Category Archives: Photos

Teso TJ Policy Consultation, February 2011

Photos, ,

[AFG_gallery id=’23’]

From February 9-10, JRP, in collaboration with South Africa-based Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), carried out the third in a series of consultations with victims to gain their perceptions on different transitional justice mechanisms.  The consultations were part of a series titled, “Enhancing Grassroots Participation in Transitional Justice Debates,” aimed at intensifying local advocacy in northern Uganda around issues of truth-seeking, reparations, traditional justice, and gender justice ahead of the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections. Earlier consultations were held late last year in West Nile and Acholi/Lango.  Like in the first two consultations, participants were eager to share their views on the relevance of different mechanisms and to state the importance of processes to foster healing and reconciliation. As it is across the greater North, victims in Teso prioritized compensation from the Government of Uganda for crimes committed by state and non-state actors.

To read the event’s press release, click here.

Norwegian State Secretary Visit, February 2011

Photos,

[AFG_gallery id=’22’]

On February 6, the Ambassador of Norway visited our office with the State Secretary in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ingrid Fiskaa. The State Secretary was interested in learning about gender and equality, so we incited the collaboration of Ododo Wa:Our Stories and a women’s group they work closely with. In addition to team leaders providing short presentations on their work, the women performed an original drama on the subject, what they viewed as ‘gender inequality.’

This visit was an important opportunity to showcase our work and to share experiences. JRP is funded with generous support from the Norwegian Embassy in Kampala.

Norwegian Ambassador Visit, January 2011

Photos,

[AFG_gallery id=’21’]

On January 24 JRP welcomed Norwegian Ambassador H.E. Thorbjørn Gaustadsæther to our offices. His visit provided an opportunity for our team to share more about our work and experiences with him. For one hour, we sat under the shade of a compound tree, discussing our work-streams and answering questions about our activities asked by the Ambassador.

This interaction was an important opportunity to showcase our work and to share experiences. JRP is funded with generous support from the Norwegian Embassy in Kampala.

West Nile TJ Policy Consultation, November 2010

Photos, ,

[AFG_gallery id=’20’]

The Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP), in partnership with the South Africa-based Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), commenced a series of grassroots consultations in northern Uganda to explore local perspectives on transitional justice.

The first consultation was held November 24-25 at Slumberland Hotel in Arua Town, and engaged local-level, grassroots persons directly affected by conflict to ensure that their opinions are not left out of the wider discussions. Thirty participants, comprising primarily of victims and victims’ groups and religious and cultural leaders from across the sub-region, convened to share views on truth-seeking, traditional justice, community reparations and gender justice.

These consultations are part of a larger JRP/IJR project, titled “Enhancing Grassroots Participation in Transitional Justice Debates,” which aims to intensify local advocacy and consultation of victims in northern Uganda around issues of transitional justice ahead of the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections. Over the next three months, JRP/IJR will hold extensive consultations with a broad range of stakeholders, including grassroots communities, JLOS (Justice, Law and Order Sector), CSOs and local government leaders to gain a clearer sense of how justice needs can be met.

TJ Election Campaign Press Conference, 16 November 2010

Photos, ,

[AFG_gallery id=’19’]

The 2011 Ugandan elections need candidates and parties who commit themselves to sustainable peace in Uganda. This requires not only forward-looking planning and development, but also stakeholders who address past abuses and feelings of injustice. Today, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) officially launches an advocacy campaign titled, “Casting the Ballot to Address Victimhood: A Call to Put Transitional Justice on the Election Agenda,” to engage war-affected communities and candidates into bringing transitional justice (TJ) issues to the forefront of the elections.

Mukura Documentation, 2010

Photos, ,

[AFG_gallery id=’18’]

From September 6-10, members of JRP’s documentation team visited Mukura sub-county, Kumi district, Teso sub-region, to meet with members of the community and document the 1989 Mukura massacre.

During this time, we interviewed members of civil society, government officials, survivors of the massacre, and victims’ families, allowing us to gain insight into many perspectives on the massacre.

According to our findings, on July 11, 1989, the 106th Battalion of the NRA (former name of the national army) rounded-up 300 men suspected of being rebel collaborators against the NRA regime and incarcerated them in a train wagon.

There is little evidence to suggest that most of these men were anything other than innocent civilians. By the time they were released, 87 had suffocated to death. (This figure and some other details are highly contested, showing the need for a credible truth-seeking process into the event).

On June 10, Ugandan Finance Minister Syda Bumba announced that families of victims of the Mukura massacre would receive a total of 200 million Ugandan shillings, as set aside in the 2010/11 national budget.

This information and more gathered during our September visit to Mukura will be compiled into an upcoming report to document the massacre.

Colombia Exchange, October 2010

Photos,

[AFG_gallery id=’16’]

From October 19 to November 2, JRP representatives Ojok Boniface and Ketty Anyeko visited Colombia in the second phase of exchange visits between survivors of war from northern Uganda and Colombia. You may remember that two representatives from Afro-Colombian communities affected by conflict visited JRP and northern Uganda in July for a similar exchange. Again this time, the exchange was facilitated by two professors from the University of British Colombia, Canada: Dr. Erin Baines (a JRP co-founder) and Dr. Pilar Riano.

The conflict in Colombia has lasted for over 50 years and is still ongoing. The objective of this exchange relationship between Uganda and Colombia is to learn and share work experiences on advocacy, documentation and memory works with victims of violent conflicts.

During the course of the visit, Boniface and Ketty met with missionaries working for human rights protection in Afro-Colombian communities, held discussions with women’s groups and displaced communities, met with organisations working to better the situation of war-affected persons, and met with historical memory groups.

Through this exchange, they learned several lessons based on the Colombian experience, including:

 

  • Forming alliances is crucial and requires collaborations from civil society;
  • Denunciation of violence from public figures like religious leaders can have a big impact;
  • Memory and memorialization by communities can help heal wounds of the past, even when the conflict is still ongoing;
  • Archiving is very important in recording events of the conflict and recording activities of an organisation.

In the future, JRP looks forward to continuing this partnership with war-affected communities in Colombia through exchange and dialogue.

Lukodi Core Team, October 2010

Photos, ,

[AFG_gallery id=’15’]

JRP is currently engaged in an on-going process to develop a community reconciliation model in Lukodi village, Bungatira sub-county, Gulu district.

A meeting was held with the Community Reconciliation (CORE) Team in Lukodi to guide members in conducting conflict analysis using the RPP (Reflecting on Peace Practice) force field analysis technique. The team came up with a number of factors that are currently working against peaceful coexistence among the community members and explored strategies for combating them.

West Nile Documentation, October 2010

Photos,

 [AFG_gallery id=’17’]

From October 18-21, JRP’s Research, Documentation and Advocacy Team paid another visit to the West Nile sub-region, visiting Arua town. There, JRP met with representatives of the West Nile Kony Rebel War Victims Association and various other victims from the region to learn about their experiences during the conflict and post-conflict struggles.

Though largely overlooked by most NGOs and the Government, the suffering of West Nile over the last two decades has proved to be serious. While Acholi sub-region formed the epicenter of the war, West Nile suffered its own share of violence over the last thirty years, as various rebel groups have operated in the region.

Many of the survivors we interviewed lost virtually all their means of sustenance in ambushes on the Kampala-Arua Road, and still nourish the trauma of the abductions that oftentimes followed. The West Nile Kony Rebel War Victims Association has made a series of attempts to draw attention to their case, but this has not yet materialized in substantial governmental support. Occasionally government representatives have paid compensation to individual victims, but a transparent and inclusive policy is still lacking.

Though this naturally frustrates the members of the association, the participants expressed a strong desire not to give up their fight for accountability and reparations. They took a very positive stance towards working together with JRP. JRP will therefore continue documenting their experiences and assist in their future advocacy and mobilization efforts.

Survivor Groups’ Advocacy Training, 30 September 2010

Photos, , , , ,

[AFG_gallery id=’14’]

In order to mobilise survivor groups to lobby and advocate for issues that affect them, JRP organised a training workshop on basic advocacy skills for 24 representatives of survivor/victim groups from northern Uganda.

The representatives came from five massacre sites across the region, including:

  • Abia, Alebtong district, Lango sub-region
  • Atiak, Amuru district, Acholi sub-region
  • Lukodi, Gulu district, Acholi sub-region
  • Mucwini, Kitgum district, Acholi sub-region
  • Mukura, Kumi district, Teso sub-region

The workshop, held from September 28-30 at the Sports View Garden Inn in Gulu, had objectives to empower survivor/victim groups with necessary skills in advocacy and lobbying and to develop advocacy strategies and plans for their specific groups. Over the course of three days, each group identified and analyzed pressing issues facing victims and survivors in their communities and then developed an advocacy plan to remedy the problem.

In addition, the training gave each of the attendees the opportunity to interact with others who have survived similar atrocities and to share experiences and solutions. It also provided an opportunity for groups’ ideas to be heard beyond the workshop. News pieces on the advocacy training ran on both Mega FM and Radio King.