This year, as we join the world in celebration of International Women’s Day, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) wishes to emphasize the unique peace, justice and reconciliation challenges faces women survivors of armed conflict. In line with this year’s theme, “Connecting girls, inspiring futures,” a member of the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN)—a JRP-supported forum for conflict-affected women to undertake gender justice advocacy—has prepared a poem that highlights some of the issues facing formerly-abducted women and the need for stakeholders and communities to listen to women’s calls for justice.
To view the poem, titled “Oduru” or alarm, click here.
Members of the WAN will be performing the poem at today’s district celebrations in Gulu. Pictures are coming soon!
Former Lord’s Resistance Army commander Thomas Kwoyelo was on Friday whisked off to prison despite a ruling by the International Crimes Division of the High Court set ting him free.
Justice Dan Akiiki Kiiza ordered for the release of Kwoyelo following an order by the Constitutional Court.
“We hereby ceased the trial of the accused person (Kwoyelo) alias Latoni forthwith. And consequently we hereby direct the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Amnesty Commission to comply with the provisions of the Amnesty Act,” said Judge Akiiki.
Mr Frank Mayanja Baine, the Prisons spokesperson, last evening confirmed the continued detention of Kwoyelo, saying he is still facing two other charges.
“We work on documents and for someone to be released on amnesty, he or she must have a certificate, which Kwoyelo has not got, to be released. Once he gets the certificate and other documents for his release then we shall release him,” he said in a telephone interview.
Kwoyelo’s mother, Ms Rosolina Oyela, said she was surprised by the incident because she expected to go back home with her son.
His lawyer Francis Onyango, however, declined to comment on the matter. “I have no comment because there is a Supreme Court case over the issue,” he said.
Civil society want reconciliation The court, however, did not mention the Supreme Court appeal.
Civil society actors in the region reiterated their call for reparations to war affected communities in northern Uganda, and reconciliation.
Mr Lino Owor Ogora, the head of research and documentation at the Justice and Reconciliation Project, said the way forward is to reconcile Kwoyelo with the victims in Pabbo.
Kwoyelo is the first LRA commander to be prosecuted for crimes committed during the two-decade war in northern Uganda that left thousand dead and millions displaced. He was captured in 2008 during Operation Lightning Thunder in Garamba Forest, eastern DR Congo.
The ICC in 2005 issued an arrest warrant for five top LRA commanders, including their leader Joseph Kony, Dominic Ogweng, Onen Kamdul and two others who died in the bush. Kony is said to be operating between Central African Republic and Sudan.
From July 13-July 20, JRP staff guest lectured to students from the University of Tennessee as part of the Gulu Study and Service Abroad Program, or GSSAP. The students were completing a short course on peacebuilding and conflict resolution in northern Uganda. JRP team leaders spoke about gender justice, community mobilization, traditional justice, transitional justice and reintegration.
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.
A girl participates in the Gulu district Day of the African Child celebrations, 2010
This year, as we join Africa in celebration of the Day of the African Child (DAC), JRP wishes to emphasis the need to reflect on the unique peace, justice and reconciliation issues hindering the well-being of children affected by conflict. In line with this year’s theme, we offer specific recommendations for planning and budgeting for the well-being of children affected by conflict, with critical reflections on the situation of children in northern Uganda and lessons for other contexts.
On October 23rd 2002, an estimated forty-four fighters of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) entered Omot sub-county from Par Samuelo Acak, near the river Agogo. They were given instruction by their LRA Commander, “as soon as we cross the river, abduct whoever you come across until we reach Corner Gang pa Aculu in Opota Trading Centre.”3 The team, consisting mostly of young soldiers, first moved North East, abducting twelve people in Lawal Ode, an additional eight people in Lalur Onyol and finally another twelve people were abducted from Latin Ling before they reached the point of slaughter.
The Opota Trading Centre at Corner Gang Pa Aculu was the site where twenty-eight people lost their lives in the brutal and dehumanizing Omot massacre. People were murdered, cut into pieces and then placed in cooking pots in front of dozens of witnesses.
This report is the first systematic documentation of the massacre that took place in Omot. Eight years later, the community has far from achieved reconciliation and restitution. The people of Omot have been stripped of their right to justice; the wrongs committed against them unacknowledged by Government or LRA, no system of redress has been explored. What is more, the community is divided. Victims of the massacre continue to resent the clan of ‘Samuel’, a young resident who was recruited by the LRA and then later ran away with a gun, leading ultimately to the Omot massacre as retaliation. The community does not feel they have been compensated by Samuel’s family for the deaths that occurred as a result of his desertion. In Omot, it is important for support to be provided for community reconciliation.
As Long as You Live, You Will Survive recommends that the Government of Uganda:
Formally acknowledge the Omot massacre of 2002 as well as all other massacres that have occurred in communities in Northern Uganda;
Recognize and redress their failure to protect Ugandan citizens from the LRA attack;
Hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes;
Support local approaches to justice and reconciliation that will address tensions within;
Provision of reparations;
Provision of a memorial designed and constructed with victims.
In this community dialogue, respondents voice their views on the challenges affecting their communities in the wake of decades of violent conflict in northern Uganda. The issues discussed include the unexploded ordinance scattered throughout the region, disputes over land ownership amongst those returning from conflict or from displaced persons camps, the negative effects of humanitarian aid and the issues that arise as former LRA attempt to return to civilian society.
The comments of many of the respondents reveal a deep distrust of the Ugandan government as well as a strong faith in traditional spiritual beliefs, often used as a means of making sense of and developing solutions to many of the problems faced by war-affected communities.
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..
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.
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.
