Category Archives: Publications

Participants during the workshop on accountability and reconciliation in Kampala

Workshop on Accountability and Reconciliation in Uganda: Juba Peace Talks

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Participants during the workshop on accountability and reconciliation in Kampala
Participants during the workshop on accountability and reconciliation in Kampala

This workshop follows the conclusion of the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) in Juba between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU). Mediated by the Government of Southern

Sudan (GoSS) under Chief mediator Dr.Riek Machar, the vice president of Southern Sudan, this remarkable agreement which begun two years ago was to be signed by LRA leader Joseph Kony on 10th April 2008. However, he did not sign as expected and instead sought clarifications on the specificities on the protocol of accountability and reconciliation as well as the disarmament, demobilization and re-integration agreements. In particular, the LRA leader Joseph Kony wanted to know more about the Acholi traditional justice system of mato oput, its linkage to the proposed special division of the High Court and other formal institutions in the agreements.

It was on the basis of this that His Highness Rwot David Onen Acana II, the Acholi Cultural leader, with the assistance of the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP), was tasked to lead a consultative process that would bring together like minded actors to deliberate in an attempt to provide clarity to the LRA leaders’ concerns. Therefore, on the 6th and 7th May 2008, a workshop was convened at the Fairway Hotel, Kampala.

The objective of the workshop was to clarify the procedural steps required for the implementation of the Agreement on Accountability. As a result, the workshop was to produce an explanatory note outlining procedures on key technical issues in the Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation that was to be made immediately available to the LRA leadership.

In arriving at these, the conference organizers identified key themes to be discussed, and these included: (i) the role of investigations and self-disclosure; (ii) the criteria for allocation of individuals to the various proceedings; (iii) description of various accountability institutions (courts, traditional justice, and truth-telling mechanisms) and their jurisdictions; (iv) the relationship between the various accountability institutions, and, (v) the possible outcomes of the proceedings for individuals..

To access the report, click here.

With or Without Peace: DDR in Northern Uganda, FN VI

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From July to October 2007, Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) and the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) conducted qualitative research with ex-LRA fighters on the subject of peer support and reintegration in northern Uganda. These in-depth discussions revealed a number of pressing insights on how to conduct a peaceful and successful DDR process.

 To access the report, click here.

Residents of Kalongo IDP Camp, 2006

2007 Annual Report

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Residents of Kalongo IDP Camp, 2006
Residents of Kalongo IDP Camp, 2006

July 2007 marked the one-year anniversary of the initiation of peace talks between the Lord’s

Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda, hosted in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba. JRP has taken an active role in bringing the concerns and demands for justice and reconciliation from the grassroots to the bargaining table. The June signing of Agenda Item Three on Accountability and Reconciliation was in part the result of weeks of JRP’s preparation of original research findings into a comprehensive presentation made to delegates. The seminar, entitled Towards a Common Understanding of Traditional, National, and International Justice Options, was co-organised by JRP with the International Center for Transitional Justice and convened Ker Kwaro Acholi on June 2 in Juba. The past year of research has uncovered a plethora of issues that must be addressed in order for lasting peace to be attained in Uganda.

From January through March, the JRP team conducted a major research phase in 9 IDP camps, examining community-level mechanisms that might facilitate a process of truth-telling at the local level in northern Uganda. The ensuing report, The Cooling of Hearts: Community Truth-Telling in Acholi-land examines the desires and fears of the war-affected populace in learning the truth about the now 21-year-old conflict. In an ongoing strategy of community consultation, this report was translated into Luo, brought back to the camps, and discussed in local papers, international forums, community dialogues, and on the radio. Consultations with local leaders were sought in order to refine the report to truly reflect the opinions of Acholi. It provides important new insights into current debates in the country and at the Juba peace talks on how justice can be served in northern Uganda.

 Throughout the course of the truth-telling research, staff also uncovered a desire amongst residents that certain massacres be documented and that their consequences be discussed. JRP responded and produced Field Note 4: Remembering the Atiak Massacre of April 20, 1995, released in April. A JRP representative visited the community for the memorial ceremony; the site of one of many as-yet undocumented scars on the populace of northern Uganda. JRP continues to document other major atrocities and several similar reports are forthcoming in 2008.

 A fifth Field Note entitled Abomination: Local belief systems and international justice was written by JRP in order to emphasize the need for policy-makers to understand the importance of understanding local spiritual beliefs in Acholi when considering transitional justice strategies in the region. In the spirit of previous JRP reports such as Roco Wat I Acholi (2005) and Alice’s Story (2006), this Field Note bridged the gap between indigenous and international motives for justice in Acholi.

 JRP continues to lead its colleagues locally, nationally and internationally in the unification of local voices aiming to affect positive change in Juba, Garamba and Kampala. JRP was instrumental in to the release of the August 11th Lira Declaration on Agenda Item Three of the Juba Peace Talks by Cultural and Religious Leaders, Women and Youth from Madi, Teso, Lango and Acholi Sub-Regions. The Lira

Declaration is the result of a consultation attended and signed by the leadership of traditional and religious institutions, including women and youth representatives.

 Project staff actively built upon their capacities as researchers and advocates throughout 2007, attending numerous workshops and presenting solutions to justice and reconciliation issues on behalf of JRP’s community partners. JRP will continue this important work in 2008 and beyond.

 To access the report, click here.

Abomination: Local belief systems and international justice, FN V

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Local contexts must begin to better inform Western-based approaches to transitional justice; without them, external interventions often fail to resonate with the values, norms and beliefs of victims. To illustrate this point, this edition of Field Notes focuses on the Acholi concept of kiir, or abomination. Kiir is a transgression of the moral order which is believed to cause serious misfortune, including disease, spiritual haunting and death. Not only has the conflict in northern Uganda created the conditions that have allowed these transgressions to occur; the conflict has also been called an abomination in and of itself. A curse on the people of Acholi and consequent mass displacement are thought to have multiplied acts of abomination as well as reduced the capacity to deal with them: a cleansing ceremony must be performed in order to rectify the impact of kiir.

This Field Note attempts to bring the reader closer to an understanding of local belief systems. Gaining insight into these beliefs can aid international justice systems to better reflect the lived realities of the victim population.

To access the report, click here.

Declaration by Northern Uganda Civil Society Organizations on Agenda Item 3 of the Juba Peace Talks (Accountability and Reconciliation): Acholi, Lango, Teso and West Nile Regions

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Between the 20-30 August 2007 CSOs working on peace, justice and reconciliation activities in Northern Uganda held four consultative meetings in the regions of Acholi, Lango, Teso, and West Nile to reach a common position on the ongoing consultations on accountability and reconciliation.

A draft committee consisting of three representatives from each sub-region met in Gulu from the 6-7 September 2007 to come up with a common position for CSOs in Northern Uganda.

It is from the proceedings of this meeting and based on regional consultations that we derive the contents of this memorandum, which we hereby declare as a common position for CSOs in Northern Uganda.

To access the declaration, click here.

Lira Declaration on Agenda Item 3 of the Juba Peace Talks (Accountability and Reconciliation) by Cultural and Religious Leaders, Women and Youth from Madi, Teso, Lango and Acholi Sub-Regions

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This declaration was signed by cultural and religious leaders in the sub-regions of West Nile (Madi), Teso, Lango and Acholi after the first anniversary of the Juba Peace Talks.

The declaration made several recommendations in the areas of truth, reparations, reconciliation and complementarity. Noteworthy is the call for traditional justice mechanisms to be used for justice and reconciliation.

To access the declaration, click here.

A woman lays a wreath at the Attiak memorial service, 2007

The Cooling of Hearts: Community truth-telling in Acholi-land

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A woman lays a wreath at the Attiak memorial service, 2007
A woman lays a wreath at the Attiak memorial service, 2007

Recent national and international debates on truth and reconciliation in Uganda have emphasized the importance of incorporating local level mechanisms into a transitional justice strategy. This report seeks to contribute to this discussion by focusing on local level mechanisms in Acholi-land and determining how these might promote truth-telling and reconciliation at the community level.

 Underlying the research are three main objectives: to assess whether or not grassroots, war-affected persons in the region want a truth-telling process; to assess the possibilities of adapting local mechanisms to promote truth and reconciliation at the community level; and lastly, to present the results, observations and recommendations found in this report to relevant policy-makers (the Government of Uganda, local-level leadership in Uganda, and the international community). The research reveals that there is indeed a need for a truth-telling process in northern

Uganda. Few atrocities have been documented or acknowledged publicly – most are contested and highly controversial. As a consequence, victims struggle to survive emotionally, socially and economically with tragic memories of loss, and with little to no high-level acknowledgement by the

Government of Uganda or by most of the LRA high command.

 To access the report, click here.

Students in Atiak

Remembering the Atiak Massacre: April 20th 1995, FN IV

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Students in Atiak
Students in Atiak

On April 20th 1995, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) entered the trading centre of Atiak and after an intense offensive, defeated the Ugandan army stationed there. Hundreds of men, women, students and young children were then rounded up by the LRA and marched a short distance into the bush until they reached a river. There, they were separated into two groups according to their sex and age. After being lectured for their alleged collaboration with the Government, the LRA commander in charge ordered his soldiers to open fire three times on a group of about 300 civilian men and boys as women and young children witnessed the horror. The LRA commander reportedly in charge – the now indicted second in command Vincent Otti – then turned to the women and children and told them to applaud the LRA’s work. Before leaving, youth were selectively rounded up and forced to join the LRA to serve as the next generation of combatants and sexual slaves.

Twelve years later, the wounds of the massacre have far from healed. As the survivor’s testimony at the beginning of this report puts it, “all of us live as if our bodies do not have souls.” Despite the massacre being one of the largest and by reputation most notorious in the twenty-one year history of the conflict, no official record, investigation or acknowledgement of events exists. No excavation of the mass grave has been conducted and therefore the exact number of persons killed is not known. Survivors literally live with the remains of bullet fragments inside them. Although the massacre site is only a few kilometres from the trading centre, a proper burial of those slaughtered 12 years ago is not complete: as one survivor reminds us, “the bodies of some people were never brought back home, because there were no relatives to carry them home.”

This report seeks to provide the first known written record of events leading to the massacre based on the testimony of 41 survivors and witnesses, as well as prominent community members. It does not claim to be complete, but rather provides a partial record in hopes of prompting the Government to begin an investigation into the multiple massacres that have taken place in Uganda. Ideally, this will lead the Government to advance a transitional justice strategy, together with civil society, that will begin to heal the open wounds of Atiak. To this end, recommendations are advanced in the final sections of this report.

To access the report, click here

Challenges in the Pursuit of Transitional Justice: A Case of Northern Uganda (by Michael Otim)

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From April 16-18, Michael Otim attended a meeting in Oslo, Norway, titled, “Transitional Justice and Peace Negotiations.” The meeting was hosted by the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Michael presented this paper during the meeting to update participants on the current transitional justice debates taking place in northern Uganda.

 To access the paper, click here.