those who want to see Dominic Ongwen coming back home acquitted from the sentence.

So you can see the communities are now looking at those who are in support of Dominic Ongwen as those who supported the atrocities that made them suffer in northern Uganda. Those who look at the people who want to see Dominick Ongwen jailed, they look at them as those who do not want reconciliation to be done so that people get to live back together.

(Oryem) Because of course the question of criminal accountability and Dominic Ongwen has implications on the communities that have been affected by the case for Lukodi, I imagine that’s what you’re talking about, and the other communities, Odek, Abok, and so on, that his charges are based on, they obviously have a vested interest in seeing some sort of accountability towards him. Whereas in other communities, in Coorom, for example, where Ongwen is from there is a sense that there should be more of a reconciliatory process. Although in my experience, I found that even people in Lukodi also want to reconcile with the people from where Ongwen is from, which I find interesting and I think it kind of speaks to the point that you’re making that these issues have a regional aspect to them. In that it’s not the same everywhere. Not everyone in northern Uganda has the same sense, not everyone in Acholi and Lango has the same feelings towards Ongwen or to criminal accountability or to the impact of the war. I think that’s kind of it

(Isaac) Exactly, and that’s where it calls for how do we manage the process?  So that at the end of it all, irrespective of the result of the trial, how are we going to ensure that there is reconciliation, how are we going to we to work together, the people of Lango, the people of Acholi, the people of Lukodi, the people of Coorom, irrespective of the results of the hearing. This is what we should manage.

 

 

War continues for children born in LRA captivity

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Children play as part of an innovative project documenting the lives and experiences of children born into LRA captivity. Photo courtesy of Beth Stewart.
Children play as part of an innovative project documenting the lives and experiences of children born into LRA captivity. Photo courtesy of Beth Stewart.

PRESS RELEASE 4 February 2016

GULU- Children born into the captivity of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) must be mainstreamed as partners and agents in post-conflict reconstruction say researchers from the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) in Gulu.

According to a newly published field note by JRP titled “We Are All the Same: Experiences of children born into LRA captivity”, children born into the captivity of the LRA experience life in ways that are unique to their identities and should be addressed specially in transitional justice.

“We Are All the Same”, is based on an innovative three year project documenting the lives of 29 children aged between 11 and 15 living in the urban centre of Gulu by researchers Beth W. Stewart and Aloyo Proscovia. The report documents the lives of the participating children between 2011 and 2014, presenting some of the first extensive narrative accounts of the views and experiences of children born into captivity following reintegration.

Based on the views and experiences shared by the participating children, the report provides recommendations for the Ugandan government as well as civil society to address existing gaps, including supporting linking the children with their extended families, and ensuring that their fathers, who in some cases reportedly earn government incomes as soldiers, pay child support.

“As northern Uganda moves further away from its experience of active war, the ramifications continue to be lived each day,” researcher Beth Stewart says, “Without measures to address the needs and rights [of children born into LRA captivity], the violence of the war continues.”

The field note and project are part of JRP’s continued work to ensure the participation of children as victims of conflict, with unique experiences, challenges and voices, in processes of justice, healing and reconciliation. It follows research exploring the reintegration challenges of children born of war and their mothers and an initiative that engages survivors, communities, opinion leaders and policy-makers on providing redress for sexual- and gender-based violence survivors.

“We Are All the Same: Experiences of children born into LRA captivity” can be downloaded on JRP’s website here: http://justiceandreconciliation.com/publications/field-notes/2015/we-are-all-the-same-experiences-of-children-born-into-lra-captivity/.

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Download this release here (pdf): 2015-02-04 War continues for children born in LRA captivity

 

JRP Podcast Episode 1 – Documenting conflict sexual violence

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Oryem Nyeko: Hi this is Oryem Nyeko, I am here with Lindsay McClain Opiyo who is the team leader for Gender Justice here at JRP. We are trying something new – we are trying to do a podcast. This is our first episode and we are very excited.

We are here to talk about a new publication that JRP has just put out which is a field note called “My Body, A Battlefield”.

Lindsay is a co-author and Lindsay I wanted to hear from you what this field note is all about. Maybe if you can give us an overview of this report?

Lindsay McClain Opiyo: Thanks Oryem. Yeah, this is our latest field note from JRP that is looking at everyday experiences of conflict-sexual violence in Koch Ongako, a community in Gulu district here in northern Uganda.

The field note is documenting men and women’s experience of conflict sexual violence during northern Uganda’s long standing conflicts both at the hands of state and non-state armed actors and also at the hands of civilians when they were living in internally displaced person’s camps.

There’s kind of three big takeaways that we would like people to have from the report. One, is that it doesn’t take a big massacre or a big event to make peoples experiences during the war worthy of documentation. As readers will find from the report, a lot of the accounts are of women and to some extent men just going about their daily lives during the conflict and how they were targeted for sexual violence by different conflict actors.

Two would be the importance of methodology when you are actually trying to document and preserve accounts of conflict sexual violence. All too often especially with prosecutions and court processes, investigations, it’s very cut and dry, and we use methodologies like storytelling and focus group discussions in order to get people to open up about these very stigmatized events that happened to them. And that’s our second takeaway that it’s important to use this more informal methodologies to document these experiences.

And our third takeaway is that it is very important to have documentation of these experiences in order for survivors to advocate for redress. So we hope that the report will be something that survivors can actually use when they are petitioning government and other bodies for reparations and other forms of redress for what they went through.

(Oryem) We know that this is just one community in northern Uganda that experienced this conflict. How emblematic do you think that it is, in terms of the bigger picture of sexual violence on questions of accountability and healing and so on?

(Lindsay) Our sample size was relatively small. We talked to 60-something people. A little over 50 of them admitted to being survivors of conflict sexual violence, so it is not a humongous sample size and we were exclusively looking at Koch Ongako. But what we found within those accounts is that a lot of patterns started to emerge. One of the most interesting ones was this idea of dangerous spots and that due the nature of women’s lives during the war that they were targeted for conflict sexual violence while they were going about daily life, while they were going to the gardens to dig, while they were even going to buy salt to cook for their families.

So one would imagine that this is fairly representative of other communities within northern Uganda. There is nothing about Koch that would necessarily make it different from other communities but it is definitely something that would merit more research to see the extent to which these lots of pardon also were in other communities.

(Oryem): I’m here now with Nancy Apiyo who is a co-author of My Body, A Battlefield and she was here in 2013 when the Gender Justice team began the research process for this field note in Koch Ongako.

I wanted to know from you Nancy, what was that process like doing this documentation? Obviously these stories are very painful and I imagine it was very traumatic for some of those survivors to talk about their experiences. So could you tell us a bit more about what you witnessed when you went though this documentation process?

Nancy Apiyo: When we started to work with the community of Koch in about 2012, we noted that from the stories that the women would share there were stories of violations during the conflict of sexual violation and violations of that nature. Most of the women we interacted with at that time mentioned to us that they were living positively with HIV and most of them linked it to the conflict and some mentioned that they got the HIV out of the rape.

So as a team we were touched by this and we did not want it to just stop there, we didn’t want these stories to only remain in those storytelling circles because the first objective of those storytelling was for healing purposes, to build confidence around the women and we did not have this idea of publishing these stories out to the public. But when we heard this we felt it was important to let the world know what really happened in Koch and break this silence of what the community went through during the conflict around that time. So we had a discussion with the women about what they thought about more people outside the community knowing what they went through and if that was important to them and they responded that it was important that the rest of the world knows what happened to them in the community. And that is when we got this idea of publishing this story or beginning to write and have an account of what happened in Koch during the conflict.

(Oryem) Where there some people who, maybe, didn’t feel comfortable speaking out in the beginning but eventually opened up a bit more as the process went along?

(Nancy) There were women who once they heard others talk they also began to open up and they were like, “When I heard her story it compelled me to also talk about my own story. I felt that actually what she went through is even worse than what I went through and this alone gave me the courage to also stand up speak about what I also went though.”

I think listening to each other’s story and knowing the fact that they all went through these things, they identified with each other and giving them also the confidence to speak by listening to someone’s story they also get the courage to also talk about their own stories.

(Oryem) I know that the field note doesn’t just talk about the experiences of women, there are also some quotes that you have from men. What was that process like, getting the stories from the men?

(Nancy) We didn’t have men at first. Our first plan was to talk to the women and get in to the sexual violence that women went through. But as we worked with women they informed us that there were also men who also went through SGBV but they were quiet and nobody was reaching out to them. So we told them that if they wanted the men’s stories also to be out, that is also up to the community to decide and it would be also important. So it’s the women who reached out to the men, talked to them and brought them into the storytelling circles and the men were also able to share their stories. Although with the men we had a one-on-one interviews with them and not a group kind of thing.

But the good thing with this documentation also the methods that we kept on using, using pictures, songs, dramas, sometimes they act out these issues, sometimes they draw them in pictures. Things like that. Such exercises helped to reduce the tension around violation and make the women relax, and the men, and enable them to talk.

(Oryem) Was there any particular story that struck you individually as a person that you could tell us about?

(Nancy) One of the women who had been raped – gang-raped, actually, by the government soldiers and she had tried to get justice in vain and had given up and had moved on, okay tried to move on. And so, during this day she was not in the first lot of women that we shared stories with or we listened to and as time went by, I think, a year later, her colleagues asked her to join the storytelling circle. They informed us that there is this lady we know that she really went through something very bad and it would be good for her to benefit from this. So, during one of the retreats, they brought her. They had already talked to her and she had accepted the whole thing and so she came.

I remember one of her first statements was she thought that she would never have the opportunity to share this story to anyone. She would never be listened to again. And to her the fact that this documentation process was an opportunity for her and all those other women who have gone through sexual violence to get justice. And to her the reason why she came for that particular storytelling at that time for that retreat was so that women who were violated get justice and it wasn’t for her, it was for somebody out there who went through the same thing that she went through to get justice and so that the world to knows that these things really happened. She wanted people to listen to what she went through.

And so this lady told us all the details of how she was raped, the whole experience. There is a book that I read where we are told that sometimes when somebody is being raped they get numb at that particular time and they are oblivious of what is happening and may not know even what is happening and when it comes to narrating, they may not give you all the details of maybe, he unzipped like this, he turned me like this or this is what they did. But this lady gave us all the details of what really happened that day and to me I think that is the story that really changed… and that is the story that kept me going to really write this and I really wanted this report to come out. That is the story that stood out for me most.

(Oryem) What do you hope is going to happen with this publication, with this being disseminated all around the world? What do you hope? What’s your goal?

(Nancy) For now, I think the short term goal for now as I see is first of all to break the silence. There is no much documentation of sexual violence that happened in the camps. Most of the narratives we have been hearing was for abduction and things that happened in captivity but not really what happened in the camps during the conflict. So me I think, step one, that this report is going to do is to share that really sexual violence happened in the camps, the stories.

There are reports I know of what happened… Human Rights Watch indicating this and this, but the narratives from the community indicating that this happened, so I think this report is first of all going to contribute towards that knowledge that during camps, the same people who were supposed to protect the people did this and even at the hands of the community themselves, the women faced this kinds of violation.

(Oryem) I want to close, with a question about the title, My body, A Battlefield. Could you tell us how that title came about?

(Nancy) During one of the discussions we had with the local leaders, one of them mentioned that men suffered in the war but the women suffered using their bodies. During the war it’s their bodies that suffered, and to me that is the statement that stood out for me and that is where we got the title for this book that my body was a battlefield to show how during the war, the battlefield was actually the woman’s body. Women were not taken maybe to be as soldiers. Those who were at the camps were not recruited as mobiles. They were not beaten or made to do hard labor but as soon as she is got, she is raped and that is the kind of punishment that women faced during the conflict. They felt the brunt of the conflict on their bodies. That statement really stood out for me and that is how we got the title of the report.

ICC Judges Want Ongwen Charges Confirmed in Uganda

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Prayer Session for fallen victims @JRP
Prayer Session for fallen victims @JRP

ICC Judges Want Ongwen Charges Confirmed in Uganda

Judges seating at the Pre-Trial chamber II of the International Criminal Court handling charges against Dominic Ongwen have appealed to parties involved in Ongwen proposed trial in Uganda to expedite the process.

The crimes were committed in Uganda, confirmation of charges and hearing of his charges including counts on crime against humanity and war crimes slated scheduled for January 21 2016 lasting 5 days will determine if there is sufficient evidence to prosecute Ongwen.

Dominic Ongwen ready to face the ICC

Dominic Ongwen ready to face the ICC

Addressing  the press today at Northern Uganda  Media Club, ICC Field Outreach Assistant, Jimmy Otim, said, the Pre-Trial judges on September 10-2015 recommended to ICC president to work out modalities with Uganda Government to enable the confirmation of charges take place in Uganda.

“ The Chamber considers that it would be desirable and in the interest of justice  to hold the confirmation of charges hearing in Uganda and preferably in Gulu” Jimmy said

Adding that it was at the peak of the alleged crime and where this is not possible then the ICC would consider the trials in Kampala.

Mass Grave in Lukodi

Mass Grave  Site in Lukodi @JRP

Dominic shocked the world when he on the 16th of January this year, denounced further rebellion against Museveni’s government when he abandon his gorilla troops under the Lord Resistance Army.

Women wonder over their missing children

Women wonder over their missing children

Loc2

Before he surrendered Ongwen was acting as Brigade Commander of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army where is alleged to have committed countless murder cases, enslavement of the populace, caused grave bodily harm an act that provoked ICC to count him in the wanted list of war lords on 8 July 2005.

Victims of the dangerous LRA war

Victims of the dangerous LRA war

He is accused to have masterminded the bloody attack at Lukodi Internally Displaced People’s Camp where innocent lives were shuttered in cold blood.

In trying to document the 29 years of LRA war in the region, a monument with the name of over forty slain victims sits near Lukodi Primary school in Bungatira Sub-county ten miles north of Gulu municipality.

 

http://www.northernewswire.com/news/featured-news/icc-judges-want-ongwen-charges-confirmed-in-uganda.html

Support Victims of LRA War to Rebuild Their Lives

In the News

OPINION

By Lino Owor Ogora

Every August 30, the world commemorates the International Day of Missing Persons. In northern Uganda, thousands of people are still missing as a result of the conflict that ravaged the region between 1986 and 2006. These people went missing in various circumstances. Some were displaced as they fled their villages to seek refuge from marauding LRA rebels; others were abducted by the rebels, while others simply went missing during combat.

The relatives of these missing people continue to live with suspense of not knowing whether their relatives are dead or alive. As long as their relatives have not been declared dead, they hang on to the slim hope that one day they will show up. In addition to relatives of the missing, thousands of victims in northern Uganda continue to live with painful memories of horrendous experiences they suffered during the conflict. Many of them were victims of torture. Many lost their relatives.

Many peace-building practitioners argue that memory is central to the recovery of victims of conflict. To heal and live a meaningful life, victims need to come to terms with their past experiences.

Peace-building practitioners, therefore, design programmes for psychosocial support and healing. They build museums and monuments in memory of people who died or went missing. They advocate for reparations and accountability of perpetrators. They opine themselves as champions for promoting recovery and healing for the victims

The grim reality, however, is that many of these peace-building practitioners never understand what it truly takes for victims to live with painful memories. Having not gone through the horrendous experience of victims, the practitioners rely on their interface with victims to design their programmes. They simplify and ‘projectise’ memory. They design and implement quick projects that often have no sustainability measures. At the end of these projects, they say goodbye to the victims, write a report to donors in which they glorify their achievements in promoting memory.

As a researcher who has lived and worked in northern Uganda for many years, I have learnt a thing or two about memory. There are many glaring realities about memory that peace-builders do not take into consideration.

Finally, acknowledgment of victims’ experiences through symbolic gestures is also a sure avenue for promoting memory. This acknowledgement can take the form of museums, monuments, memorial projects, or official apologies from perpetrators.

Therefore, as peace-builders design memory projects, they must remember that the greatest determinant factor in healing and memory are the victims themselves. Victims must be empowered to take control of their destiny. Memory projects must not be theoretical and abstract but must improve the wellbeing and situations of victims.

Only then can victims hope to move on with their lives.

 

The first and most important is that victims will never forget what they went through no matter how many interventions are implemented for them. The second is that the ability to cope with memory is subjective and varies from one individual to another. It is also dependent on the individual experiences that each victim underwent. Thirdly, the ability of victims to cope with their memories is enhanced when their alleged tormentors face justice. Justice, however, must be holistic and not simply focus on punishing perpetrators, but also on repairing the harm done to victims for example through restoration of their livelihoods.

Mr Owor Ogora is a former head of the Justice and Reconciliation Project and an independent researcher and consultant.

 http://allafrica.com/stories/201509040516.html

Families join hands to commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared in Lira

Press Releases, , , , ,

LIRA – Two days before the United Nations designated International Day of the Disappeared, families from across northern Uganda will come together on Friday, 28 August 2015, in Lira town to remember their missing loved ones. The day-long event is part of a ‘sub-regional dialogue’ on missing persons as a result of conflict in northern Uganda organised by the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP). Families of the missing, civil society as well as religious and traditional leaders from Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile sub-regions will meet at Apostolic Social Center for a procession from Lira district headquarters, a symbolic candle-lighting ceremony and a dialogue.

“The sub-regional dialogue is important, first, to commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared,” JRP Community Mobilisation Team Leader Isaac Okwir Odiya said. “It is also an opportunity for stakeholders in northern Uganda to join hands to create awareness about the disappeared and to identify the means to address the enormous legacy of disappearances in Uganda,” he added.

The dialogue is being held as part of a joint campaign being run by the JRP and a collective of families of the missing known as ‘The Right to Know’ to document and promote awareness of the challenges facing missing persons and their families in northern Uganda. This year, the Right to Know campaign aims at ensuring national observance and commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared in Uganda.

The International Day of the Disappeared is commemorated annually on the 30th of August following the adoption of UN General Assembly resolution 65/209. In Uganda, thousands of civilians in northern Uganda were abducted and went missing as a result of systematic abductions of children and youth by the Lord’s Resistance Army and the National Resistance Army between 1986 and 2006. Despite being a UN General Assembly Member State, Uganda is yet to officially observe the International Day of the Disappeared.

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Media Contact: Oryem Nyeko, onyeko@justiceandreconciliation.com, 0471 433008

About the Justice and Reconciliation Project: The Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) promotes locally sensitive and sustainable peace in Africa’s Great Lakes region by focusing on the active involvement of grassroots communities in local-level transitional justice. Formerly a partnership of the Gulu District NGO Forum and the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, Canada, JRP has played a key role in transitional justice in Uganda since 2005, through seeking to understand and explain the interests, needs, concerns and views of the communities affected by war between the Lord‟s Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GOU). JRP became an independent NGO in 2010 with support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy, Kampala. For more information please visit http://www.justiceandreconciliation.com.

Download this press release here: Press Release – Families of the Missing to Commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared 2015-08-27

Will LRA victims get justice?

In the News

http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Letters/Will-LRA-victims-get-justice-/-/806314/2827272/-/cn5kfsz/-/index.html

Just months after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and a team of investigators crisscrossed northern Uganda to drum up support for the proceedings against Dominic Ongwen, it has become evident that survivors of the more than two-decade LRA (1987-2008) insurgency find themselves at cross-roads in their pursuit for justice. The sad fact is, they may not even ever realise it. 
In a recent meeting of victims and survivors from across Acholi and Lango sub-regions held at Olango Conference Hall in Gulu organised by the Justice and Reconciliation Project, the victims’ representatives made more demands than the ICC was ever designed to deliver on. 
The meeting was convened to discuss inter alia what justice for international crimes means for northern Uganda, how the different communities in Lango and Acholi feel about the trial of Ongwen and what role they see the trial playing in fostering reconciliation and other imperatives. 
Instead it vividly demonstrated a major mismatch between survivor expectations and what the ICC can actually offer, with more and more communities in the region positioning themselves as supporting the ICC and disengaging from other transitional justice processes in the hopes of benefiting from Ongwen’s trial. Not only are all the affected sub-regions Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile expecting direct compensation (court reparations) from the ICC if or when Dominic Ongwen gets convicted, they also have fundamentally misplaced beliefs that the ICC is best placed to facilitate processes such as reconciliation, truth-seeking and traditional justice mechanisms in the affected areas. 
The risk here is that by wrongly pinning their hopes on a court established to prosecute rather than to reconcile, local communities will unintentionally further weaken an already faltering national process to develop an appropriate transitional justice policy and legislation. Communities are right to want comprehensive (transitional) justice based on accountability, truth seeking, compensation, reparations and reconciliation, but they are wrong to think that the ICC can deliver on all of these. The fact that they are even trying to do so is a damming indictment of the government’s transitional justice development process that has dragged on for eight years and, despite being now on its sixth draft, has yet to be finalised, let alone operationalised in support of the survivors of northern Uganda and other regions of the country. 
Stephen Oola, 
s.oola@refugeelawproject.org

34 years later: more questions on Ombaci

In the News, , , ,

By Stephen Ssenkaaba

Thirty-Four years since the Ombaci massacre in the Northern Uganda district of Arua, more questions than answers abound.

As victims, their families and leaders in Arua came together this year to commemorate the massacre in which the Uganda National Liberation Army(UNLA) soldiers-in pursuit of Uganda army rebels- killed more than 100 innocent civilians- concerns over reparation, reconciliation and the plight of several poor survivors still linger.

“We hope that finally something can be done to address these issues,” Stephen Acidri, the coordinator of a recently founded Ombaci Massacres Survivors Association said.

The Massacre

On Wednesday, June 24, 1981 UNLA soldiers rounded up Arua town in pursuit of rebels and former soldiers of the Uganda Army.

This brought about tension.

“The soldiers attacked homes, looted property and drove us from our homes,” 84 year old Ismail Saidi, a survivor, said.

In order to escape the wrath of the soldiers, Saidi and many people sought refuge inside the premises of St. Joseph’s college Ombaci and the Catholic Mission nearby.

“It is while hiding here for our lives that we were attacked by the soldiers who thought we were concealing rebels and or collaborating with them,” Saidi, who lost a daughter and two nephews recalls.

“They came into the store where we were hiding and showered us with bullets, they went into the carpentry, the church and other places around the school and the mission killing people.”

After about four hours of shooting, nearly 100 people were dead and several others injured and abandoned at a makeshift camp that had been erected by the Red Cross.

No amends

Since the massacre, Acidri says very little has been done to heal the wounds of one of the most brutal attacks on innocent civilians in Uganda’s recent history.

“Not much has been done to bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to book. No efforts have been taken to establish a truth and reconciliation process to facilitate the healing in this attack that hurt so many people and divided communities. What’s more, there has been no attempt to establish responsibility for these crimes,” Acidri says.

On the ground in Arua, many people claiming to be survivors are coming up and seeking to be compensated. And yet, without clear mechanisms to authenticate the claimants, the identification process risks being taken advantage of. Serious doubts also remain over any plans to hold perpetrators accountable for the human rights abuses that were committed in this gruesome murder.

Poor documentation

The Uganda Human Rights Commission has made recent visits to the site where the massacre took place but has yet to come up with a comprehensive report.

However, a 2013 report by the Justice and Reconciliation project (JRP) indicates that the government soldiers at the time (UNLA) violated international law for which the government of Uganda is still responsible.

“The murders and looting clearly amount to crimes against humanity…” says the report which adds: “What makes the Ombaci massacre such an agregious violation was the deliberate targeting of civilians, a religious mission and of clergy and International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) personnel, who are explicitly protected in instances of non-international armed conflict such as this one under Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.”

Rt. Rev Fredrick Drandua, the retired bishop of Arua Catholic Diocese- who was an influential leader in Arua at the time of the massacre says that for all the atrocities that took place then, “there is need for all of us to rise above the bad days and forge ahead by doing good, forgiving and forgetting.”

http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/671542-34-years-later-more-questions-on-ombaci.html

For Ugandan children born of war, the struggle continues

In the News,

By Samuel Okiror

http://www.irinnews.org/report/101721/for-ugandan-children-born-of-war-the-struggle-continues

KAMPALA, 7 July 2015 (IRIN) – Actual combat may have ended almost a decade ago in northern Uganda, but for many women abducted by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army and the children they conceived in captivity, the war is far from over. Sexual exploitation, beatings, stigmatization and community rejection, lack of medical care and education, and deprivation of land rights are among the challenges faced by those who escaped from or were released by the LRA.

For two decades from the mid-1980s, between 10,000 and 15,000 girls and women were abducted from their homes in northern Uganda to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves of LRA commanders. These forced unions resulted in a population group often neglected by post-war recovery programmes: children born of war.

According to a recent article published by the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), “Thousands of such children exist on the margins, fathered through sexual violence by not only the LRA, but also government forces and a multitude of other state and non-state armed actors.”

A new report by the Justice and Reconciliation Project, based in the northern town of Gulu, points out that scores more women were subjected to sexual violence and exploitations in the so-called “protected villages” where most of the population of northern Uganda was forced to live during the war.

“As if the original violations were not severe enough, female victims are especially susceptible to ongoing forms of re-victimisation that extend long after initial violations occur,” says the report, titled, “Alone Like a Tree: Reintegration Challenges Facing Children Born of War [CBW] and Their Mothers in Northern Uganda.”

 

The members of Awach tailoring group, Gulu district. The group is of mothers of children born out of war and other conflict related situations

 

Consequences live on

The consequences for the women of protracted stigmatisation can include depression and other forms of mental illness as well as increased vulnerability to future abuse and violence due to economic marginalisation.

Women interviewed by the report’s authors said their new partners often “do not want to pay their [children’s] school fees, and the step-parents are reportedly a major source of insults against CBW. They are continuously ostracised and isolated in some homes.”

Interviewees also reported many cases of sexual abuse of both female and male CBW by stepfathers and other relatives. Reporting such abuse was very difficult, especially when the perpetrators were members of the armed forces.

“In the new relationships, the slightest disagreement between husband and wife gets blamed on the women’s past. Even when the man is also formerly-abducted, he can stigmatize the woman, accusing her of sleeping with many men from the bush as a means of justifying his abuse,” says the report.

One 17-year-old boy born in LRA captivity told the researchers: “We are sometimes told the home we are staying in is not our home, and the person taking care of us is not our father. That we should go and look for our father. This is always said by other children in that home. This makes our lives miserable.”

Neglected by reintegration programmes

According to Jackson Odong of the National Memory and Documentation Centre in the northern Ugandan town of Kitgum, the needs of such populations have been neglected.

“Children born in captivity and their mothers continue to suffer because while they were encouraged to return, there was limited support for their reintegration. Focus was largely on ex-combatants. There have been little or no specific interventions targeting surviving children and mothers,” he said.

Irene Ikomu, a human rights lawyer and the coordinator of Parliament Watch Uganda, told IRIN that the report highlighted the need to evaluate current reintegration processes in northern Uganda. “There are clearly gaps that are yet to be addressed and this explains the continued challenges despite peace,” she said.

“Successful reintegration is not just about short-term concerns and political stability, but should especially focus on the long-term strategies for economic reconstruction and development,” added Ikomu.

“In northern Uganda, we cannot say we have fully addressed reintegration without dealing with the issue of land access for the former combatants and victims, especially with regard to CBW,” she said.

The chairman of Uganda’s Amnesty Commission, Peter Onega, shared this view.

“It’s a serious issue. If not addressed urgently, it’s recipe for violence and conflict. As a commission, we haven’t done proper reintegration of these people because we are incapacitated. We don’t have the resources due to low government funding,” he told IRIN, explaining that only around US$1.5 million of the $2.5 million budgeted for reintegration programmes annually had been forthcoming.

“We need to carry out community sensitization, dialogues and reconciliation meetings to create an atmosphere for the community members to fully accept and live peacefully with these children and women,” he added.

 

The children born of war and their mothers performing Acholi traditional dance in Atiak sub county, Amuru district

The ICTJ article noted that while rebels who surrendered “were awarded reinsertion packages of basic household items by the government, there were no additional allowances for those with children born in captivity. This trend continues today, with many governmental and non-governmental programmes recognizing formerly-abducted persons as a special category for assistance, but not children born of war.”

Even within this category, different groups have different needs, the article explained.

 

“For instance, female and male children will face different challenges in societies in which females’ families receive dowry when their daughter marries while males are expected to inherit land and other resources when they come of age. In northern Uganda, some families and clans have rejected male children born of war to a higher extent than females because they do not want to allocate land to them on which to settle when they come of age.”

In March 2014, the Women’s Advocacy Network, a coalition of various groups, including some made up of mothers of CBW, petitioned parliament to set up a gender-sensitive reparations fund to provide free health services to women and children affected by the insurgency, and a mechanism to “identify, integrate, and regularize stateless children born in captivity.” The network also called on the government to “identify, integrate, and resettle child victims of formerly-abducted women whose clan/cultural belongings are unknown.”

While parliament did pass a resolution, it has yet to bear fruit.

so/am