Nobert Mao
25 February 2008
column
Kampala — LETTER FROM GULU
THE news from Juba has been exhilarating. Either the parties to the talks have found a slope or they have a powerful engine propelling their forward motion. Headlines screamed that the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) had walked out of the peace talks. Before the morning papers had made their way to Gulu, the facts had changed.
The LRA was back at the table and negotiating peace at break neck speed. The newsrooms must have been in disarray. Editors do not look good with eggs on their faces.
But what does one expect? With a predictably unpredictable man as its skipper, the LRA team in Juba has assumed a posture of boldness that will see a peace deal sealed faster than the doomsayers could ever imagine.
In Gulu, the mood-swings are like a pendulum. One moment everybody is wondering whether Juba is closed, the next minute the town is abuzz with excitement. Another deal has been signed. At this rate, Easter will find us rising from the dead and facing a new dawn.
The war will be behind us. Peace will envelop our troubled land. Our children (at least those who have survived the torment of life in the bushes) will return home and once more learn to be children.
The displaced people trek home in droves celebrating the return of durable peace. Relief operations seamlessly melt into reconstruction and development. The perpetrators of high crimes face the glare of truth and justice.
But wait! Who are those said to be marching into Central African Republic? And as for the powers that be in Kampala, will they face up to the unpalatable truths that form the roots of historical grievances in northern Uganda?
The devil, it is said, is in the details. No text is complete without the truths that lie between the lines. We must be able to discern the things that remain unsaid.
This brings us to the crux of the matter.
It is one thing to have a peace agreement. It is another thing to have peace. Peace deals face their biggest test during the implementation stage.
In Juba, the issue of accountability, justice and reconciliation has been thorny. Nothing disturbs the LRA more than the fact that for every crime, a day of reckoning must come.
Mixed reactions greeted the operational protocol on accountability, justice and reconciliation. Amnesty International did not mince its words. It accused the parties in Juba of circumventing international justice.
Their arguments were on shaky legal grounds and smacked of arrogance and conceit. They did not care that the deal recognised the principle of complementarity. International justice is not intended to supplant domestic processes, but to complement them.
But Amnesty International will not wait to see whether the deal signed in Juba is real justice in our circumstances or a cover up for impunity. For them our birthday is also our judgement day! Even the Almighty Himself is said to be waiting until the last day to render judgement. But not Amnesty International.
How can a Banana Republic like Uganda be capable of implementing processes that can meet international standards?
Our athletes can win international medals, but our courts cannot administer justice satisfactorily. But where does Justice Julia Sebutinde come from? Is she not sitting in The Hague presiding over complex cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity?
Amnesty International must be forgiven. They are still stuck in the dichotomous paradigm - impunity or trials (preferably international).
But Uganda is travelling a beaten path. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan endorsed the significant role that indigenous justice and reconciliation mechanisms can play in dealing with a painful past.
In his August 2004 report he said: "... due regard must be given to indigenous and informal traditions for administering justice or settling disputes, to help them to continue their often vital role and to do so in conformity with both international standards and local tradition".
This subject is a highly divisive subject. When the curtain falls on a tyranny, genocide or a civil war then there is the inevitable question of dealing with those responsible for gross human rights abuses. We can identify several trends.
There are those who simply look away and declare a silence. This is what happened in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Much later one of the leaders had to contend with the wheels of justice whose turn is slow, but sure.
After Franco fell in Spain, the new rulers chose to forget the past. In Pinochet's Chile, a formal amnesty legislation protected perpetrators of crimes. This was so notwithstanding the firm legal foundation laid for combating impunity after World War II!
Rwanda, faced with thousands of suspected perpetrators of genocide in jail and the slow process of the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha turned to Gacaca - an informal conflict resolution mechanism. Uganda should also be supported to implement domestic processes. We do not need lectures. We need support to enable us pass the test of international justice and close any impunity gaps.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
