Post on 07-Feb-2023
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The unfinished business of the LRA_Full Paper_April 2014
The unfinished business of the Lord’s Resistance Army: Reinvigorating the abandoned
Juba peace process
David-Ngendo Tshimba
dntshimba@umu.ac.ug
Social Research Fellow and Assistant Lecturer
Uganda Martyrs University
Abstract
In the flaring public debate on transitional justice in the aftermath of the collapse of the mediated
Juba peace talks between the Government of Uganda (GoU) and the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA), numerous political and military leaders, members of civil society organisations, and
academics—at both local and international levels—remained divided on various points about
what the final peace deal should entail. By far, the most divisive question, in Juba, consisted of
how to balance the demands of justice in terms of punishment for past wrongdoing against those
of peace in terms of post-violence reconciliation and restoration. Today, more than half a decade
following the abandonment of the Juba peace process, on the one hand, and the continuation of
the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel activity beyond Uganda, on the other hand, this
paper—basing on both secondary data analysis and extended covert observation in the LRA-
affected region of east and central Africa—makes a deliberate preference for a context-specific
restorative type of justice in righting the wrongs committed during this protracted armed conflict.
Only then, the paper ultimately argues, can the much resource-straining hunt for LRA’s Joseph
Kony—so far elusive—be averted and so can the much-needed durable peace for post-war
northern Uganda and beyond be secured.
Key words: transitional justice, retributive justice, restorative justice, durable peace.
1. Introduction
Following the collapse of the JPP [Juba Peace Process], there was need to pick up
the good pieces and move the process to restoring total and lasting peace in
Northern Uganda forward (like the owner of the house which gets burnt, but not a
crime scene detective who rummages crime scenes looking for pieces of evidence
to pursue a criminal prosecution of possible suspects).
Excerpt from The Road Map to Peace in East and Central Africa, (Opak, 2010, p. 78)
The need for crafting peaceful coexistence and harmonious living in the aftermath of violent
conflict cannot be overemphasised. As a fragile society emerging from a bloody conflict,
northern Uganda in particular and the country (Uganda) in general still grapple with questions
about how best to deal with the bitter legacy of evil deeds. Yet, addressing such questions in a
timely fashion remains paramount to the survival and sustainability of such fragile post-war
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society as today’s northern Uganda. Should priority be given to bringing the perpetrators of past
human rights violations to justice, thereby combating the culture of impunity that has come to
characterise many civil conflicts? Or is it more important to start by focusing on measures
designed to ensure that peace and stability, and with them the prospects for a society’s longer-
term recovery, are bolstered?
This paper modestly delves into the controversial transitional justice debate, which continues to
set the parties hitherto directly involved in the conflict (the GoU and the LRA) as well as
concerned stakeholders (affected communities of northern Uganda, north-eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo, south-eastern Central Africa Republic and south-western South Sudan; non-
governmental organisations working in the LRA-affected region; the international community in
general, and in particular the government of United States of America, the African Union and the
United Nations) poles apart. The paper, in the end, makes a deliberate preference for a context-
specific restorative type of justice in order to avert the much resource-straining hunt for LRA’s
Joseph Kony so far unsuccessful, and so secure the much-needed durable peace for post-war
northern Uganda and beyond.
2. Setting the debate
Huyse (2008) already echoed that a recent move from a retributive type of justice to restorative
justice and reconciliation has seriously sparked off an ongoing debate in most post-armed
violence societies such as today’s northern Uganda. In this ongoing public debate on transitional
justice, political and military leaders, members of civil society organisations, and academics—at
both local and international levels—are divided on numerous points; by far the most divisive
question is how to balance the demands of justice against the many political, economic, social
and cultural contingencies.
On the one hand, those who emphasise the beneficial effects of prosecution bring forward two
categories of arguments: the first argument is victim-oriented; it is argued that a post-conflict
society has a moral obligation to prosecute and punish the perpetrators, because retribution is
exactly what most victims want. It serves to heal their wounds and so restore their self-
confidence due to the fact that it publicly acknowledges who was right and who was wrong and,
hence, clears the victims of any labels of ‘criminal’ that were placed on them by the authorities
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of the past or, indeed, by the rebel groups or the new elites. The second set of argument has to do
with establishing and upholding peace and political stability. It is thus argued that prosecutions
(trials) will avoid unbridled private revenge. Otherwise, victims may be tempted to take justice
into their own hands. Therefore, the survival of a newly established regime depends on swift and
firm judicial action against those who are responsible for the gravest violations of human rights.
This is seen as a necessary protection against sabotage ‘from within’ and as a way of achieving
some minimal physical security. Additionally, criminal courts establish individual criminal
accountability, for the idea of collective guilt is often the source of negative stereotypes, which
in turn may provoke more violence.
On the other hand, some advocates of restorative justice such as Latigo (2008) question whether
outright punishment is the appropriate response in any and every context. The end of a civil war
or of a period of violent repression creates an intricate agenda—rebuilding the political
machinery and the civil service; guaranteeing a minimum of physical security; demobilising,
disarming and reintegrating rebel movements; reorganising the army and police; rebuilding
physical infrastructure; stabilising the economy; establishing a non-partisan judiciary; organising
elections; healing the victims and repairing the damage inflicted on them among other concerns
on the post-conflict to-do list. It is argued that dealing with the perpetrators, possibly by means
of criminal prosecutions, is only one of many challenges. More often than not it will be
impossible to tackle all tasks simultaneously. Choices therefore have to be made. It is argued that
the place of justice in general, and or prosecution (trials) in particular, on the post-conflict
agenda depends on the particular conjunction of political, cultural and historical forces. Other
problems and needs may be more important and/or more urgent than seeking justice through
trials. In addition, prosecutions are ambivalent in certain transitional contexts. They can have
highly destabilising effects on a peace settlement or a fragile shift to stability. Furthermore,
prosecutions do have some intrinsic limitations, in that, they are perpetrator-oriented and so do
not give victims the full attention they are entitled to in order to be healed of the injustices they
suffered.
Against this backdrop, this paper underpins an argument for the ethics of peaceful coexistence
between the offended and their offenders in the ongoing heated debate, which ostensibly
polarises the demands for justice (criminal liability) against the search for lasting peace (amnesty
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and reconciliation) in the large LRA-affected region. But before delving further into the literature
about this transitional justice debate and taking a position, the following section of the paper
presents an intricate extent at which the hunt down for LRA leader, Joseph Kony, in order to
eradicate definitively this insurgent movement, has so far remained elusive.
3. A costly yet elusive hunt for Kony’s LRA
The roots of the LRA armed struggle had been intertwined with other conflicts in Uganda and
beyond, and more so with the coming to power of the National Resistance Army/Movement
(NRA/M) of Yoweri Museveni in 1986. Referring to Finnström’s work (2008), Atkinson (2009)
reiterated that the capture of Kampala by the NRA in January 1986 marked the starting point of
several new armed conflicts in Uganda; in effect, the battle zone simply shifted location from
central Uganda towards the north and the country’s other peripheries. Of the twenty-seven rebel
movements following Museveni’s NRA/M takeover, the most protracted, vicious and debilitating
has been Joseph Kony’s LRA rebel insurgency in greater northern (north and east parts) Uganda.
Ginyera-Pinycwha (1992) pointed out that this bloody conflict has been attributed to a number of
factors, including poverty and general underdevelopment, the loss of economic opportunities and
jobs by former army officers, and political repression as well as a struggle for political power.
Adler (1997) had already pointed out that, like any other social institution, war is socially
constructed and partly depends—for its persistence—on collective ideas about the inevitability
of war and its desirability for achieving political gain, riches and glory.
As Museveni’s NRA captured Kampala in 1986, soldiers and supporters of the previous
governments left Kampala and fled northwards, towards Acholiland (then Gulu, Kitgum, and
Pader districts) bordering the then Sudan. Museveni’s army followed hard on the heels of the
soldiers, crossing the symbolically significant border of the Nile-Karuma bridge at the middle of
the country’s South-North divide. Finnström (2005) wrote that killings, rape and other forms of
physical abuse aimed at non-combatant population became the order of the day when
Museveni’s former guerrillas reached Acholiland, which was foreign to them. Simultaneously,
from within Sudan, opposition elements regrouped and launched the Uganda People’s
Democratic Movement/Army (UPDM/A), predominantly comprising former Acholi foot soldiers
and officers of the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). Other insurgency movements
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were also formed, of which Alice Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) is well-known. As
war evolved, people in the war-torn region came to differentiate between two dimensions of
armed resistance, the first called “the army of the earth” (mony me ngom) and the second “the
army of the heaven” (mony me polo) (Finnström, 2005, p.101).
At the initial stage, the uprisings led by Lakwena’s HSM which later on metamorphosed into
Joseph Kony’s LRA had considerable support among the grassroots who found their homes,
belongings and cattle herds destroyed and looted en masse by the intruding soldiers (the NRA
which later on metamorphosed into the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces, UPDF). In the
former’s view, Acholiland was under occupation by the latter, something they resisted in the
name of social justice. The evolving war between government forces (UPDF) and the renewed
insurgency (LRA) has however caused an enormous humanitarian catastrophe essentially in the
Acholi sub-region of northern Uganda, home of the Acholi people; with no proper estimates of
hundreds of thousands of those who periled in the two-decade-long armed violence, some
800,000 or 70 per cent of the Acholi population were forcefully displaced to large camps
cynically called “protected villages” (Finnström, 2005; Latigo, 2008; Komakech, 2008).
The LRA led by Joseph Kony, who is alleged to have taken over his cousin Alice Lakwena’s
Holy Spirit, has abducted tens of thousands of minors into their fighting ranks, which eventually
alienated them from the local population (Angucia, 2010). Originally composed largely of ethnic
Acholi from northern Uganda, the composition of the lower ranks of the LRA has changed as
they have replenished their numbers through abduction of civilians across the region including
northern Uganda, north-eastern DRC, south-western CAR, and southern South Sudan.
Since the 1990s there has been a national as well as international-level consensus that the LRA
can only be stopped by military intervention. Supported by the United States’ Africa Command
(AFRICOM), to date, the Uganda’s armed forces (UPDF) have led offensives across the region
and claimed that LRA numbers are low such that the rebel movement (LRA) is near defeat
(Conciliation Resources, 2011). In fact, in 1992, the first military offensive by Uganda’s armed
forces codenamed “Operation North” resulted in large numbers of Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) housed in squalid, disease-ridden camps in northern Uganda. The second military
offensive, codenamed “Operation Iron Fist” was launched against the LRA ten years later (2002
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through 2005), aiming at attacking LRA rebels from the rear in the then southern Sudan.
Operation Iron Fist, Atkinson (2009) wrote, was intended to deliver a final blow to the rebels by
pursuing them with more than 100,000 troops, to their bases in the then southern Sudan. Again,
the operation’s failure had severe humanitarian consequences: increased abductions by the LRA
and IDPs in northern and eastern Uganda—almost the same number as in the much more widely
publicized case of Darfur (Atkinson, 2009). While this military offensive undoubtedly inflicted
huge damage on the LRA, it nevertheless did not deliver a final blow to the LRA’s rebel activity
and violence against civilians in the LRA-affected region.
At the heart of the contestation over hunt for and prosecution of LRA’s commanders lies not the
realisation of the fact that ‘some justice’ is or can be better than ‘no justice,’ but rather a more
worthwhile concern about whether the interests of “justice” can remain complementary to and
compatible with the pursuit of “peace” in the aftermath of ruthless violence. What has been,
nonetheless, the less conspicuous but more pernicious issue resulting from this two-decade long
armed conflict remained the manifestation of structural violence—a dehumanising living
condition emanating from forced life encampment. Yet, the dominant narrative repeatedly voiced
by the one party to the conflict (GoU)—more often than not, in unison with some influential
stakeholders from the international community, including global media and international
humanitarian organisations—simply made this structural violence easy to ignore.
What had become and still continues to be most highlighted themes of this armed insurgency
consists, on the one hand, of the cruelty as well as mass abduction of minors by the LRA,
coupled with the notion that LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony, is steered by an unfathomable and
essentially primeval worldview which leaves no room for any meaningful political engagement,
on the other hand. Consequently, and as a matter of political expediency of the Kampala regime,
President Museveni has domestically “used this dominant narrative/official discourse of the war
to sow fear and cultivate political support from areas outside northern Uganda; internationally,
the GoU used the war, and the official discourse of it, to help obtain diplomatic and budgetary
support from the international donor community and more especially the United States of
America (USA), which included the LRA on its list of international terrorist organisations. What
is even more affecting in terms of GoU’s use of this official discourse of the insurgency—
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especially concerning LRA abductions and brutality—is that it speedily facilitated the indictment
of Kony and his top five commanders by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2005
(Atkinson, 2009).
The sudden 2005 ICC arrest warrants for the LRA’s top leadership eventually underpinned the
failed attempts to end the conflict by means of dialogue in the Juba peace talks from July 2006 to
April 2008. The third military offensive, which came to be known as “Operation Lightning
Thunder” under the military intervention by the UPDF—in unison with DRC armed forces,
FARDC, South Sudan armed forces, SPLA, and CAR armed forces, FACA, in the very end—
was successively launched from the end of 2008 up till March 2009. Atkinson (2009) however
argued that although the GoU and more particularly the UPDF referred to this operation as a
joint military offensive with armies of the DRC and the Government of South Sudan (GoSS),
this had been an overwhelmingly UPDF affair, with the two other forces playing a minimal
support role at most. Until the end of 2011, however, evidence on the ground showed that the
LRA was operating in new areas, notably in a corridor along the South Sudan–DRC and South
Sudan–CAR borders and as far north as South Darfur (Conciliation Resources, 2011).
Undoubtedly, the launch of this military offensive against the LRA elicited mixed reactions: To
some, this military operation created an avenue through which the LRA regrouped into smaller
formations to attack the local populations and abduct children to join their cause. To others, the
operation was successful in scattering the LRA, though not in ending the war. Still other analysts
described it as a complete military failure—strikingly akin to Operation Iron Fist—because it
turned out to be an ill-thought-out and poorly executed incursion that resulted in more suffering
and upheaval for thousands of Congolese citizens (Ahere and Maina, 2013). The UPDF,
Atkinson (2009) wrote, disclaimed responsibility for protecting civilians from LRA reprisals,
and instead blamed its faux partners, the FARDC in DRC and the SPLA in South Sudan, as well
as UN peacekeeping forces in the DRC, for failing to do so. As such, Atkinson (2009) further
argued, widespread criticism on this issue stands in stark contrast to the equally, if not more,
widespread support for the operation in its early stages. Finally, citing reliable sources from both
former abductees from South Sudan and the LRA itself, Atkinson (2009) underscored that nearly
two years prior to the launch of Operation Lighting Thunder, the LRA was training virtually no
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new abductees from north-eastern DRC or Western Equatoria in South Sudan as fighters. Hence,
arguments by the GoU, the ICC, and others concerned stakeholders that the LRA was using the
Juba peace talks to buy time to build up its fighting force are almost surely inaccurate.
Incidentally, in response to the region-wide threat by recent LRA rebel activism in CAR, DRC
and South Sudan, the GoU with support from the African Union (AU), the International
Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the USA government, once more decided
to address, by use of military force, the growing threat that the LRA poses to regional security.
Referring to a USA congressional research service report of November 2011, Ahere and Maina
(2013) further problematised the concern whether the response by this alliance against the rebel
group is commensurate with the threat posed. Additionally, for Ahere and Maina (2013), perhaps
the most unique characteristic of the LRA is its regional focus and geographical fluidity—two
traits which have arguably made a series of military offensives for the elimination of the LRA so
far elusive.
Strikingly since 2012, the LRA once more came under increasing scrutiny from the international
community from the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the African Union (AU) Peace and
governments of Uganda and USA in a bid to improve coordination of efforts aimed at
dismantling the rebel group definitively. A major outcome of these efforts was the AU-led
Regional Cooperation Initiative for the Elimination of the Lord’s Resistance Army (RCI-LRA),
which launched its operations in March 2012 according to a report by the Global Centre for the
Responsibility to Protect, published in the same year. By its design, this initiative was to
comprise of the Joint Coordination Mechanism chaired by the AU Commissioner for Peace and
Security and composed of the Defence Ministers of the affected countries (CAR, DRC, South
Sudan and Uganda) as well as the Regional Task Force (RTF), comprising 5,000 soldiers and of
national contingents from the affected countries. In the same vein, the USA government
supported the RTF through the provision of 100 armed advisers to help in the hunt for Kony and
his current top-notch commanders.
Nonetheless, the provisions of the AU Peace and Security Council communiqué of 22 November
2011 that authorised the contribution of a total of 5,000 troops for the RTF by the concerned
countries are still largely unmet, due in large part to human and financial challenges; by early
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September 2012, CAR had only contributed 350 soldiers, South Sudan 500 and Uganda 2,000
while discussions with the DRC government on its contribution to the RTF were still ongoing
(Ahere and Maina, 2013). Yet, whereas the LRA has substantially grown weaker in the past two
years as the Ugandan-led and USA-supported counter-LRA African Union Regional Task Force
(AU-RTF) has pursued its mission to eliminate this rebel group, Agger (2013) argued that the
RTF still lacks both logistical capacity and access to key areas where LRA rebels operate in
remote parts of three countries: the thick forests of DRC and CAR, and the Kafia Kingi enclave
in South Darfur, Sudan. What is even more, the current power vacuum in CAR following the
compelled resignation of hitherto Seleka leader, Michel Djotodia, coupled with the ongoing
politico-military crisis in South Sudan can only avail to LRA ungovernable spaces where its
renewed rebel activity would surely flourish.
Needless to note is the fact that the rebel movement’s ability to adapt has been evidenced by its
26-year history to survive in a shrunken state and then expand rapidly when circumstances and
external support allow. Therefore, just as the LRA increased its rebel activity for so long as the
war that pitted the Sudanese People Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) against the
Khartoum government lasted, it is most likely to remain a potent and destabilising force in the
region for so long as the current crises in CAR and South Sudan stay unresolved. Against such
deterioration of the security situation region-wide, a Ugandan military solution to end the
conflict by defeating the LRA is made even more problematic than before (notwithstanding
UPDF’s spectacular record of repeated failures of a military solution for more than twenty years)
and it is most likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. What else ought to be pursued in a bid
to end this conflict, in light of the realisation of failed attempts to end this conflict militarily? At
the heart of the transitional justice debate rests the need to fight against impunity for wrongdoing
on the one hand, and the concern for recreating an all-inclusive post-violence society from a
shattering experience of past evil, on the other hand.
4. Retributive versus Restorative Justice: some theoretical implications
In a complex narrative about the pursuit of justice after violence, Noll (2011) pointed out, on the
one hand, that the international community wants to hold war criminals accountable through an
international retributive justice system; yet, on the other hand, the cooperation with those
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criminals is often necessary to secure lasting peace. How can these two seemingly inconsistent
goals be managed in a broader peace process? As Noll (2011) noted, this paper too underscores
that what is required for peace and accountability is a deeper understanding of justice, for the
controversial debate about restoration (reconciliatory peace) and criminal accountability
(retributive justice) is really a conflict around the different meanings and understandings of
justice.
Article 3, paragraph one of the Preliminary Pact on Accountability and Reconciliation of the
Juba peace process, signed in late June 2007 by the GoU and the LRA stated: “Traditional justice
mechanisms, such as Culo Kwor, Mato Oput, Kayo Cuk, Ailuc and Tonu ci Koka and others as
practiced in the communities affected by the conflict, shall be promoted, with necessary
modifications, as a central part of the framework for accountability and reconciliation.” To date,
more than half a decade since relative peace returned to the North of Uganda, there still is
nationwide concern for post-war recovery throughout the country’s LRA-affected areas.
Indisputably, a considerable amount of studies have been carried by academics (Allen, 2006;
Angucia, 2010), policy research institutions (such as Refugee Law Project of Makerere’s Law
School, RLP and the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, ACCORD) as
well as international non-governmental organisations (such as Human Rights Watch and
International Alert) in a bid to inform policy-makers as well as many other stakeholders about
what could be the pathway to post-war reconstruction and durable in today’s LRA-affected areas
in northern Uganda as well as in the neighbouring countries of South Sudan, DRC and CAR.
However, controversies around the type of justice to be pursued in the search for durable peace
in the aftermath of such violent conflict still abound. Different actors (state, civil society and
international non-state) as well as local communities are split apart on the question of what and
whose justice to be followed in such precarious scenarios.
On retributive justice
As Galligan (1981) expressed the core idea of retributive justice is “the moral notion that the
wrongdoer ought to be punished” (Galligan 1981, p.152). The major argument for retribution
maintains that it is the wrongness of the criminal act that justifies the imposition of punishment
on the offender. In the same vein, Galligan (1981) underscored that guilt deserves punishment
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for the sake of justice. In this logic, perpetrators of violence inflicted upon civilian populations as
a result of the LRA insurgency (elements of both the offensive and the counter-offensive) are to
be subjected to criminal prosecution as in a way to account for their wrongdoing. Vinjamuri and
Snyder (2004) maintained that the idea of retributive justice through prosecutions has existed for
a very long time and has been considered as the most appropriate tool for addressing war crimes
and past human rights abuses.
In the aftermath of massive human rights abuses, victims have well established rights to see the
perpetrators punished first and foremost, to know the truth, and to receive reparations. A history
of unaddressed massive abuses is most likely to be socially divisive, to generate mistrust
between groups and in the institutions of the State, and to hamper or slow down the achievement
of security and development goals. As is seen in most post-conflict societies where massive
human rights violations have taken place, the claims of justice refuse to go away. Hence, in
trying to ensure criminal accountability for the past evil deeds retributive justice claims to
establish the rule of law and so guarantee communities’ security in the aftermath of conflict.
Since the establishment of the famous two ad hoc criminal tribunals—Nuremberg and Tokyo—
following the end of World War II, prosecutions of war criminals have ensured an end to the
culture of impunity for the greatest violations of human rights. The psychological rationale for
retributive post-conflict justice stems from the need to understand and heal the trauma of victims
and survivors of conflict. Civil wars by definition involve victims, regardless of what the purpose
or mission of the insurgents and the government is. Bass (2005) vehemently argued that victims
of past heinous crimes desperately want to see some kind of punishment for those that have
destroyed their lives or killed their loved ones. Such deep desire makes amnesty a rather
unacceptable solution.
Holding perpetrators responsible for gross human rights violations including genocide, ethnic
cleansing, torture and other types of war crimes, can be important for those affected by these
crimes, “enabling them to attain closure and restore healthy relations toward one another”
(Gloppen 2005, p.22). Gloppen (2005) further noted that for those affected by past atrocities, post-
conflict retribution can serve to demonstrate a break with the immoral order of the past and help
to build trust in the new social order. Failing to deal with past atrocities, in contrast, may reduce
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the post-conflict government’s legitimacy, preventing it from stabilizing the situation (Elster
2004). This is why Elster (2004) further acknowledged that post-conflict trials ensure perpetrators or
insurgents are put away, at least for a period of time, “so that they cannot launch a new
insurgency once the conditions seem appropriate” (Elster 2004, p.8). If perpetrators are not
arrested and prosecuted, it is argued, they may exploit the post-conflict situation to collect allies
and persuade important actors to sabotage the policy of the post-conflict government. Eventually,
another attack or a sabotage of a newly established government’s policy or set of policies will
lead to a destabilisation of the post-violence regime and increase the risk of another civil war.
On restorative justice
Quite unlike retributive justice, restorative justice focuses on victims as well as on perpetrators,
and seeks to engage the society in a dialogue that includes elements of truth telling, apology, and
forgiveness, and that ultimately leads to reconciliation. Wierzynska (2004) has referred to
restorative justice as societal healing of damages resulting from past crimes; the underlying drive
for restorative justice is geared towards an evolving understanding that any dealings with the past
should focus on impacting the future of the post-conflict society constructively. The goals of
restorative justice therefore include addressing the root causes of the conflict, involving all
stakeholders (more so the antagonist parties to the conflict) in the restoration process,
emphasising the importance of truth telling, apologising and seeking forgiveness, and preventing
future conflicts through measures instituted to rebuild the affected communities.
Such society-embracing model of justice focuses on bringing perpetrators and victims together
and—as with retributive justice—ensuring restitution to the victims as well as restoration of
offenders. Most, if not all African societies have had alternative methods of reintegrating the
wrong-doers into society and letting them assume their societal roles as it might have been prior
to the conflict (whether violent or not). The Gacaca courts in Rwanda, the Magamba spirits in
central Mozambique, the Mato Oput rituals among the Acholi in northern Uganda, the Ngele
Gbaa rite among the Kpaa Mende in Sierra Leone, and the Obushingatahe institution in Burundi
are among traditional reconciliation mechanisms which have been advocated, and to some
degree, embraced by affected communities in the aftermath of violent conflict (Huyse & Salter,
2008).
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More specific, the Mato Oput ritual—the communal drinking of a concoction of a bitter local
brew by former antagonists—provides a ritualised form of reconciliation. This traditional justice
ritual reflects a cultural understanding of justice that sees social pardon as better addressing the
requirement of reconciliation than punishment meted out within legal structures (Gavron, 2002).
In a way to ritualise remorse caused by the past evil deeds, Mato Oput (the drinking of the
concoction of a special bitter root) as a ritual becomes a way of accepting former offenders back
into the community once they have acknowledged and accepted responsibility for what they have
done. In the same breath, Zehr (1990) identified a set of five main needs of survivors of
victimisation; namely, the need to speak the truth about what happened to them; to receive
‘answers’; to be awarded compensation and/or restitution; to receive guarantee of non-repetition;
and lastly to be actively involved in the judicial or quasi-judicial process. Of all the specificities
above mentioned, Herman (1992) emphatically pointed out that remembering and telling the
truth about terrible events are “prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and the
healing of individual victim” (Herman, 1992, p.1).
The pursuit of restorative justice therefore provides an alternative process to punitive options,
offering a distinctively different or new model of criminal justice where victims take an active
role in the process, whereas offenders are encouraged to shoulder responsibility for their actions
through communally-accepted reparation of the harm they have done. In this regard, restorative
justice can be seen as criminal justice embedded in its social context, whereby both the offender-
community and the victim-community together with wider society are constructively engaged in
communal problem-solving. Marshall (1997) noted that restorative justice is called so simply
because it is centrally concerned with restoration: restoration of the victim, restoration of the
offender to a law-abiding life, restoration of the damage caused by the crime to the community.
Marshall (1997) further argued that restoration as such is not solely backward-looking; it is
equally, if not more, concerned with the construction of a better society in the present and the
future.
5. Beyond the confines of the Juba peace talks
Considering the differing attitudes and behaviours by the two conflicting parties that took part in
the Juba peace talks, one underlying question requiring further consideration can still be asked in
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the following terms: Whose peace was being pursued? The two-decade long war in this region
had sometimes identified rebel activities of the LRA as in the pursuit of freedom and justice, and
as such, so much directed towards peace in Acholiland. The GoU too has justified its military
interventions and subsequent politico-humanitarian strategies in the name of security and peace
in the same Acholiland. Whose peace then was being brokered in Juba? Whereas the LRA had
been forcefully pushed out the territory of Uganda, the dividends of a holistic peace—what
Galtung (1996) calls ‘positive peace’—continue to elude this former LRA-disturbed region.
More so, even ‘negative peace’ continues to elude the wide region beyond northern Uganda,
where today’s LRA rebels still operate at large.
It is often suggested that more reliable mechanism to reconstruct society in the aftermath of
violent conflict remains the application of transitional justice. For justice of this sort describes
the conception of justice associated with periods of political transformation, illustrated by legal
actions and responses to tackle the offences of tyrannical predecessor regimes or violent
confrontations between state and non-state armed forces, and acknowledged post-conflict
approaches that focus on reconstructing of the socio-economic fabric through rebuilding
conditions that enable the enhancement of a sustainably peaceful society.
The Juba peace talks that began on 14 July 2006 between the GoU and LRA, and mediated by
the then recently instituted quasi-autonomous GoSS, were initially presaged as the best hope to
end this armed conflict since it began. Particularly, these talks were taken to be very crucial to
both the GoSS (whose own vested interest in successfully helping negotiate an end to this armed
conflict was caused by security concerns of the many sorts, including the presence of 4,000 –
5,000 LRA fighters and at least twice that number of the UPDF in South Sudan) and the LRA
(considering that top LRA commanders feared ICC warrants issued against them in October
2005 and saw these peace talks as a possible way to evade the arrest). However, Atkinson (2009)
argued that although the ICC warrants surfaced as an issue for the LRA during the Juba peace
talks, there is still little evidence that they were a major factor in the LRA’s decision to enter
talks, for it had increasingly become part of accepted wisdom from a range of people in and
outside Uganda to secure the LRA cooperation in order to end the war, at the expense of ICC
prosecution. Hence, both the GoSS and the LRA were unwavering in their commitment to the
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peace process in the face of often expressed skepticism by the GoU and the international
community; shockingly, “hopes were reinforced when the talks produced relatively quickly a
Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) Agreement on August 26, 2006”—which became the first-ever
formal bilateral accord signed by the representatives of both the LRA and the GoU (Atkinson,
2009, p.11).
Furthermore, on 29 June 2007, the two sides signed what Atkinson (2009) termed as ‘the even
more wide-raging’ agenda on accountability and reconciliation in a bid to identify and/or
establish a combination of local and national justice mechanisms in order to promote
reconciliation and address issues of accountability for wrongs committed by both LRA fighters
and the UPDF, “with hints that this combination of mechanisms might satisfy the ICC”
(Atkinson, 2009, p.12). Nonetheless, following frequent hiatuses resulting from divisions
between the two sides over mediation procedures and more especially from instigated
dissensions within the LRA delegation and fighters, LRA leader Kony—who was scheduled on
10 April 2008 to add his signature upon the Final Pace Agreement (FPA), with President
Museveni to sign four days later—did not sign, ostensibly because he wanted further clarification
about the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) of LRA fighters and the mix
of ‘traditional’ and ‘formal’ legal proceedings that he and his fighters faced, including the role of
the ICC. Given the unresolved contestation over issues of restorative and retributive justice
coupled with a deep-seated conviction by one party to the conflict (GoU together with its
regional and international supporters) to end this conflict militarily, the Juba peace process—
which had yet produced landmarked agreements—was relegated to futility.
To date there is region-wide concern for long term stability in the entire LRA-affected region of
east and central Africa. The notion of justice itself is no doubt a complex and contested concept,
more so in transitional societies (those called to deal with a violent past). Noll (2011)
acknowledged that justice per se has a lot of different meanings: retributive, restorative,
distributive, or social justice as different interpretations of the notion of justice. Webber (2012)
argued that there are at least two substantially different forms of justice at issue, namely,
“retrospective” (backward-looking) and “prospective” (forward-looking) justice. Referring to
Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace, McAdams (2006) too underscored the complexity which lies in
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The unfinished business of the LRA_Full Paper_April 2014
achieving a balance of sorts between these twin objectives of justice after violent conflict.
Oftentimes, a recovery discourse in this region has echoed the need for contextualised justice
mechanisms to be sought in a bid to secure lasting peace in the aftermath of numerous atrocities
caused by this armed conflict. Broadly, these justice mechanisms are perceived by both on-the-
ground opinion leaders and the grassroots themselves as restorative in nature, for they are hoped
to gear towards community reconciliation and durable peace following mass atrocities of war.
How, Atkinson (2009) asked, on the scales of justice, does insisting on the prosecution of Kony
and his top commanders, however guilty, weigh against the chance to end a conflict that has
denied for more than twenty years the most fundamental justice of peace and security to millions
of people? There is no doubt that Kony’s LRA has committed gross and horrendous human
rights violations and that from both from moral and legalistic perspectives, formal prosecution
makes sense. Nonetheless, this armed conflict, as many academics and practitioners have
acknowledged, has unfolded in a series of bloodletting attacks, encompassing four countries
(Uganda, South Sudan, DRC and CAR) and having involved hundreds of others who have also
committed human rights violations—often gross and horrendous—from presidents
(commanders-in-chief) and generals to foot soldiers in government forces and in myriad militias.
Beyond the legitimate germaneness of prosecution for criminal liability, what is even more
pertinent in such aftermath of wrongdoing is an inclusionary type of justice (embrace), which
brings both offenders (and their sympathisers) and victims (and their supporters) but even by-
standers (both from within and outside of the conflict setting) into the public fold so as to restore
harmonious relations among all of society’s diverse parts. Reiterating this understanding of
justice as embrace and reconciliation, retired Anglican bishop of Kitgum (one of the most LRA-
affected areas of Acholiland) and then vice president of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace
Initiative (ARLPI), Rt. Rev. Macleord Ochola II once reported:
Mato oput is one of the best justice systems in the world because it forgives and
restores broken relationship, and creates the process of healing in the hearts of
those who have been wounded by violence and death
(Bartlet, 2009, p.51)
In the same breath, Acholi cultural leader Rwot David Onen Acana II, who assumes the character
of Paramount Chief of Acholiland, too reported:
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The unfinished business of the LRA_Full Paper_April 2014
The ICC needed to learn about forgiveness and reconciliation from the people in
Acholiland and that the ‘eye for an eye’ form of justice that the ICC was
attempting was not suited for Acholiland, where it is widely perceived here that
this is primitive
(Bartlet, 2009, p. 52)
It can hence be inferred that many of Africa’s community practices meant to right a wrong
committed, such as the Mato Oput tradition among the Acholi, are not in agreement with the lex
talionis principle of retributive justice, even though they may require that perpetrators offer some
form of compensation to their victims. As a rule, these community practices of transitional
justice are restorative in nature. Unlike retributive justice mechanisms, restorative justice rituals
take account of the psychological healing of victims through involving them in the process as
well as the cooperation of offenders in order for them to fully enjoy the dividends of restoration
after evil deeds.
6. Conclusion
Impediments to peace differ in different contexts, but it is no exaggeration to state that peaceful
communities have many things in common. By and large, avoiding the dangers of othering
would be one of the most promising ways to secure durable peace in the aftermath of violent
conflict. The rationale for avoidance of othering—search for bits of characterisation in terms of
some “us” as against some “other”—is that the latter tends to bestow, in a more oversimplified
manner, a socially acceptable call for retribution or punishment to members of the ‘out-group’
(considered as offenders) as opposed to those of the ‘in-group’ (considered as victims) following
a convoluted manifestation of violence. In fact, throughout this two-decade long plus armed
conflict, hegemonic discursive structures by one party to the conflict (GoU) have either caused
compliance or inhibited dissent to perceptions, attitudes and behaviours which eventually
rendered and still continue to render military offensive against the other party to the conflict
(LRA) a legitimate form of action in the search for peace.
Undoubtedly, both as individuals and collectivities, the almost naturalised expectation whenever
a wrong is committed is that justice ‘has to be done or at least must be seen to be done.’ The
prevailing normative expectation that has however shaped the so-called appropriate response to a
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wrong has been largely influenced by the notion of lex talionis—more often used to refer to a set
of legal categories of punishments proportionate to a crime committed. Vis-à-vis this approach
towards righting a past wrong, described as ‘retributive justice,’ Pillay (2010) posed a series of
questions of Kantian order, asking whether retributive justice is a categorical imperative. Put
differently, Pillay (2010) interrogated whether justice-as-punishment is something that must
always be carried out when a wrong has been committed. Is the principle of justice-as-
punishment absolute? Are there conditions or circumstances that may arise whereby a post-
violence society is compelled to set aside the legal imperative to exercise justice as punishment?
What this protracted armed conflict conspicuously indicates is the fact that any judicial pursuit
meant to solely bring the LRA’s top leadership to account would simply underscore the chase for
a victor’s (GoU) justice and would therefore systematically remove all available potential for
ensuring lasting peace. More specific, in an open letter addressed to President Museveni the
noted Ugandan scholar, Mahmood Mamdani, wrote:
[…]The ICC was created to hold governments accountable, especially concerning
large-scale atrocities against civilians, defined in law as ‘crimes against
humanity’. This is why the internment of a million plus civilians in armed camps
in the north, without adequate provision of security or food or medicine, should
have been a prime concern for the ICC. But the ICC has chosen to focus its
apparatus of justice on just one side of the conflict, the LRA. By providing
impunity for the government while seeking to bring the rebels to justice, the ICC
is contributing to the continuation of the northern war, rather than its resolution.
(Pillay, 2010, p. 351 quoted from J. Namutebi, New Vision, 05 December 2005)
Besides, while staunch international human rights law scholars argue that effective investigations
and prosecutions are central to the realisation of the ICC’s mandate to bring fair, credible, and
meaningful justice, they also admit that constraints in cooperation, security of staff and
witnesses, and resources do pose real difficulties for the Court, affecting the prosecution and
defense teams. Should retributive justice therefore have to be tempered for the sake of
reconciling enemies who have to live together and create a single socio-economic and political
community? More than anything else, the case of this protracted armed conflict which has so far
pitted the LRA against the UPDF in collaboration with other government armed forces stresses
one key concern, namely, the notion that the question of justice (in terms of righting past wrongs
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The unfinished business of the LRA_Full Paper_April 2014
through criminal accountability) is also the question of peace (in terms of harmonious co-living
through reconciliation). In this context, the pursuit of justice in a restorative manner remains
central to the efforts of those who prioritise the need to end this conflict because it allows for
instruments that simultaneously take note of the wrongs committed and are amenable to
“principled compromises” for the sake of reconciliation and peace (Pillay, 2010, p. 350 quoted
from J. Allen, 1999).
Borrowing from Zehr’s viewpoints Menkel-Meadow (2007) described the essence of the pursuit
of restorative justice in the following terms:
Restorative justice usually involves direct communication, often with a facilitator,
of victims and offenders, often with some or full representation of the relevant
affected community, to provide a setting for the acknowledgement of the fault by
the offender, restitution of some sort to the victim, including both affective
apologies and material exchange or payment and often new mutual
understandings, forgiveness and agreed-to new undertaking for improved
behaviors. In its most idealized form there are four Rs of restorative justice:
repair, restore, reconcile, and re-integrate the offenders and victims to each other
and to their shared community.
(Menkel-Meadow, 2007, p.102)
Above all contestation, contemporary scholars of transitional justice do agree that local
ownership in any such justice mechanisms is of paramount importance in order to create a
peaceful post-war society. Subjecting LRA’s top leadership to prosecution, whether by an
exogenous (the ICC) or endogenous (a Special Criminal Division at the High Court) judicial
structure—in the quest for criminal accountability—eliminates the much needed option on the
side of the government to make the political choice of granting genuine amnesty to the former in
the search for durable peace. More specific, such push for criminal prosecution for the one party
to the conflict (LRA) jeopardises the restoration of the psycho-socio-cultural as well as politico-
economic fabric of affected societies, whether in the aftermath of violence (for the case of
Uganda) or continued violence (for the case of other affected countries). Since peace itself is not
simply the absence of direct violence, ending this armed conflict through a military win by one
party to the conflict (and allies)—although this too has so far proven to be elusive—may only
create a short-term relief (fragile peace) unless deep-seated animosities, mistrust and bitterness
that produced—and continue to sustain—the conflict in the first place are duly addressed. After
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The unfinished business of the LRA_Full Paper_April 2014
all, lasting peace in the aftermath of violence is derivative of lasting interventions in the
livelihood of all who form the post-violence society—victims, offenders as well as bystanders.
Perhaps, Oresteia, the celebrated classical trilogy of plays by ancient Greek writer Aeschylus in
which the author narrated three tales that focus on the events that followed the Trojan War,
subtly reiterates the need to reconsider the notion of lex talionis in the quest for righting past
wrongs. Movingly, Pillay (2010) recapitulated Aeschylus’ lesson in the following words:
The first story commences with the Greek King Agamemnon’s victorious return
from the battle for Troy along with his prize, the Princesse Cassandra, and the
unfortunate chain of events that this sets off. It is a compelling tale that sets out in
staged dramatic form the generational intrigues that destroy the House of Atreus.
In this famous story successive acts of injustice beget new acts of injustice and
unleash a cycle of turmoil unforeseen by the central protagonists when they began
their original quest for justice. The central lesson for Aeschylus is that the manner
in which we right wrongs may impact on the future in ways that we might not
have intended or desired.
(Pillay, 2010, p. 348)
Against all odds so far registered in bringing this protracted armed conflict to a definitive end,
dialogue in lieu of further confrontation ought to be reconsidered as key option in order to
address deep-seated drives that continue to fuel this armed conflict beyond the confines of
Uganda. By accepting to dialogue with diverse histories and circumstances, memories and
experiences, views and beliefs, the horizons of those who have been party to the conflict—
whether directly involved (LRA and GoU) or indirectly implicated (South Sudan, Sudan, CAR
and DRC) could widen to see beyond protractedness. Even more insightfully, Freire’s notion of
dialogical relations underpinned this possibility in the following words:
Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediated by the world, in order to name
the world…dialogue is thus an existential necessity. And since dialogue is the
encounter in which the united reflection and action of the daloguers are addressed
to the world which is to be transformed and humanized, this dialogue cannot be
reduced to the act of one person’s ‘depositing’ ideas in another, nor can it become
a simple exchange of ideas to be ‘consumed’ by the discussants…Because
dialogue is an encounter among women and men who name the world, it must not
be a situation where some name on behalf of others.
(Freire, 1970, pp. 69-70)
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Pillay (2010) finally underscored that if justice and reconciliation are in tension, then the balance
between the two is best judged according to the criteria of what most effectively creates lasting
peace and stability in a divided political community. By and large, the demands of justice in
today’s LRA-affected region go far beyond what any retributive endeavour—whether under the
auspices of the ICC or otherwise—can deliver. Assuredly, the less conspicuous but more
pertinent concern for the majority of vulnerable members from the LRA-affected region consists
of a fuller restoration of their psycho-social as well as economic tissues torn apart by this armed
conflict. Away from the need for a military victory and/or internationalised criminal prosecution
against the LRA (now in armed rebel activism beyond Uganda), a context-specific restorative
justice has a huge potential for the building of lasting peace by addressing both the material
discrepancies and psychological legacies of conflict. The main objective of such pursuit of
justice should consist of creating a fresh political community from a fractured historical
experience. Only then can a more nuanced understanding as well as a much more appropriate
application of justice with peace be achieved.
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