Struggles of Authority in Northern Uganda

Contested Peace, Contested Justice

Discourse, Power and International Justice in Northern Uganda

Kimberley Armstrong Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology McGill University, Montréal

September 2010

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

ABSTRACT This thesis examines the debate between peace and justice in northern Uganda that transpired following the announcement of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to investigate the conflict between the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army in January 2004. The announcement of the ICC to investigate the conflict was met with resistance by many of the local religious, political, civil society, and traditional leaders in northern Uganda, particularly those from the Acholi sub-region. The debate between peace and justice in northern Uganda is an important debate that will impact the future of the ICC as well as approaches to conflict resolution. As a new institution, the ICC is attempting to establish itself as an important actor in international relations, but its impact on situations of ongoing conflict is as yet undetermined. An analysis of the debate illustrates how important questions about the impact of seeking justice in situations of ongoing conflict were evaded; however, as actors on both sides of the debate worked to impose particular concepts of legitimate peace and justice, and, ultimately, control the outcome of events on the ground. This thesis examines the discourse and representations mobilized by both sides of the debate, placing the discourse in a historical perspective in order to reveal assumptions and meanings embedded within certain discourses and associated concepts. By examining the historical trajectory of the debate, the relations of power, contested meanings, and strategies of both opponents and supporters of the ICC’s intervention can be revealed and analyzed in relation to the objectives of peace and justice. In northern Uganda, neither objective has yet been achieved, and, as this thesis demonstrates, many unanswered questions about the relations of peace and justice remain. It is only through more engaged and candid debate as well as empirical research that such relations can be understood, improving our ability to address the egregious violence that impacts the lives of millions of people in the world today.

RESUME Cette thèse examine le débat entre la paix et la justice au nord de l’Ouganda qui a fait surface suite à la décision de la Cour pénale internationale (CPI), en janvier 2004, d’enquêter sur le conflit entre le gouvernement de l’Ouganda et l’Armée de résistance du Seigneur. Cette annonce de la CPI s’est butée à la résistance des groupes religieux et politiques locaux, de la société civile et des chefs traditionnels du nord de l’Ouganda, particulièrement ceux de la sous-région d’Acholi. Dans cette région du monde, le débat entre paix et justice est important car il aura des impacts sur le futur de la CPI ainsi que sur les approches de résolution de conflits. En tant que nouvelle institution, la CPI tente de s’imposer comme un acteur important dans les relations internationales, mais son impact sur les situations de conflits actuels reste à démontrer. L’analyse du débat illustre comment les questions centrales concernant l’impact de la recherche de la justice en situation de conflit ont été évitées lorsque les acteurs des deux côtés du débat ont cherché à imposer des concepts légitimes de la paix et de la justice, et ultimement influencer le cours des événements. Cette thèse examine les discours et les représentations mises de l’avant par les acteurs en les remettant dans une perspective historique révélant ainsi les idées préconçues et les significations enchâssées dans certains discours et concepts associés. Examiner la trajectoire historique du débat permet de dévoiler et d’analyser les relations de pouvoir, les significations contestées, et les stratégies des supporteurs et des opposants des interventions de la CPI en relation avec les objectifs de la paix et de la justice. Dans le nord de l’Ouganda, ces objectifs n’ont pas été atteints et, comme le démontre cette thèse, bien des questions demeurent sans réponse concernant les relations entre la paix et la justice. C’est seulement à travers un débat plus engagé et candide ainsi qu’à travers une recherche plus empirique que de telles relations peuvent être mieux comprises, améliorant ainsi notre capacité à aborder le problème de l’extrême violence qui affecte la vie de millions de gens dans le monde. CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... I

1. INTRODUCTION: VIOLENCE, POWER AND DISCOURSE ...... 1

NORTHERN UGANDA AS A NEW WAR ...... 4 VIOLENCES OF WAR...... 8 THE MEANING OF VIOLENCE ...... 15 THE GLOBAL CONNECTIONS OF ‘LOCAL’ WARS ...... 18 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE ...... 25 A GLOBALIZED PEACE?...... 28 POWER IN DISCOURSE ...... 32 2. UGANDAN HISTORIES ...... 42

ACHOLI IDENTITY ...... 48 THE NORTH SOUTH DIVIDE ...... 52 3. INTRODUCING THE ICC AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ...... 87

HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT ...... 96 THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT ...... 100 DECONSTRUCTING THE ICC IN UGANDA ...... 125 CONCLUSION ...... 136 4. HISTORIES OF A CONFLICT ...... 139

HISTORIES OF A CONFLICT ...... 141 LOCAL CHALLENGES ...... 152 THE MAKING OF A COUNTER-NARRATIVE ...... 155 CONCLUSION ...... 188 5. TRADITIONAL JUSTICE VS THE ICC: THE ORGANIZATION OF A DEBATE ...... 191

JUSTICE ...... 193 PEACE ...... 213 RELIGION AND CULTURE ...... 219 CONCLUSION ...... 231 6. TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AT WORK: STRUGGLES OF AUTHORITY IN NORTHERN UGANDA ...... 235

THE MAKING OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE ...... 240 TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE MEETS NORTHERN UGANDA ...... 243 THE STUDY ...... 247 CONCLUSION ...... 270 7. CONCLUSION: UNRESOLVED ISSUES OF PEACE AND JUSTICE ...... 273

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES ...... 290 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have to be considered as contributing to the process of completing a project of this nature; too many to conceivably list here. I will do my best, however, to remember those who have had the greatest impact on this work throughout its long and sometimes slow progress towards completion.

The Acholi people of northern Uganda whose lives, perceptions and experiences form the foundation of this thesis cannot go unacknowledged. To the numerous people in the camps for internally displaced who took the time to sit with me and answer my sometimes unending or intrusive questions, I give the greatest thanks. It was the consistent and urgent appeal for peace which entered into almost every dialogue that had the greatest impact on the final direction taken by my research project. I also give thanks to many of the local leaders who patiently explained to me their own positions on the conflict, peace and justice. Archbishop Odama, Rwot Acana II, James Otto, Norbert Mao, Sheikh Musa Khalil, Betty Ocan, and Father Charles represent only a few of the individuals who took time out of their busy schedules to meet with an inquisitive stranger. I especially have to thank my research assistants, Bibian Acan, Michael Odokorach and Sam Arop who were completely indispensible. I thank them for their hard work, patience and friendship. They have all left me with positive and enduring memories of my time in Uganda.

Deep appreciation goes to my research supervisor, Professor John Galaty, who has been very supportive of my project from the outset. His passion for East Africa and scholarly inquiry in general has been a constant source of encouragement and motivation. I also want to thank him for the time and energy he has committed to improving my analyses as well as my writing. The final product viewed here would not have been the same without his input. I want to thank other members of my committee, especially Professors Kristin

Norget, Allan Young and Vinh-Kim Nguyen who provided important comments on my project in its early stages and contributed to my intellectual development over the years. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to learn and grow under their guidance. I am also indebted to the work and insights of a number of colleagues who share my interest in northern Uganda and with whom I have been fortunate enough to share some small discussions. This list includes Erin Baines, Sverker Finnström, Zachary Lomo, Ronald Atkinson, and Chris Dolan. Their work on northern Uganda is always passionate and always inspiring.

I also have to acknowledge that this research project could never have taken place without the generous funding of Doctoral Fellowships provided by Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Fonds de Recherches sur la Société et la Culture (FQRSC). Funding to carry out the fieldwork in northern Uganda was generously provided by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) through their Doctoral Award program as well as an Internal SSHRC Research Grant administered by McGill University. I also benefitted from the funding and collegial environment of the Centre for Society, Technology and Development (STANDD). STANDD brings together a community of graduate students, professors and other researchers who share common research interests, creating a positive space for intellectual exchange and development. I am thankful for the support and friendship of my colleagues in anthropology. Though I have spent much time away, I have enjoyed the occasional emails and visits which have served to keep me connected to the collegial environment of McGill. I want to give special thanks to Cynthia Romanyk, Rose Marie Stano and Olga Harmazy in the anthropology office. They are tireless in their support of students and have made my long-distance studies more than manageable.

I would like to give thanks to my friends and family who always manage to buttress my spirits when I have lost the energy to do it myself. I am indebted to my parents who always show interest and support in my endeavours no matter how outlandish they may appear. They continue to be great friends and mentors. I thank my brother and his wife for their encouragement. They always manage to inspire me with their own passion for life and all of its facets. And of course I am indebted to my husband, Alfred, who always seems to know when to give me a good solid push forward. I could only dream of having his energy. I am particularly thankful for my daughters, Aisukali and Elaete, who are simply wonderful additions to my life. They are the ground beneath my feet.

Finally, I need to acknowledge that while this work has benefitted from the guidance and support of many people, the failings and flaws are entirely my own.

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1. INTRODUCTION: VIOLENCE, POWER AND DISCOURSE

I’m not sure why war has continued. The government and the rebels should tell us why we are suffering. We need Kony to come home, he is our son. Communities know about forgiveness and amnesty, so they will accept them, even Otti who is from Pacilo. They have already been forgiven. What else can we do they are our children – we don’t want to think about the past. (Interview with woman from Atiak. March 2007)

It is important to remember that we have strong evidence of Kony, Otti and the other LRA/M leaders committing terrible, brutal crimes against so many innocent people. This is a fact. The arrest warrants were issued on the basis of the evidence we presented. My role as prosecutor is to investigate and prosecute, that is how I am serving the people of northern Uganda. (Osike 2007a)

The two quotes reproduced above represent two very different conceptions of how best to deal with the actions of the commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M), the group of insurgents that has fought the Ugandan government for the last two decades and kept the civilian population of the northern region in terror. The quotes also represent two very different ways of structuring events, people and relationships. The first quote was recorded during an interview I conducted with a woman in Atiak, a trading post and camp for the internally displaced in Amuru district in northern Uganda. The second excerpt is taken from an interview with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) published in the New Vision, one of the national

newspapers.1 The quotes were recorded within months of each other, in the first half of 2007. For most people living in northern Uganda, the period was a particularly tense one filled with both hope and doubt. Peace talks between the government and the LRA/M had begun in 2006, had undergone some rough moments over the New Year, particularly concerning the demand to remove the ICC indictments of five members of the LRA/M,2 but had managed to get back on track again with what appeared to be a more significant resolve, particularly on the part of the international community assisting the process.

Looking at the two quotes, one might first be struck by the very different ways the speakers describe the two top commanders of the LRA/M: Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti. The woman from Atiak describes them as “our children”; Kony is “our son.” This differs dramatically from the words of the Prosecutor who describes them in relation to the crimes they have allegedly committed. In one representation, the LRA/M commanders are brought into the fold, so to speak; they are family and regarded as existing deeply within societal boundaries. In the other depiction, the commanders are alleged criminals, outcasts; thus they are considered as existing outside the boundaries of society. Indeed, Kony and Otti are Acholi, the ethnic identity shared by the woman from Atiak and most other people living in the four districts that used to be referred to as the Acholi sub-region, but this alone does not account for the woman’s comments.3

1 I will use the terms “ICC”, “the Court,” or “the International Court,” interchangeably to refer to the International Criminal Court. 2 The indictments were issued in October 2005 for Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen. Two of the indicted have since been killed. Vincent Otti was allegedly killed in October 2007 on Kony’s orders and Raska Lukwiya was killed by the UPDF in August 2006. 3 Persons identifying themselves as Acholi make up the majority of the population in Amuru, Gulu, Kitgum, Lamwo and Pader districts of northern Uganda, an area formerly referred to as the Acholi subregion. The conflict has impacted other parts of Uganda and other populations, especially the Langi people residing largely in Oyam, Apac and Lira districts, the Teso in Soroti, Katakwi and Amuria districts as well as the Madi and others in Moyo and Adjumani districts. Outside of Uganda, people in southern Sudan and more recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic have also become victims of the conflict. This dissertation focuses only on the Acholi population for a number of reasons. First, the negative reaction to the

Returning to the comparison, it can be noticed that one quote highlights forgiveness, amnesty and forgetting and laments the suffering of the people at the hands of both the government and the rebels; while the other stresses investigation and prosecution, citing the brutal crimes committed by the LRA/M. If one were to assess the nature of the viewpoints depicted, the first might be described as being socially driven, a perspective keenly aware of social relations and interested in maintaining society as a whole. The second quote might be described as highly legalistic in nature with an emphasis on individual culpability and accountability. In their book chapter entitled Anthropology and Justice, Laura Nader and Andrée Sursock examine cross-cultural perspectives on justice and write that “it seems that justice, in its application and procedures, reflects the importance of community ties in non-Western societies. In opposition to justice in non-Western societies, Western jurisprudence is characterized by a stress on individualism, and the concept of law is perhaps its best illustration” (1986:210). It would seem, then, that each of the quotes is quite representative of perspectives on justice in non-Western and Western societies respectively.

Yet, neither quote can be understood as wholly representing either the non- Western or the Western perspective in this case. Thus, another Acholi woman interviewed at about the same time, but in a different camp, told me in response to questions about the ICC intervention, “my mama said that if the outside world could capture this man [Kony], this would be good because you can call him Satan, he doesn’t want people to stay in their own homes” (Interview with author, March 2007). Or one can look at the critiques of the ICC intervention that also originate from Western audiences, such as the critiques of Adam Branch, a political scientist who writes, “the belief that the ’justice‘ provided by

court extended mainly from the leaders of the Acholi region; and second, the war has had a greater impact on the Acholi districts both in real physical terms as well as socially and psychologically since the war has largely been configured as an ‘Acholi’ war in the minds of many Ugandans.

international law is absolute, taking precedence over local resolutions to long- standing, complex political crises, is the quintessence of international law fundamentalism” (2004:25). These complicated lines of friction that run within and across perceived societal boundaries represent a more complex nature of societies and cultures than is sometimes acknowledged. This is particularly true in the increasingly globalized world where the conflict in Uganda has become a hotly debated topic in the coffee shops and newspapers of other parts of the world, and not only by Ugandan expatriates. The multi-faceted views and intricate web of actors claiming a stake in Ugandan affairs underlines the complexity of events and the troubled search for solutions that has involved both local and international actors.

This dissertation seeks to examine the intricacies of the debate that resulted from the decision of the International Criminal Court to investigate the conflict in northern Uganda in order to prosecute individuals guilty of crimes against humanity and/or war crimes. The decision to investigate the conflict before peace had been achieved in the area was heavily criticized by local leaders in northern Uganda and by some international observers. By examining from a historical perspective how the debate unfolded, the hope is to reveal the complex nature of political struggles in a globalized world. Though the case of northern Uganda is not a straight-forward example of competition between local and global interests – the reality is much more complex – nonetheless, it is an example of local resistance to pressures from the international community to meet priorities largely reflecting global interests, and can serve as an important case study of how power is mobilized and resisted in international relations.

Northern Uganda as a New War Northern Uganda has witnessed more than two decades of war, a war that fits into the category of what Mary Kaldor (2007) describes as a “new war.” New

wars, she argues, are typically based on identity politics rather than ideological differences; they are based on military tactics that seek to instil fear, fragmenting the population rather than achieving territorial gains; and they are characterized by a “globalized war economy” whereby the normal economy breaks down and insurgents often gain funding through plunder or from external sources including compatriots in the diaspora or foreign governments.

Elements of her description are hauntingly familiar to most northern Ugandans. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the LRA/M enjoyed the support of the Khartoum government in Sudan in a complicated tactic of regional warfare that saw Uganda supporting the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in Southern Sudan while the Khartoum government fed a range of small militias, including the LRA/M, in a strategy to destabilize the region. Some Acholi diaspora have also been suspected of fuelling the war with funding and with political intrigue designed to upset attempts to end the war. A most famous account is that of Powell Onen, who was arrested in the United Kingdom for allegedly defrauding the city of Clovis in the United States of four million dollars in 1996 (Lubbock Avalanche-Journal 2002). Before his arrest, he reportedly arrived in the Sudan in 1997, offering funding to the LRA/M in return for the position of Vice-Chairman. At the time, attempts to restart peace talks were underway, but Onen apparently sabotaged the efforts by providing false information to Dr. James Obita, a representative of the LRA/M at the talks, all the while keeping Kony and the other commanders uninformed of the events (Obita 2002b). But members of the diaspora have also been very active in trying to bring the war to an end, lobbying various governments, organizing meetings meant to bring all parties to the conflict together and putting pressure on the government at home. They have also worked to improve the living conditions in northern Uganda through the support they provide to families still residing in the region and through more engaged efforts at overseas fundraising in order to support local development

projects. In such ways, the conflict in northern Uganda is linked to myriad networks of people, governments and institutions across the world.

New wars also bring untold suffering to civilian populations. The blurred distinctions between combatants and civilians as well as the specific tactics of new wars to instil fear in the population result in high civilian casualties and suffering. The populations in the northern region, particularly the Acholi, but also the Langi, Madi and Teso peoples, have experienced brutal killings and abductions by the LRA/M. A typical method of warfare used by the LRA/M is to sweep down on a village or camp, kill a number of villagers, steal as much food and other resources as they can find, then abduct a number of people to carry the goods. Some of the people abducted are released a short time later, some are killed and some are kept to become fighters or “wives” of the rebels. Many of those who have been abducted and have subsequently returned tell horrific stories of being forced to partake in the killing of a friend or family member as part of their induction into the rebel group. Such individuals are often referred to as “returnees” or more officially as “formerly abducted persons” or FAPs; categories that can serve to reinforce their distinctiveness from the rest of the population.

But the anguish of the population is not only a result of LRA/M activities; the response of the government has also brought devastation. People were forcefully pushed into the areas surrounding trading posts beginning in about 1996, where they were told to remain. Their homes were usually looted and burnt, their crops destroyed or removed. Many came to the trading post with almost nothing and were forced to find their own way to construct huts and obtain food, water or health services. Nor has life in the camps brought protection. In the initial years, few soldiers were posted at the camps and many of the barracks were situated amidst the huts, so attacks by the LRA/M would

usually result in civilian casualties from the cross-fire between soldiers and rebels. Civilians in the camps were forced to follow strict schedules of movement, and anyone found outside the area approved by the army could be shot on suspicion of rebel collaboration. Soldiers in the camps have also been accused of rape, assault and even extrajudicial killings (Amnesty International 1999; ARLPI 2001).

Identity politics have also been an issue in the LRA/M conflict. The LRA/M, though their membership is not exclusively Acholi, have been described as an Acholi insurgency. The rebels sometimes claim to be fighting on behalf of the Acholi, but more commonly they claim to be fighting for greater equality between the northern and southern regions. Yet, the vicious attacks perpetrated against the civilian population have served to extinguish most real support that the population might have offered the rebels in the early years. Most individuals I spoke to in the camps scoffed at the idea that the LRA/M were fighting for them. But the complex history of Uganda that has witnessed the politicization of ethnic identity, particularly perceived as divisions between the Nilotic and Hamitic peoples of the north pitted against the Bantu peoples of the south, has tainted the interpretation of the LRA/M conflict.4 Thus, descriptions of the conflict as a local conflict involving Acholi fighting Acholi simply because the Acholi are a militaristic group that likes to fight have been accepted at face value by a large portion of the Ugandan population. On the other hand, at least in the early years after Museveni took power, the insinuation that Museveni, along

4 The ethnic groups comprising the majority of the population in the northern region are linguistically classified as belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Eastern Sudanic subfamily is then further subdivided and includes the Western Nilotic groups that comprise Luo speakers, including the Acholi, as well as Eastern Nilotic groups (formerly referred to as Nilo-Hamitic) and Southern Nilotic groups. Language groups in the southern region belong to the Bantu group of the Niger-Congo language family (Grimes and Grimes 1996)..

with his Banyarwanda compatriots, was seeking to take over the region would have been enough to rally a number of people to the sides of the rebels.5

Violences of War Violence, therefore, both direct physical violence and structural violence have been prevalent throughout the war. While it is the physical violence of the war that is most commented on – the killings, abductions, rapes and mutilations – structural violence has also played a significant role. The concept of structural violence was first conceived in the late 1960s by Johan Galtung, a professor in peace studies. He explained structural violence as one dimension of violence in general. The definition of violence advanced by Galtung posits that “violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations” (Galtung 1969: 168). Structural violence, according to Galtung, is violence that is committed without a clear actor perpetrating the act. It is violence that is born of inequalities: “the violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances” (1969: 171). Structural violence in northern Uganda is exemplified in multiple ways: through the lack of adequate protection for the civilian population; the chronic shortage of food and water; the uneven development between northern and southern regions, which itself has been exacerbated by the war; the substandard quality of education and health services; and, in some cases, the complete denial of these services, to name but a few.

5 The Banyarwanda are a minority population in Uganda originating from Rwanda. Some are refugees, but others are Ugandan citizens. Historically, they have been considered as foreigners and have experienced difficult political relations in Uganda. The Banyarwanda supported Museveni in his insurgency and are thought to have made up 20 to 30 percent of his military in the 1980s. Many of the Banyarwanda who assisted Museveni in taking power subsequently invaded Rwanda as members of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). Museveni is rumoured to have a Tutsi grandparent and allegations that he is actually Banyarwanda abound, linking Museveni to the wider xenophobia that exists in relation to Banyarwanda. Most of his family are considered to be members of the Bahima subgroup of the Banyankole (Green 2006).

The destructive and often life-threatening ways in which certain groups suffer in their subordination and marginalization has become the focus of many anthropological studies. The most exemplary works that have taken this approach include the writings of Paul Farmer (Farmer 1992; Farmer 1997; 2003), Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1992) and Philippe Bourgois (1995). A common element in all of their work is a concern with the ways in which deprived political and economic conditions are embodied by the individuals experiencing this deprivation. From the perspective of the victims, the suffering that is caused from chronic poverty and marginalization is no less tangible than the suffering resulting from political violence. In northern Uganda, the embodiment of suffering is borne in the physical debilitation of the population, the high rates of death, child mortality, disease and injury. A report published by the World Health Organization and Uganda’s Ministry of Health (2005) calculated that there were 1,000 excess deaths per week (largely a result of disease) in the first seven months of 2005 in the Acholi districts of northern Uganda. Not surprisingly, the results were vehemently denied by the government which has described the camps as “protected villages”. Nonetheless, the report managed to shatter commonly held images of the camps as safe-havens supported by the government and the international community, painting instead a bleak picture of a population in crisis.

But perhaps the concept of “structural violence” does not completely capture both the depth and the subtlety of the forms of violence perpetrated against the people in northern Uganda. Chris Dolan (2009) has argued that the experience of the displaced in northern Uganda should be described through a framework he calls “social torture”. Dolan argues that many of the impacts associated with torture, such as the “debilitation and disorientation” of victims, can be related to the situation in northern Uganda. Dolan does, however, differentiate social

torture from the more conventional concept of individual torture based on a number of factors, including its tendency to have a “low intensity and wide impact” on the population rather than an acute and intense impact. He also notes that social torture requires the active and passive participation of multiple actors and occurs across wide geographic areas and over long-periods of time. According to Dolan, social torture is also self-perpetuating, meaning that “once under way, social torture elicits from its victims states of physical and psychological debilitation, dependency, dread and disorientation and corresponding behavioural responses. These tend to mutually reinforce and deepen each other rather than resolving themselves, and thus contribute to perpetuating or escalating the situation” (2009:15). Dolan is particularly critical of the complicity of international organizations in the perpetration of social torture against the population, labeling them as both bystanders and participants in the violations. Dolan likens the relationship of international organizations to social torture as comparable to that of doctors who assist in torture sessions. While doctors generally do not perform acts of torture, they are often complicit in maintaining the victim for further violence and rarely speak out against the events. While some may argue against the idea that the situation of northern Uganda should be defined as social torture, certainly, no one would argue against the fact that the conditions of life in the camps are exceedingly grim, particularly situated as they are in the midst of a war zone and temporally extended over many years.

In order to analytically deal with multiple forms of violence and their interrelatedness, Bourgois speaks of a “continuum of violence.” Reflecting upon his own work and seeking to make some correctives, Bourgois wants to understand “how violence operates along multiple, overlapping planes along a continuum that ranges from the interpersonal and delinquent to the self- consciously political and purposeful. It [violence] also encompasses structural,

institutional, and historical forms as well as symbolic, cultural, and ideological ones” (Bourgois 2004: 428). His concept answers well to Kleinman’s demand that the commonly used phrase “the violence of everyday life” be changed to “the violences of everyday life” (Kleinman 2000: 227-8). The subtle difference between the two is considered important to Kleinman because it highlights the complex ways in which multiple forms of violence combine, diffuse and otherwise impact each other that differently affect the recipients of violence. Kleinman finds Veena Das’ (Das 1995) work on communal violence in India to be a particularly skillful ethnography of these interrelations. He states,

In that impressive work, Das shows that even in the setting of obvious political violence…there are differences not only in the dynamics of violence, but in its forms as well. Explosions of communal violence, mobilized for political purposes, are intensified or diminished by differences of gender and geography; they are built up out of structural violence, and, in extending from one unfolding event to another, deepen it. They leave in their wake deep existential fractures for the survivors. Those breaks in physical bodies and social bodies are further intensified by violence done to female survivors by their own community, by their families, by the patriarchal ideology, and not least by their own inner conflicts between personal desire and transpersonal duty. (Kleinman 2000: 227)

Both of these concepts, a continuum of violence, or the violences of everyday life, are important for their recognition that violence is often present in multiple forms and will be variably experienced by individuals and groups. Moreover, for the anthropological understanding of how violence multiplies, is diffused or is legitimized, such concepts allow key insights into the complex processes of the cultural production of violence and suffering grounded in specific political and historical contexts. Rather than labeling entire cultures as violent, an important

endeavor of anthropology in the analysis of violence is to identify those practices of violence, structural or otherwise, that become so embedded in social practice as to begin to make-up or impact the “order of things” or the local moral world in such a way as to further the negative impact of other violences and subsequently perpetuate or increase violence. The interaction between political and everyday violence is especially salient in the study of conflicts and war, to which northern Uganda is no exception.

The particular strategy of the LRA/M to abduct civilians and brutally induct them into their ranks is an especially vivid example of the multiple repercussions and penetrations of violent incidents. Before abduction, most children live in fear of being captured by the rebels and have spent more than one night sleeping in the bush in the hope of avoiding the detection of any passing rebels. Stories rife with details on the events that await those who fall into the hands of the LRA/M are broadly circulated among children and youth in the region, amplifying the general level of fear and anxiety. If one is captured by the LRA/M, the anticipation of what might be in store results not only in acute terror, but also arguably prepares and moulds abductees to the new set of rules governing their behaviour. Yet, if this same child is killed by government forces in a confrontation, the child will be labelled as a rebel – as all deaths occurring in battles between the government and the LRA/M are labelled – leaving the grieving family with complicated emotions of loss, anger and shame. In some cases, the political violence of the war reverberates deeply into intimate relations of family. One old woman left alone with two grand-children to support described to me the loss of her entire family at the hands of one of her own children. The woman told me that she formerly had two daughters, but one had been abducted by the rebels. From the bush, the daughter who had been abducted learned that her sister was to be married and that dowry was being

taken to her family.6 The abducted sister then decided to go to the family home and demand a share of the dowry. When her sister refused, she returned with more rebels, killing several members of her family, including her own sister. Unfortunately, such incidents are not completely isolated as common envy and resentment are amplified and distorted in the extreme conditions of war. Individuals and groups may take advantage of the conflict to resolve personal disputes, and the use of violence in such contexts becomes routine rather than radical.

For those who manage to escape the rebels, immediate relief is not always assured. Reception back into the family and wider community depends to a great extent on the time spent away and the attitude of the family. Some families have rejected their relatives who return from the bush, fearing stigmatization or further suffering brought on by the lingering of disgruntled spirits known as cen. 7 Women face particular challenges since they often return from the bush with children. The presence of a child or children can make it difficult for the woman to develop a new relationship and therefore they can be perceived as economic burdens to the family. Moreover, women are sometimes viewed as weapons of either the LRA/M or the government. In this case, women are perceived as instruments intended to spread the HIV virus to the wider population following their rape or enslavement by soldiers or rebels.

The camps themselves have produced multiple forms of violence. Men describe themselves “as being like children carried on their mother’s backs” denoting

6 References to “the bush” in Uganda and other parts of Africa can have multiple meanings, but in the case of Uganda it is most commonly used as an idiom to express going to war, usually in terms of a protracted struggle against the government. ”Going to the bush” refers to the option of undertaking violent struggle against the current government in order to overcome it. The prevalence and acceptance of the use of such an idiom suggests to some degree its legitimacy, even if this legitimacy is contested. 7 Cen has been called “ghostly vengeance” and described as “spirits of people who died violently” (Finnström 2008:159).

their sense of helplessness and lack of control (Armstrong 2007). With few economic opportunities and limited access to land for farming, many men have turned to alcohol to relieve their idleness and shame. Domestic violence, marital breakdown, rape and other social ills plague the camps. Families are particularly threatened since few can afford the dowries that are necessary to make marriage official. This has left many women and children vulnerable without recourse to the financial responsibilities allocated within a formal arrangement of marriage. Some women have turned to prostitution to support themselves and their families and are thus further stigmatized by society. Moreover, many in the camps decry the loss of “culture.” By this they are referring to the inability to instil the correct morals and values in their children. Life in the camps is considered particularly difficult since children and parents, usually provided separate sleeping spaces in the villages, are forced to share crowded sleeping space in the camps. This not only deprives parents of privacy, but results in their diminished relative status, especially in view of the carefully regulated use of space in Acholi custom. Parents complain of their loss of authority over children based on their inability to effectively protect or care for them and their loss of control over the social spaces in which they interact. Cultural traditions of story- telling over night fires, called wang-oo, are forbidden in the camps, disrupting an important means of passing down knowledge and family histories and disrupting the generational flow of cultural practices and values.

Even in periods of relative calm, opportunistic gangs or individuals have been known to take advantage of the political unrest. Posing as LRA/M, bandits attack individuals and households in order to rob them or settle scores. Sverker Finnström (2008:3), an anthropologist working in the region, notes that such bandits are referred to as boo kec bandits. Boo, a type of local spinach, and kec meaning bitter, refers to the preference of the bandits to steal luxury foods such as meat from others rather than work hard to grow their own simple foods like

most people. But the various violences experienced by the residents of northern Uganda have multiplying effects. The economic and political isolation of the population, their lack of access to information, sufficient livelihood opportunities and basic necessities such as food are compounded by the vulnerability of their physical placement in the middle of a warzone, the social and psychological impacts of rampant abductions and violence, and the lack of protection by, at times even predation of, the armed forces meant to guard them.

The Meaning of Violence Yet, despite the egregious nature of the violence committed against the population and its apparent lack of purpose, violence must be understood to have a particular logic. Contrary to many popular representations of violence, violence is never completely random or meaningless. This is a particularly important insight in view of the common representation of the violence perpetrated by the LRA/M as random and irrational. Among anthropologists, an important point of consensus is that all violence is culturally embedded. Christian Krohn-Hansen describes this as:

A certain collective anthropological project, a project which consists of examining modern political violence not as (incomprehensible) ‘exceptions’, but as ‘rules’ – that is, not as phenomena outside a daily and ritually constructed cultural, social, and political reality of a particular kind, but, on the contrary, as practices and meanings which belong to (in the sense of being both products and producers of) a cultural, social, and political logic. (Krohn-Hansen 1997: 233)

Anthropological studies of violence share the conviction that violence is a culturally produced phenomenon and not something which exists outside of culture. Specifically this conviction underlines the fact that the form violence takes, what society chooses to describe as violence, the propensity to use

violence, the meaning such acts are ascribed, as well as the interpretation of its legitimacy are culturally produced. Violence is not some aberrance within the social order, originating from outside; it is produced from within the social order and must be understood as such if its most egregious forms and adverse effects are to be avoided. Thus the apparently random and violent attacks against the population in northern Uganda by the LRA/M can be understood as a means of instilling fear in the population; subordinating them to the power of Kony and the other LRA/M members.

There is also some evidence that many of the larger attacks committed by the LRA/M were meant to carry particular messages. In 1995, Atiak, a trading post not far from the Sudan border in Amuru district, was attacked by rebels in the early hours of the morning. After defeating the government forces, the rebels forced hundreds of people to an area away from the trading post and separated the people into groups. Breastfeeding mothers, pregnant women and young children were kept on one side, while the others were told to go on the other side. A survivor of the attack told me that one of the elders then asked the rebels, “what about the elders?” To which one of the rebels replied, “the elders remain, they are the ones causing the problems.” Then the rebels opened fire on the group and told the women and children to start clapping as they were shooting. Following the shooting, the women were told to “go and tell your people our guns are not full of rust” (Discussion with author, October 2005). The attack was considered particularly gruesome because Vincent Otti, who originated from the area, participated in the attack and was able to call people by name as they were moved into groups to be killed or spared. The attack against the population, framed as a retaliation for saying the LRA/M guns are rusty, follows a pattern of violence whereby the LRA/M can be seen as punishing the population either for not supporting them or for their apparent collusion with the government. The participation of Acholi civilians in defense units that

serve as an additional security force against the rebels, for example, was considered a particularly heinous form of treachery by the population against the LRA/M.

The rationalization of the attack also follows a pattern of resentment against the population, and particularly some elders, demonstrated on a number of occasions. Kony has made repeated complaints that his mission to overthrow the government was first blessed by Acholi elders, but now they have abandoned him in the bush (Lamwaka 2002). Kony’s claim that he was blessed has been denied by elders; however, according to the anthropologist Sverker Finnström, the nephew of the Payira Chief, one of the more powerful Acholi chiefdoms, was blessed by his uncle while he was Major of the Uganda People’s Democratic Army (UPDA). The UPDA was one of the first armed groups to battle against Museveni and the National Resistance Army (NRA) following Museveni’s capture of power in 1986. The type of blessing he received, though, was akin to the kind of blessing given to any family member when they leave on a journey, and not the clan blessing for war which would require the presentation of lapii, “the sticks for making fire” (Finnström 2008:211). Whether or not Kony was blessed, justification for atrocities is often framed as a kind of retaliation against the population for turning on the rebels, a logic which reaffirms the place of the LRA/M as fighting on behalf of the population and for their benefit, at least in the minds of the rebels.

Kony also formulates his army and his military mission as “God-given”. As new recruits, abducted youth are trained to believe that their work is the work of God. The fight against the government is divinely determined; therefore, fighters have the protection of God. Kony himself claims to be “an embodiment and personification of the Holy Spirit” (Lamwaka 2002:16-17). One young man who had been abducted by the rebels recalled his own experience of

indoctrination by Kony to a journalist writing on the subject. He described how Kony would tell them, “’Go to the Bible, this verse: God killed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, so God is a killer’.… ‘God was a soldier; he gave orders to the angels to go and kill all these first-born children of Egypt, so God is also a killer! If someone has done something bad to you, you have to kill them, as they have done something bad! Go and read in Matthew, chapter what and what, it is stated that if your right hand causes trouble, cut it off!’” (Green 2008). The re- socialization of the abductees was meant to overcome their reluctance to kill and to understand it as something “right,” something approved by God. Kony and his commanders also implemented strict guidelines of social behavior, including guidelines regulating relations between men and women. In respect of his Sudanese supporters, Kony is also said to have implemented certain rules based on more Islamic practice, such as the prohibition of pork and observance of Friday as a day of rest, but these rules existed alongside an interesting combination of Catholic doctrine, Acholi spiritual beliefs and rituals, and military discipline and hierarchy.

The Global Connections of ‘Local’ Wars Carolyn Nordstrom (1997) in her ethnography of the war in Mozambique has written that there is no such thing as a local war. Today, all wars are enormously interconnected with global economic, political and social systems. International legal frameworks, policies and organizations related to the monitoring of human rights violations, the provision of relief or the protection of civilians are only some examples of the mediums through which this global network functions. Nordstrom has described this process, stating that “cultures of militarization, violence, resistance, humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding move fluidly around the globe, dipping deep into the most central and remote corners of war and politics alike. This global flux of information, tactics, weapons, money, and personnel”, she continues, “brokers tremendous power throughout the

warzones of the world” (1997: 5). Despite the characterization of the LRA/M conflict as a “local” conflict, mainly by the Museveni government, the conflict has never been without regional and global connections. The rebels could cross back and forth across the long and mostly unprotected border between Uganda and the Sudan even in the early years before they gained the financial support of the Khartoum government. While the rebels relied mainly on looting, it is also believed that some limited funds came from Acholi diaspora. By 1994, however, support from the Khartoum government was secured and the LRA/M became a well-outfitted rebel force.

International interest in the conflict from a humanitarian perspective was slow to materialize. The characterization of the war as local and marginal was generally accepted by foreign governments who preferred to look the other way in order to cast Uganda as an economic and political success story. However, sustained criticism of human rights abuses committed by the government, the refusal to adopt more democratic political policies, and the continued violence and conflict in various parts of the country, particularly the north, eventually brought increased attention and scrutiny from the international community. Human rights organizations which had continued to monitor events in the country became more vocal and active in their critiques of the government, which spurred some governments and organizations to investigate the conflict in a more rigorous manner (e.g., Gersony 1997; Simonse 1998). Humanitarian efforts also increased, especially after the Ugandan army pushed large portions of the population residing in Gulu and Kitgum districts into camps in 1996 and 1997, leaving the population with very little access to the basic means of survival.8 By the early 2000s, northern Uganda was increasingly attracting the interest of news media, humanitarian organizations and human rights groups, culminating

8 At the time, Gulu and Kitgum had not yet been subdivided. In 2001, Pader district was carved out of the southern part of Kitgum, Amuru district was established in the northern region of Gulu in 2006 and most recently Kitgum has again been subdivided, adding Lamwo district. .

in the announcement by Jan Egeland, then UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, that northern Uganda was the world’s worst forgotten disaster (Agence France-Presse 2003). Following this announcement, international attention on the war continued to multiply. Many UN agencies and humanitarian organizations not already present in the region began to set up offices and programs to assist the local population, strengthen efforts to achieve peace, and intensify actions to record human rights abuses committed by all parties. Besides increased press coverage, the conflict also attracted the attention of documentary film-makers and book authors, some of which were used to mobilize populations in other parts of the world to stand up and pressure their governments to do more to end the conflict.

In Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink’s (1998) seminal book, they describe these networks of individuals and organizations that function across borders as “transnational advocacy networks”. The book was respected as one of the first political analyses to recognize the increasing function and impact of such networks in international politics. The authors highlight that “advocacy networks are significant transnationally and domestically. By building new links among actors in civil societies, states, and international organizations, they multiply the channels of access to the international system” (1998:1). Linked to globalization and new forms of information technology, transnational advocacy networks have become increasingly sophisticated and powerful. While some networks are now well established and are focused around a common agenda and set of values such as the promotion of human rights, other networks are more spontaneously driven and become engaged in a specific issue in a more restricted time and place. In northern Uganda, a number of important transnational advocacy networks were formed, largely based in the United States or Canada, they have developed international links, work closely with Ugandan partners and have at times merged their considerable lobbying techniques

toward a collective goal. Resolve Uganda, Invisible Children and Gulu Walk are three particularly successful networks that collectively brought enormous international attention to the issues of northern Uganda, raised money for various projects, and pressured the UN and their respective governments to become more involved in efforts to bring the war to an end.9

The self-styled “movement” of Invisible Children began with the making and screening of a documentary film on the LRA/M conflict. The documentary was screened in multiple cities across the US and used as a focal point for raising awareness of the conflict and raising funds. Invisible Children is particularly notable for its strategic use of multimedia, particularly video, internet, and social network sites, to attract attention and mobilize mainly youth towards resolving the LRA/M conflict and to assist the population in reconstruction. The organization has relied on marketing techniques which seek not only to alert youth to their cause, but to promote the movement as an opportunity for youths to recreate themselves as peace activists. Thus, the representation of the organization and their cause is as much about manufacturing “the movement” as it is about northern Uganda, as a quote from the website reveals: “we are the motivated misfits and masses redefining what it means to be an activist”(Invisible Children N.d.). Individuals are invited to become activists by using Invisible Children media in schools, social gatherings, churches, and so on, to inform and incite others to join the movement. This creates a snowball effect of individuals aligning themselves with the movement and spreading the word. The organization also undertakes campaigns, whereby they move across the country screening their films, introducing northern Ugandans who tell their story, and ultimately raising funds to support education and school construction projects. Much of the funds are raised through the sale of their videos and savvy

9 The websites for these organizations are as follows: www.guluwalk.com; www.invisiblechildren.com; and www.resolveuganda.org.

merchandise including t-shirts and bracelets. In the most recent campaign, entitled the “Legacy Tour”, the public is invited to “leave your legacy” by supporting the cause. This, once again, highlights for participants the process of their self-realization as activists and contributors to historic processes, playing on desires of an idle population to find purpose and to belong to something larger than itself. The techniques have been highly successful at mobilizing youth and raising funds, and, more recently, joining forces with other advocacy networks to successfully lobby the US government to sign the LRA/M Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. The Act, which was signed in May 2010, should eventually produce a much more intensive effort on the part of the US government to bring the war to an end and rebuild the communities that have been destroyed.

With somewhat more humble beginnings, Gulu Walk was initiated through the actions of two young Canadians who were compelled by the stories they had heard of northern Uganda’s “night commuters”. The so-called night commuters refer to the thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of children who were commuting between villages or camps and district centers, especially Gulu and Kitgum. Children, mothers with young babies, and even some adults have spontaneously commuted to urban centers since the beginning of the conflict, but the mass commuting of mainly young children began after the initiation of Operation Iron Fist, a military offensive that began in 2002 with the aim of destroying the foundations of the LRA/M. Unfortunately, the offensive, which strategically moved into the Sudan to fight the LRA/M near their home-bases, succeeded mainly in flushing the LRA/M out of Sudan and back into Uganda where they avenged themselves on the local population. Though the rebel forces were disrupted and weakened through the military offensive, the number of civilians killed and abducted as a result has deemed it an overall failure.

The insecurity felt by many children and families at that time induced progressively more children to seek shelter in the urban areas at night. By 2003, it was estimated that more than 40,000 people were regularly commuting to urban centers, though numbers fluctuated according to the perceived security threat. In June 2004, it was calculated that about 52,000 people were commuting in Kitgum, Gulu and Pader districts, but this number had reduced to about 44,000 in August of the same year (UNOCHA 2004:51). Once in the city centers, people would find whatever space was available for sleeping, including shop verandas, bus parks and eventually in some of the shelters that began to open in response to the crisis. International media attention to the nightly commute of children in northern Uganda was largely sparked by a campaign led by the inter-faith organization, the Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative (ARLPI) in June of 2003. Archbishop John Baptist Odama described the incident to me as a “most striking event” which made the situation of northern Uganda known to the world. The Archbishop lamented that, despite repeated attempts to gain international attention by meeting with foreign governments, the UN and international religious networks, “it was difficult to convince people of the reality of northern Uganda because of the counter-image” produced by the government and reproduced internationally (Interview with author, February 2007). But in June of 2003, for four nights, leaders of ARLPI joined the commuters on their way to Gulu and slept with them out in the open. One member of ARLPI, Father Carlos Rodriguez wrote an article on the event and spoke of his colleague:

Archbishop John Baptist Odama may have never performed a more unusual ritual in his life. For four consecutive days, in the evening, he quietly left his residence carrying a sack containing only a blanket, walked the five kilometres distance to Gulu town and on the way met with a good number of children, carrying their own sacks and blankets on their way to the verandas for the night. Odama greeted all of them warmly: “These are my colleagues, my fellow

night commuters,” he remarked with a smile, and continued on foot followed by the children some as young as five to the busy park. (Otim 2009)

Archbishop Odama noted to me that “at that point the media became so interested, but soon the government became angry and started saying reporters must have government permission” (Interview with author, February 2007). Nonetheless, the event sparked international attention and subsequent news stories and articles were published about the night commuters which eventually captured the attention of two young men in Canada.

Distraught by the situation of children in northern Uganda, two Canadians embarked on their own campaign to bring attention to the problem. For each of 31 nights in July, 2005 they walked 12.5 kilometres to downtown Toronto and slept on the steps of City Hall in an attempt to recreate the long daily walk of many children on their way to seek shelter. The event succeeded in raising awareness of the problem and gained momentum, as annual “Gulu Walks” were organized in different cities across the world, including the capital city of Uganda and in Gulu and Kitgum, where various organizations, individuals and politicians joined the public awareness campaign. In 2008, 30,000 people are reported to have participated in walks in 75 cities across 16 different countries. The campaign brought attention to the northern Ugandan conflict as a whole and also raised funds to support a number of projects to assist children in northern Uganda. The number of night commuters reduced over the years as security increased and as other issues related to the commuting came to light and were addressed. Gulu Walk is still functioning, but is now linked to another advocacy network, Resolve Uganda, which focuses its attention on lobbying and petitioning the US government and the UN Security Council to become more engaged in the LRA/M conflict. Through lobby campaigns, Resolve Uganda claims to have successfully influenced the US government to increase aid and to

appoint a US Humanitarian Coordinator to the region. They were also involved in the campaign with Invisible Children and other organizations that eventually witnessed President Obama sign the LRA/M Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act into law in May, 2010.

These advocacy networks have been instrumental in gaining and maintaining world attention on the conflict and in producing continuous efforts to bring the war to an end. They demonstrate the growing influence of such networks which often rely on sophisticated communication strategies and youth culture to promote their cause and mobilize resources. The use of multimedia, the internet, and social networking tools links geographically separated groups and individuals, rapidly spreading information, coordinating activities and effectively producing a community of like-minded individuals driven by a unified cause. As Keck and Sikkink note of various types of transnational advocacy networks, “despite their differences, these networks are similar in several important respects: the centrality of values or principled ideas, the belief that individuals can make a difference, the creative use of information, and the employment by nongovernmental actors of sophisticated political strategies in targeting their campaigns” (1998:2).

International Justice and Transitional Justice Arguably, however, international attention to the conflict was galvanized most effectively by the announcement of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the beginning of 2004 that it had agreed to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the LRA/M conflict. Since the announcement, and the negative reaction of many local leaders and civil society organizations of northern Uganda, attention to the conflict has been sustained. While humanitarian and human rights organizations had by now been present in northern Uganda for some time, the announcement of the ICC brought with it

the attention of a new group of actors, mainly advocacy groups related to the establishment of the ICC, such as the Coalition for ICC which brings together hundreds of I/NGOs that support ICC activities. The international attention sought after by many of northern Uganda’s local religious, traditional, and political leaders as well as civil society organizations had finally been received, but with it came the force of a new international project, that of “international justice”.

International justice is a widely used, but sometimes vaguely defined concept which refers to the systems and processes put in place to address the perceived injustices that exist in the world. As such, it can include both domestic and international judicial processes set up to address human rights violations, labour and trade disputes, impacts of environmental disasters, and most recently, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Efforts at international justice have mobilized a wide range of actors and organizations including lawyers, academics, politicians, activists, legal associations, human rights organizations and other NGOs, and many of these actors were particularly united in their promotion of the establishment of the ICC. It is no surprise, then, that the ICC’s decision to investigate crimes in northern Uganda was accompanied by the avid support of these international actors.

The decision of the Court to intervene in the conflict of northern Uganda in order to prosecute crimes committed in the war since 2002 – the legal boundary of the Court’s temporal jurisdiction – dramatically shifted the nature of discussion on the war and transformed the frameworks through which peace was legitimately allowed to be achieved. Prior to the intervention, many local activists and leaders had been working to gain the support of the international community to achieve peace through the combined use of amnesty, reconciliation activities, including traditional forms of justice, and negotiations with the rebels to end the

violence. The local leaders and activists had been particularly vocal against continued military strategies to end the war and were attempting to pressure the government to find peaceful solutions. To a large extent, the local leaders had been successful in gaining international support, and there was a slow but steady increase in the number of international actors willing to become engaged in bringing the two parties together. The announcement of the ICC, therefore, was met with great scepticism as it was viewed as an obstacle to attaining peace through talks with the rebels. Since the announcement, many local leaders have continued to advocate against the ICC interventions, especially since the announcement of indictments in October 2005 named five senior rebels, but no government or army official who many in northern Uganda also view as responsible for their suffering.

The introduction of the Court in northern Uganda brought with it an imperative for justice that began to dominate and drastically limit the field within which local actors could manoeuvre. The undeniable power of legal institutions and legal discourse to create legal subjects rendered Kony, Otti and the three other senior commanders of the LRA/M as violent criminals, immediately delegitimizing them as parties with which to negotiate peace. In contrast, President Museveni continues to be considered a legitimate party in peace talks, despite being linked to human rights violations and potential war crimes in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The temporal jurisdiction of the ICC has to some degree protected Museveni from answering to those crimes as an individual (though not wholly); however, his government has been ordered to pay billions in reparations to DRC by the International Court of Justice.10 The enthusiasm for international justice as a solution to various current global issues has also infused the Court with important influence, since

10 The press release of the judgment can be viewed on the International Court of Justice website at: www.icj-cij/docket/files/116/10521.pdf.

high expectations exist regarding what the Court can achieve. For their part, local leaders have struggled to retain control of the decisions regarding the future of their people and the peace building process, but they have done so in the face of increased international pressure to incorporate the agenda of international justice.

A Globalized Peace? In a discussion of the relations between globalization and peacemaking, Oliver Richmond, a lecturer in international relations, states that,

On the surface it would seem that globalization creates possibilities for the pacification of conflict, for example via a redistribution of multiple resources and through undercutting nationalist myths and stereotypes. However, an alternative reading would seem to suggest that the dynamics of globalization could shed doubt upon the supposedly universal normative basis of peace and peacebuilding approaches which lies in the way in which they are used to export structures associated with the ‘Wilsonian triad’ through what Paris has called a ‘mission civilisatrice’ (Paris, 2002: 642). This means, as Howard has pointed out, that ‘peace’ is invented as a discourse then exported as a practice (Howard, 2001:2). (Richmond 2004:141)

By “Wilsonian triad”, Richmond is referring to what foreign policy analyst, Michael Mandelbaum. has described as the three ideological pillars shaping the world today: peace, democracy and free markets (Richmond 2004:131). Richmond’s concern is that the idea of what constitutes peace is a preconceived notion that carries with it a number of assumptions, values and objectives and that this kind of “peace” is being exported and imposed upon a number of conflict-torn countries through globalization processes. Richmond is most concerned with the recent practices of military intervention and the assumed

control of governance in the name of bringing peace to these countries, but his concerns can be applied to less dramatic situations of globalized peace. His following statement is particularly insightful in the Ugandan context: “What this nascent ‘globalization of peace’ has allowed is the creation of practices in which states and organizations that profess to understand ‘peace’ are able to intervene in conflict in order to build a new peace without necessarily renegotiating the frameworks that have arisen from within the recipients’ experience, culture, identity, or geopolitical location” (2004:139).

Uganda provides an interesting case in which to examine Richmond’s notion of a “globalized peace.” Uganda has become an important site of cultural production whereby competing and contested notions of peace and justice are struggling for ascendancy. The outcome of such negotiations will not only re-shape our understandings of these concepts, but will also impact future paradigms through which we build peace and seek justice, thereby having long-term consequences. Central to Richmond’s discussion is the particular relationship of globalization and peacemaking. “Globalization” is best understood not only as a set of processes, such as the increased and rapid movement of people, goods and ideas, but also as a set of ideas. These ideas shape our understanding of things and events in our world by providing a particular framework of interpretation, but they also provide the basis for change or transformation in a particular direction (Tsing 2000). In this way, the intervention of the ICC in Uganda along with the subsequent pressures put on Uganda to retain the criminal proceedings against the LRA/M commanders as a necessity for peace is a result of processes of globalization, but to some degree also a result of discourses of globalization, given that certain discourses of globalization have been mobilized in the justification of the establishment of the Court and its continued legitimization. This has been particularly true as the Court is imagined as a response to the negative impacts of globalization, particularly the transnational nature of crime

and the increased threat of conflicts in other parts of the world having a spill- over effect on entire regions or even globally. As Norman Fairclough has noted, “we can say that discourses of globalization do not merely represent processes and tendencies of globalization which are happening independently. They can under certain conditions also contribute to creating and shaping actual processes of globalization” (2006:4). The point here is to demonstrate how events in northern Uganda have come to be conceptualized as concerns of the entire international community, not only as an offense to the humanitarian sensibilities of a more informed and aware global society seeking to resolve the conflict for the sake of the affected population, but also as a crisis which threatens the well- being of the global community and therefore as something that must be addressed by the international community for its own sake.

The contention that northern Uganda and particularly the events surrounding the ICC intervention has become a site of global cultural production is based on the acceptance of globalization as a complex process that simultaneously involves homogenization and fragmentation. Global institutions such as the ICC work to promote a universal normative framework of justice, and, therefore, strive for hegemony, but they do so in a contested field of meaning and practice, and as such, continuous efforts must be made to retain the imagined project of international justice. In the case of northern Uganda, I would argue that discourses of international justice had to become transformed, if not subsumed, by discourses of transitional justice or conflict resolution in order to resist challenges made to the construction of the ICC as a moral institution capable of delivering more than just a limited form of penal justice, but a more satisfying form of social or global justice. Given the perceived threat the ICC intervention posed to the peace process, and, therefore, to human life, the discursive construction of the Court shifted towards its value as an integral component of peacebuilding. This was in part achieved through its position within a

transitional justice discourse which has become the dominant paradigm in peacebuilding, but only through a certain discursive reconstruction of its own.

Transitional justice refers to processes that took place largely in South America following the collapse of military dictatorships, whereby the budding democratic governments were attempting to navigate their way toward a new liberally informed type of governance. Thus, they were attempting to instil law and order as well as justice for the victims of the military regimes, but in such a way as to not upset the fragile political context. Despite its origins as a post-conflict process of transition, transitional justice has now been reconceptualized as a framework for conflict resolution which has a number of practical implications. Among the possible implications is the impact of bringing certain preconditions to peace negotiations that result from a commitment to justice – and more specifically criminal justice – that is embodied in a transitional justice framework. The ascendance of a transitional justice paradigm in Uganda was important since it served to cool and absorb arguments against the ICC intervention based on cultural relativist frameworks that contrasted retributive and restorative forms of justice. Retributive justice is typically associated with more Western legal forms of justice that seek punitive measures against perpetrators in order to obtain accountability. This stands in contrast to restorative forms of justice that can include measures such as restitution to the victim and rehabilitation for the perpetrator with the aim of rectifying and preventing future crimes and healing societal rifts brought about by the event. A transitional justice discourse places value on restorative forms of justice that local Acholi leaders claimed were more culturally appropriate. This served to legitimize local institutions of justice and the arguments of those opposing the ICC intervention, but it did so within a limiting framework that accepted restorative mechanisms of justice only as complementary to penal forms of justice.

Power in Discourse The focus placed on “discourse” throughout this dissertation is in part a consequence of my own experience of observing events from both within and outside the country. Although I spent several months in northern Uganda over two periods in 2005 and 2007, residing at times within the camps and at other times in the urban centers of Kitgum and Gulu, I spent a much longer period of time observing events from outside the country. From the time I conceived of the project in 2002, I have monitored events in northern Uganda largely through news media, humanitarian reports and some academic articles and books. In the field, my work largely involved interviews with individuals and groups inside the camps and with various local leaders and international workers. As a result, this has generated a particular interest in what is being said about the conflict and related events from different perspectives. It also involves an attempt to understand the underlying assumptions and imperatives that are often left unsaid in various discussions and representations. This focus on discourse, narratives and other forms of representation follows a largely Foucauldian understanding of the relation between discourse and power. Foucault’s understanding of power is especially significant, since, along with a number of other theorists (Bourdieu 1990; Bourdieu 1994; Comaroff 1985; Csordas 1990), he contends that power is not simply the coercive forces of political and economic domination, nor can power be reduced to conscious attempts at control; rather power is a much more complex and subtle process that escapes the control of any one set of actors or institutions and can be found in the smallest details of interaction.

In a rare attempt to succinctly define power, Foucault states that “power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society" (1990: 93). What power is for Foucault is the

sum of multiple, yet not necessarily coherent, force relations. Power works itself out through myriad operations, movements and processes which enable and reinforce themselves or contradict and undo each other. As Foucault states, “the omnipresence of power: not because it has the privilege of consolidating everything under its invincible unity, but because it is produced from one moment to the next, at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to another. Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (1990: 93).

Foucault’s understanding of the relation of power and discourse is in the productive capacity of discourse, for example to exclude, divide and define objects, subjects, relations, and so on. In an attempt to define a Foucauldian discourse analysis, Hook notes that,

The central focus in Foucault’s paper *Orders of Discourse+ is on the rules, systems and procedures that constitute, and are constituted by, our ‘will to knowledge’. These rules, systems and procedures comprise a discrete realm of discursive practices – the order of discourse – a conceptual terrain in which knowledge is formed and produced. As Young specifies, what is analysed here is not simply that which was thought or said per se, ‘but all the discursive rules and categories that were a priori, assumed as a constituent part of discourse and therefore of knowledge’ (p. 48). In this way, the effect of discursive practices is to make it virtually impossible to think outside of them; to be outside of them is, by definition, to be mad, to be beyond comprehension and therefore reason (Young 1981). (Hook 2001:522)

An analysis of discourse, therefore, can work to reveal some of the underlying assumptions and a priori knowledge in order to elaborate the minute workings of power, since these assumptions can be related to particular worldviews and aimed at specific outcomes. In this sense, it is important to point out the

materiality of discourse. Discourse does not exist purely in the ideal; however, neither is discourse completely deterministic, as Raymond Williams’ balanced definition implies: “we find then not a reified ‘language’ or ‘society’ but an active social language. Nor is this language simply a ‘reflection’ or ‘expression’ of ‘material reality’. What we have rather is a grasping of this reality through language, which as practical consciousness is saturated by and saturates all social activity, including productive activity” (1977:37-38).

An interest in power is an obvious outcome of an understanding of the events in northern Uganda as constituting a site of negotiation and competition. The relation of discourse and power in the particular situation of Uganda is complex. On the one hand, particular discourses are mobilized in struggles over legitimacy and the authority to determine outcomes, but certain discourses also underlie the constitution of actors and institutions which serve either to undermine or empower them from the outset. In the struggle for ascendency, processes of competition are not straight-forward but involve mutual transformation and compromise. Nor is the eventual ascendancy of a particular discourse a direct outcome of the inherent powers of the individuals who are embodying those discourses; rather a number of factors are implicated. Fairclough describes four factors he believes are important to the success of a discourse:

Discourses and narratives ‘simplify’...economic and political relations – the latter are so complex that any action oriented towards them requires ‘discursive simplification’, a selectivity in terms of what is included and excluded, hence the constitution of discourses as ‘imaginaries’. Which competing discourses (narratives, imaginaries), which strategies, succeed in establishing themselves and achieving dominance or hegemony depends upon a number of factors. First, ‘structural selectivities’: structures are more open to some strategies than to others. Second, the scope and ‘reach’ of the discourse (narrative) – for instance, the

discourses of ‘globalization’ or ‘knowledge-based economy’ might be seen as ‘nodal discourses’ which articulate many other discourses (e.g. those we can sum up with labels ‘lifelong learning’, ‘social exclusion’, ‘flexibility’). Third, there are the differential capacities and power of the social agents whose strategy it is ‘to get their message across’, e.g. their access to and control over mass media and other channels and networks for diffusion. Fourth, there is the ‘resonance’ of discourses with people’s experience of the world, and their capacity to mobilize people. (Fairclough 2006:21)

Unlike Fairclough, my purpose is not to undertake a close critical analysis of text, but to look in a broader sense at how processes of negotiation occurred. By examining the peace and justice debate from a historical perspective, I hope to explore how certain discourses have been constructed, thereby revealing the values, interests and assumptions that underlie these discourses. Such an exploration will also make clear why certain representations or discourses might be mobilized or strategized within certain contexts, but it will also reveal the strengths and weaknesses of different discursive constructions. Turning back to Richmond’s idea of a “globalization of peace”, I am seeking to outline the process of negotiation that occurs at the local level when global processes meet resistance, such as in the case of northern Uganda. This follows particular anthropological perspectives that point out the need to engage more closely with the relation of people to processes of global reform such as human rights, or with institutions such as the International Criminal Court (Cowan, et al. 2001a; Coxshall 2005; Dembour and Kelly 2007b; Merry 2006). Different actors in the debate over the ICC intervention in northern Uganda mobilize certain discourses in order to make several spoken and unspoken assertions and to wield the power associated with such discourses. To speak about human rights, for example, does not simply refer to a set of principles laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but does much more. It refers to a certain moral universe that

puts the integrity of humanity before other interests such as profit or power. It is also associated with a number of international organizations, networks and UN agencies that give it a physical presence and legitimacy. Most importantly, perhaps, it elicits certain ideas about the nature of humanity and what ought to be, by representing a hope or ideal that resonates with most human beings. These underlying meanings and associations are always connected to a human rights discourse, and this is what makes it such a powerful discourse, particularly in the present political and social order.

This dissertation attempts to account for the very different ways in which the ICC intervention in Uganda has been received. On the one hand, many Acholi leaders and some international humanitarian organizations and foreigners oppose the decision of the ICC to intervene, at least at this point in time. On the other hand, most international observers and some Ugandans welcome the intervention and celebrate its advent as a marker of an improved international response to human suffering. In order to understand how such different responses have come about, this dissertation will examine both how the ICC and international justice have been produced in the minds of the general public, as well as how opposition to the ICC by many local Acholi leaders can be considered as an equally natural response under the specific circumstances of events in northern Uganda.

The dissertation is organized into seven chapters: the current Introduction, followed by a background chapter that sets out the historical context of the conflict in order to provide the setting for the global debate that followed the intervention of the ICC. Chapter Three examines how the ICC has been constructed in the imagination of the average observer and how this impacts peoples’ perceptions of the ICC’s work. The ICC has been built up in the public imagination as a moral institution that is necessary in order to address the

negative elements of globalization that threaten the current political stability of the developed world. This construction creates a form of blindness to the weaknesses of the institution and embeds it with enormous powers, particularly if it intervenes in the areas of the world that are viewed as potential threats to law and order. This in part explains the degree to which the ICC’s intervention in northern Uganda has been largely well received in most parts of the world without any critical analysis. Given the fact that the Ugandan case is the first in the ICC history, it should be surprising that it is already assumed to be capable of addressing and resolving political conflicts that have persisted over decades. In contrast to the positive reception of the ICC intervention in most parts of the world, local leaders who have opposed the intervention have been highly critiqued and viewed as anachronistic and out of touch in many popular representations. Given what should be considered a more grounded understanding of events in the region provided by the local leaders and the fact that the ICC is a very recent formation, the uncritical acceptance of the ICC intervention as a necessary response to the conflict raises many questions that require some explanation.

In contrast, by taking a close look at the contextual situation the ICC was entering, it is quickly revealed that it was quite unlikely that the intervention would have been well received by the local leaders since many of the principles of the ICC run counter to the objectives of the leaders. This is the subject of Chapter Four. The actions of the ICC contradicted the counter-narrative promoted by local leaders regarding the actual nature of the conflict in the region and the means by which the conflict should be brought to an end and sustainable peace restored. The local leaders had been working to build for themselves positions as spokespersons for the victims of the conflict and to make decisions on their behalf. Prior to this, there had been little political representation of the population outside of the central government and the

rebel leaders. Most importantly, the local leaders were working to assert their own narrative of events in order to counter the official discourse of the government which tended to put responsibility for the suffering of the population solely in the hands of the rebels, at times even rendering the Acholi population as complicit. The ICC intervention created a significant challenge to the local leaders’ priority to bring peace to the region through peaceful means, and this ultimately undermined the authority of the local leaders vis-à-vis the government.

Once an understanding of the foundations of the opposing perspectives is established, a closer look at how positions were negotiated in the public space of news media, commentaries, press releases and official reports can be investigated in Chapter Five. From the outset, supporters of the ICC intervention could be said to have had the upper hand in the debate given the wide support for the International Court and the relative status of individuals and organizations advocating its relevance to events in Uganda. Nonetheless, opponents of the Court intervention have managed to present an important challenge to the Court and more specifically to its idealistic construction as a moral and impartial institution capable of ending impunity. Such challenges have forced officials of the Court to reconstruct its purpose and to reaffirm specific visions of peace and justice. This occurred through various processes, but to some degree these processes can be traced through a close examination of competing rhetoric and the utilization of strategic discourses.

As will be shown in Chapter Five, debate over the intervention in the media and official reports tended to be represented as a controversy between peace and justice. This construction, though posing a tentative challenge to the ICC, actually tended to benefit those supporting the intervention. While on the surface, the dilemma between peace and justice was presented, rarely was the

ICC really called to respond to the possibility that the intervention might delay peace and therefore risk the loss of human lives. Moreover, the counter- argument to the ICC by opponents of the intervention rested heavily on cultural relativist positions, stating that Western legal systems were not relevant and traditional justice systems would be more successful. While cultural relativist arguments do carry a certain weight in international debates, as they have in human rights discussions, they also present many limitations to the promoters of this position. Such arguments have a tendency to move toward questions of cultural authenticity and are easily derided by simply exposing competing ideas within the population represented. For example, the presence of lawyers amongst the Acholi people could be used as an argument that Western legal systems are in fact relevant. Thus, a cultural relativist approach harboured certain vulnerabilities as well as strengths when utilized as a counter to the agenda of international justice. Overall, as a close analysis will reveal, the particular representations of the debate and the discourses that were mobilized by both sides, especially in the media, tended to benefit the position and views of ICC supporters. This has served to undermine the position of ICC opponents, however, not completely. The potential threat to peace, even if not closely examined, as well as the force of current trends toward local empowerment that place value in culturally appropriate institutions and practices have had an impact on arguments supporting the ICC in Uganda. In the end, some degree of compromise has been achieved, largely through the employment of a transitional justice framework which managed to capture key elements of the arguments on both sides and which acted as a means through which the priorities of both sides might be met.

Chapter Six looks more closely at the transitional justice paradigm and the various ways a transitional justice discourse penetrated and came to dominate the debate and the political agenda. The promotion of transitional justice as the

framework through which to resolve the conflict and build sustainable peace in northern Uganda gained momentum once the ICC had announced its intention to investigate the conflict. Prior to the ICC intervention, the framework for peace building in northern Uganda had not relied on a transitional justice framework, though certainly certain elements existed. Instead, most international organizations and UN agencies were supporting the peace building efforts of the local leaders who were promoting amnesty, traditional forms of reconciliation and negotiations to bring an end to the war and reintegrate former rebels. Transitional justice frameworks tend to favour legal solutions and argue that some form of justice and accountability is necessary to bring long- term healing and stability. A transitional justice discourse was a positive contribution to the debate from the perspective of ICC supporters since it emphasized the need for legal forms of justice and most importantly it provided a medium through which the ICC could construct itself as an instrument of conflict resolution. The idea that criminal trials can actually resolve conflicts and bring peace is not a well established principle, and, therefore, the intervention of the ICC during ongoing conflicts could cause the Court to be criticized for prolonging conflicts. Thus, a transitional justice discourse assisted in the process of identifying the Court as a necessary component of peace building. In fact, a transitional justice framework itself was not initially formed from situations of ongoing conflict, but in recent years it has been used increasingly in such situations. In this way, a transitional justice framework is also in the process of being constructed as a means of conflict resolution, so its goals are complementary to the goals of the ICC.

In the context of northern Uganda, a transitional justice framework served as a kind of middle-way by supporting the priority given to legal methods promoted by the ICC, but also giving legitimacy to traditional forms of justice present in northern Uganda since transitional justice supports a holistic approach to justice.

Nonetheless, the process through which transitional justice became the dominant paradigm was not without complications. The enthusiasm for international justice initially channelled the efforts of transitional justice advocates towards the support of the ICC indictments. However, over time, the basic principles of transitional justice which are more committed to a balance of peace and justice, along with a greater understanding of the situation in northern Uganda resulted in a more collaborative approach. This was largely manifested in the growing support for the possibility of national jurisdiction over the ICC indictments provided international standards were maintained. Transitional justice provided a framework for compromise, but in the end it proved insufficient to gain the cooperation of the International Criminal Court and the LRA rebels.

Although it is not possible to know what outcomes might have prevailed under different circumstances, the analysis of the debate in Uganda demonstrates how different discourses and narratives are utilized in struggles to obtain control of events and to gain political authority. Throughout the conflict, certain narratives and discourses have served to legitimize decisions or to either prevent or incite particular actions. By examining what is being said, we can often discern certain struggles of power and authority and the motivations which lay behind these struggles. We use language not only to reflect our world, but to produce it and to control it. Northern Uganda is no exception, and the competition between different actors to achieve certain ends plays out to some degree in the public sphere of news media, institutional reports and academia which can in turn be examined. Northern Uganda is a site of negotiation where constructions of peace and justice are being contested. The outcomes of this struggle will have long-term impacts on how the international community prioritizes, defines and attempts to realize the objectives of peace and justice.

2. UGANDAN HISTORIES

Most history writes itself backwards, and when missionaries, historians and anthropologists began to study and record the history of the people of East Africa, they took for granted the “tribal” associations that were the administrative units of the colonial governments. Though in many cases they worked in unison with the colonial administrations to ”produce” these ethnic groups, classifying peoples, creating boundaries and imposing central authorities, once these classifications were established, they took on a natural quality that spoke for themselves. Even the oral traditions that describe the separation and formation of separate political entities based on chiefly lineages do not account for the processes that would have transformed these separate entities into a single ethnic group. Many of the oral traditions of Luo speaking peoples in northern Uganda, which includes the Acholi, cut across what are now considered to be separate ethnicities. Yet, how the Acholi, Alur, Jo Paluo or Lango, for example, came to be known or to know themselves as unified and separate political groups is left unsaid.

Anthropologists have played a particularly important role in reifying the boundaries of ethnicity that were often at least partly products of political processes aimed mostly at easing the challenges of managing colonized populations. Until the 1970s and 1980s, most anthropological writings rendered ethnicity as an objective and observable quality that could be analyzed and described in-situ without reference to historical formation and transition or relations and interactions with other groups. Criticisms of this trend in anthropology have pointed to the complicity of anthropology in the production of ethnicity, especially in the colonial context where the administration of

populations through local polities was the goal and therefore required the formation and conscientization of groups as unified socio-political entities where these did not exist (Asad 1973).

The anthropologist, F.K. Girling (1960), who wrote an ethnography of the Acholi of Uganda, attempted to depart from such static presentations of culture and to address some of the changes that were occurring. However, even by his own account, he was unable to depart completely from some of the prevailing anthropological frameworks of the period. In the preface to his book, Girling notes his own regret that he couldn’t rewrite the monograph based on new theoretical tendencies in anthropology and his own changed perspective. Unable to undertake such a project, he released the book with the recognition that a number of faults lay within. For this reason, the ethnography follows the general precepts of the time that conceptualized ethnicities – or ‘tribes’, as they were more commonly known – as bounded socio-political units that corresponded to a particular territory without addressing the historical processes that worked to create this sense of unity. Though Girling does attempt to deal with the social changes that were impacting the Acholi at the time, the general presentation of the Acholi takes for granted the idea that the Acholi exist as an objective group; this is particularly true since he is attempting to reconstruct Acholi social and political organization as it existed at the end of the nineteenth century, with some attention to the changes that occurred in the first half of the twentieth century.

Girling’s account of the Acholi describes a people who relied mainly on agriculture for their livelihood, though cattle were still considered important social symbols. The main food staples were millet, sesame, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts and cassava, but fishing and hunting also supplemented the diet. The most basic social unit of the Acholi was the household which consisted of a

man and his wife or wives and their children. His elderly parents may also have resided within the household as well as other members of the patrilineage such as the father’s sister or brother. In physical terms, the household was made up of a number of round huts, usually one for the head-of-household and one for each of his wives. Beyond the household, Girling identified the next social unit as the hamlet. The hamlet was made up of a number of households usually related through the male line; often they could consist of an elderly man with his adult sons and their families. The households were distributed around a central courtyard which had a fireplace (wang-oo) with wooden seats around it. In the evenings, men would sit around the fireplace exchanging stories and discussing family matters with women and children seated somewhat apart. A number of hamlets together formed the village (gang). Hamlets could be widely dispersed at the time Girling was writing and were not often demarcated by fences as they had been in the past, but households still clearly identified themselves with a singular village.

Villages could be distinguished as either commoner villages (lo-bong) or royal villages (lo-kal) which together formed what Girling has termed the “domain”, but which might be better understood as a “chiefdom,” since the villages forming this social unit fell under a single rwot (chief). The distinction between lo-bong and lo-kal villages was based on their relation to the ruling lineage. The rwot was a hereditary position and those related to this lineage made up the royal lineage or clan. Members of the royal clan would therefore reside together in lo-kal villages. The rwot and his immediate family, on the other hand, lived in a separate household known as gang-kal and it was usually located at the center of the chiefdom. The chiefdom would typically be named after the common ancestor of the royal clan, such as Pa-Yera or Pa-Tiko meaning literally ‘of-Yera’. In general, the chiefdoms were independent units, though they shared many cultural and linguistic features with their neighbors (Girling 1960: 6-9). The

number of chiefdoms existing at any one time varied as some smaller chiefdoms could become absorbed by other larger or more powerful ones, or new chiefdoms could also come into being. Girling estimates that the number probably varied somewhere between thirty and sixty chiefdoms, demonstrating the fluid nature of political and social organization. He also notes that the chiefdoms did not fall under any central authority (1960:82)

The role of the rwot was both symbolic and pragmatic. The rwot was the symbol of his people and he was often referred to by his people as the father or the elder. Though the position of rwot is hereditary, and by custom is supposed to be the youngest son of the dakh ker, the royal wife, in practice the position would be given to someone of considerable integrity, charity and courage and continued authority would rely on the support of the people. The rwot was also the owner of the land and the holder of user rights over the local resources. He played a political role in the relations with other groups and in the resolution of internal disputes. In general, the rwot was considered to have the ability to produce rain and was the keeper of the ancestral shrine and royal regalia including the drums and spears. The rwot, however, did not have real political authority over the people in the chiefdom; rather he ruled by consensus with the ludito (pl.; ladit, sing.) or village elders.

In Girling’s account of the Acholi, the process by which they came to understand themselves as a unified group is not addressed. The representation assumes a long-standing acceptance of the Acholi as one people. Even though Girling points out that the Acholi have not historically had a single political office overseeing all Acholiland, he reports that a common heritage and affiliation is recognized by the separate political groups. The representation of Acholi by Girling is important for a number of reasons. On the one hand, the account does provide some information about the social and political systems of the Acholi

during a particular period of time, even if it does not adequately acknowledge the fluid nature of this organization. On the other hand, accounts such as Girling’s also become part of the ongoing construction of ethnic identity. Ethnic identification in Uganda has played a significant role in political and social life, at least since the end of the colonial period, and, as such, affiliation with one group or another can have important ramifications on one’s particular historical trajectory.

Since the time of Idi Amin, one could argue, the Acholi have come to feel the weight of their ethnic identity as many Acholi along with the Langi counterparts were targeted by the Amin regime shortly after he assumed power based on their ethnic identification. But in recent years, accounts such as Girling’s have assisted the Acholi in a quest to reconstruct their Acholiness. Since about the mid-1990s, there has been a considerable effort by Acholi leaders to reframe the Acholi self-image and reconstruct the Acholi as a proud and peaceful population. In doing so, the Acholi look back to historical accounts of their ancestors as well as their own living memories for models and examples of a more idyllic past upon which they can build their future. Part of this reconstruction has involved the reinstitution of the traditional leaders, the rwodi (pl.; rwot, sing.) and the centralization of Acholi leadership under the Payiro clan. This process has involved foreign assistance in the form of financial aid and technical expertise with an aim to help the Acholi in processes of peace building and community healing.

To some degree, the attempt by Acholi to redefine “Acholiness” has coincided with the development of a more critical literature that examines the historical processes leading to the formation of a bounded Acholi identity. In this literature it is argued that ethnicity was largely a construction of the colonial administration. Particularly in the case of the Acholi, researchers contend that

prior to the colonial period, the Acholi were simply loosely affiliated chiefdoms that were highly flexible and constantly shifting. Alliances between other chiefdoms were based on various exigencies of the time, not necessarily on inherent social relations that would naturally bind groups together. In fact, alliances as well as conflicts were organized between Acholi chiefdoms as easily as with others. Heike Behrend, an anthropologist who studied the Holy Spirit Movement of the 1980s, goes so far as to say that, “the Acholi did not exist in pre-colonial times. The ethnonym came into usage during the colonial period” (Behrend 1999: 14). Though Behrend’s quote refers mainly to the use of the identifier ”Acholi”, her declaration goes much further and does not simply refute the collective name as other anthropologists have done (e.g., Southall 1989), rather she conflates the creation of the ethnonym with the creation of Acholi ethnicity.

Most anthropologists and scholars of Africa now recognize the impact of contact with Europeans and the colonial project on the social relations between local peoples and in the formation of particular alliances and political units. The need to pacify populations resistant to British domination brought the British into alliances with certain populations who were rewarded for their assistance in the subjugation of other populations. In the case of Uganda, the Baganda had proven to be efficient allies of the British and their political organization, very familiar to the colonists, served as a model to be used in other parts of the region to facilitate indirect rule of the local populations. Where central authorities did not exist, the colonial administration imposed an authority, usually an ally of the British, on the population, which was henceforth considered a single and cohesive socio-political unit (Finnström 2003; Vincent 1999).

Acholi Identity However, as important as the post-colonial literature on ethnicity has been to our understanding of ethnicity not as a natural and primordial form of social organization, but as a self-conscious and historically constructed identity that exists alongside other identities, some would argue that this observation has been overstated. Too often, the acknowledgement that the colonial period was instrumental in the reification of ethnicity has been reduced to the idea that any form of collective socio-cultural identity was entirely manufactured by the colonists and no form of socio-cultural identification and differentiation existed prior to this. This oversimplification is something which Ronald Atkinson, a historian, has attempted to overcome in his study of the “roots of ethnicity” among the Acholi (Atkinson 1989; Atkinson 1994). Atkinson takes the approach that ethnicity is a social formation that is produced out of historical processes, but he does not accept that these processes absolutely and necessarily began in the colonial period. He argues that, “colonial and post-colonial representations of ethnic identities in Uganda, however distorted or manipulative, have not been plucked from the air or created out of nothingness” (1994: 2).

While Acholi identity may have been consolidated and given particular meaning and forms that have become more rigid, the colonial administrators and those who assisted them did observe and record particular social organizations and formations. These social organizations may not have constituted an Acholi or other ethnicity per se, but they did represent real configurations and cultural practices that came to shape the colonial imagination as well as the development of particular ethnic consciousnesses. Moreover, a denial of a pre- colonial ethnic consciousness also denies the value and meaning of oral histories and myths which emphasize continuity with a distant past and belonging (Finnström 2008:52). More important than determining a point of origin for Acholi consciousness is to understand the constantly fluctuating significance or

insignificance attributed to ethnic membership and the meaning associated with its terms.

In Atkinson’s account of the formation of Acholi ethnicity he departs from most previous accounts of Acholi origin. In particular, Atkinson does not accept the general theory of a great Luo migration. Though he accepts that Luo speaking peoples did move into northern Uganda and other regions, he does not accept that they brought with them superior technology and cultural customs that allowed them to dominate their new territories and the local peoples. Instead he argues that the origin of the sociopolitical organization of the Acholi occurred after their settlement in the region and as a result of influences adopted from the neighboring Bunyoro-Kitari people in the south. This organization included the social institution of the chief and the accompanying symbols of his position including the drum and spear as well as systems of tribute which required gifts to the chief which could be subsequently redistributed. Atkinson argues that these practices were introduced to the Acholi over a long period of time that began in the 17th century when groups from Paluo in north Bunyoro-Kitara moved into the Acholi region (Atkinson 1989: 22).

In order to establish chiefdoms, different strategies were used, including the demonstration of wealth and power of the rwodi and the search for marriage alliances between lineages. Only occasionally was force used to pressure groups into incorporation. Oral traditions of subject lineages often explain their acceptance of membership into a chiefdom as a decision made out of economic or political difficulty. Many describe this as a result of famine and poverty that was prevalent in the period between 1730 and 1790. Just as often, however, the traditions that speak of their joining a chiefdom do not describe it as a dramatic event, nor is the action justified. Certainly the political advantages for lineage heads would have been a factor in decisions to join. According to Atkinson, the

transformation was slow in the beginning, but by the end of the 18th century, any group that came to live in the region would be hard pressed not to join one of the local polities. One important element of Atkinson’s theory is that the people now referred to as Acholi are descendents of a consolidation of different groups, mainly Western Nilotic (Central Luo), Central Sudanic (Moru-Madi) and Eastern Nilotic or Hamitic (Karamajong, Iteso) speaking groups (Atkinson 1989: 25; cf. Finnström 2008:52-53).

Though the ascendancy of chiefdoms did not necessarily bring about a unified sense of identity, Atkinson argues that events which did bring about a more complete and permanent unified Acholi identity began in the 1850s with the arrival of Arab traders from the north called Kutoria. The Kutoria sought slaves and ivory and set up trading stations in Acholi: one in Patiko, one in Pabbo and another in Padibe. These stations served as storehouses and residences, but also as garrisons from which raids into outlying regions would take place. Although some raids were against Acholi, tradition holds that very quickly the raids were against Acholi neighbors with the assistance of the Acholi. Raids targeted ivory, people and cattle. In 1872, Britain forcibly ended the Kutoria enterprises. Samuel Baker led much of the activity against the Kutoria and was hired by the Egyptian government to lead their forces against them and to set up their own administration in its place. The Jadiya administrators that were set up extended themselves in the region and quickly established the reputation for more oppressive actions than the Kutoria. The Jadiya were cut off from the Mahdi in Khartoum in 1883 and were given the final push out of the region by Acholi attacks between 1885 and 1889.

All told, the contact with the Kutoria and Jadiya exposed the Acholi to other peoples and far-reaching trade and it is reported that at the initial phases of this trade the rwodi began to exact tribute in the form of a tusk for every elephant

killed. This led to greater accumulation of wealth. Previously, any wealth collected was usually redistributed, but with the introduction of new forms and abundance of wealth in the period, more accumulation began. The general result was a more consolidated political unity and recognition of the need for alliances, even if only temporary.

The designation “Acholi”, Atkinson argues, developed from this contact with the Arabs from the north who, upon arrival in the region, recognized the linguistic similarities with the Collo (Shilluk) in Sudan and so began to refer to the people of Acholi as Shooli. At first it appears that this term was applied to the interpreter of the Rwot of Patiko, but it later came to be applied to all Luo speaking peoples of the region. The Acholi, because they were not familiar with the ‘sh’ sound changed this to chooli, eventually becoming acooli or Acholi in standard English. The identification with this classification both internally and externally did take some time. In Samuel Baker's diaries from his first trip to the region in 1863-4, he only refers to the Shooli on a couple of occasions and only in reference to a single polity. The most common reference he used was Madi, and this was to speak about the entire region north of Bunyoro and he made a word list that he referred to as a Madi word list. But by his second trip in 1872-3, this completely changed. He distinguishes between the Shooli and the Madi people to the west, applying the term Shooli to most of the area now known as Acholi. His word list is now referred to as Shooli words and he notes that the Payira rwot, Rwotcamo, was making claims to be the paramount chief of the Shooli people. Following this period, most literature on the region refers to the Shooli people. For the Acholi, Shooli was an acknowledged concept and was functional, but it remained somewhat limited practically. The chiefdom remained the single most important unit and there is no indication of Acholi-wide cooperation, though there is evidence of increasing interpolity cooperation, especially in trading and hunting. Thus Atkinson concludes that by the late 19th century the

foundations for Acholi ethnicity were laid, "built on foundations laid earlier, the development of a Shuuli identity during the second half of the nineteenth century in turn set the stage for the creation of an Acholi "tribe" in the twentieth” (Atkinson 1989: 35).

Many scholars of Uganda would not necessarily agree with Atkinson’s specific theory about the development of Acholi identity in the pre-colonial period (e.g., Allen 1996); however, most scholars would agree that at least some sense of a shared history and shared traditions among much of what is now considered to be the Acholi population predate the arrival of Europeans (Onyango-Ku-Odongo and Webster 1976). Though the population may not have articulated or understood clear boundaries between what are now considered separate ethnic groups, there was likely some recognition of distinctions with some populations and associations with others. Without doubt, the oral traditions of the Acholi emphasize this distant past, whether they are considered as historically accurate accounts or not, the pre-colonial past looms large in the cultural imagination of present-day Acholi. However, one thing that is certain is that during the colonial period the Acholi were recognized as a socio-political entity by the colonial administration and this identification became significant not only to the Acholi, but to other Ugandans as well.

The North South Divide Political analyses of Uganda have noted the role ethnicity has played in the political and often violent history of Uganda. A common theme is the historical development of division between the southern and northern regions of the country. This divide is based on the perception that the northern region of the country has benefitted to a much lesser extent from development processes in the country than the southern regions. But it is the overlapping of ethnic difference with the perceived economic and social inequality that has made this

geographical divide particularly explosive. As one scholar put it, “Lake Kyoga forms both a physical and linguistic marker. South of Kyoga is the so-called Bantu region, with the centralized pre-colonial states of Buganda, Toro, Ankole (Nkore) and Bunyoro the dominant territories. North and east of Kyoga are the non-Bantu territories of the Acholi, Alur, Langi, Iteso and Karamajong” (Ottunu 2002:11). In an attempt to understand how this fragmentation has been shaped through historical processes it is important to remember what one analyst has stated about Uganda:

The North-South divide is not God-given. Politics has redefined and focused Uganda’s numerous differences and projected these onto a specific faultline. This however, does not deny the reality of the North-South antagonism as it now exists. So far we have argued that ethnic polarization is a concrete product of Uganda’s modern history: a highly fragmented society, built on a divisive colonial legacy, where the military came to control domestic politics and block all channels of popular political expression. (Van Acker 2003: 20)

Van Acker’s argument is an important one, since it stresses the importance strategic mobilization of grievances and real or perceived inequalities and injustices have played in Ugandan politics. At the time of independence, Ugandan society could be divided based on a number of factors including rural and urban status, wealth, education, ethnicity, and, in a very significant way, religion. The eventual reification of difference based on the ethnic affiliation of populations with the Bantu speaking south or the Nilotic or Nilo-Hamitic speaking north was not a predetermined or necessary outcome of Ugandan history.11 The defining characteristics of this division resulted from inept policies

11 Northern tribes typically include the Kakwa, Madi, Acholi, Alur, Langi, Karamajong, Itesot, et al.; while the southern tribes are composed of Baganda, Banyakole, Banyoro, Bagishu, Bagwere, et al..

in the colonial and post-colonial period which did not address economic and political inequalities; rather these inequalities and divisions were magnified through their strategic manipulation to further political agendas. In other words, over time the ethnic differences in the northern and southern regions of Uganda came to be one of the most significant organizing principles of political and economic competition as well as violent confrontation. In order to understand fully how such a “faultline” developed it is important to examine historical processes that began in the colonial period.

When the British arrived in East Africa, the Buganda Kingdom was a well- established and powerful state with notable resources and manpower that could be called upon by the ruler of the Baganda people, the Kabaka. The Baganda are a Bantu speaking population who made claims to a large political territory in the south-central region of what was to become Uganda. The British found the Buganda system of rule to be compatible with their own and the Baganda influence in the region was considered to be an asset for the colonialists, so an alliance with the Baganda people was established. The British worked through the Buganda state to pacify the rest of the region and attempted to use the Kiganda institutions as a model for other regions. The Baganda helped to quell rebellion against British domination in the Bunyoro-Kitari Kingdom and were given Bunyoro districts as a reward. In areas where British administrators were few, Baganda agents were sent in their place and many developed reputations for greed and plunder (Kabwegyere 1995:67; Kasozi 1994: 22-29). During this early period of British contact in the region, most development and economic endeavors were limited to the southern districts. The northern region and its peoples were considered to be marginal to the interests of the Empire. The customs of the people were considered backward and primitive, the political structures were weak and initial attempts to introduce cash cropping or

encourage labour migration were met with resistance, causing the British to describe the northern peoples as lazy (Atkinson 1994: 4-5).

By the end of the nineteenth century, however, this attitude towards the northern region began to change. Administration of all territories falling under the British Protectorate became a priority, making it necessary to establish a more organized administrative system that could implement the government policy, and most importantly, ensure the collection of tax. In the northern region, where no central authority had previously existed, the Kiganda social institutions were imposed. The system that was introduced was modeled on the Buganda state, with one individual representing the entire Acholi population, followed by a series of councils that became increasingly local in representation. The local population resented the imposition of Kiganda institutions, especially the transformation of leadership positions from the principle of primus inter pares, to the principle of absolute authority. Moreover, the chiefs who came to represent the Acholi were often sympathetic to British demands and worked to improve their positions vis-à-vis the colonial administration; in other words, they did not represent the interests of the Acholi people (Kasozi 1994:24-25). Notably, while the principal of indirect rule by the British was meant to allow for indigenous forms of governance, in practice governance systems were completely transformed, not only as in the case of the Acholi by imposing a central authority, but also by refusing to recognize many of the legitimate leaders of the people, replacing them instead with individuals loyal to the British. In Acholi, these leaders came to be known as rwodi kalam (chiefs of the pen) as opposed to rwodi moo, the traditionally anointed chiefs.

The strategic use of Baganda agents and soldiers against other populations in order to subjugate the region and administer tax collection resulted in deeply held resentment toward the Baganda people. This was especially true in

northern regions as the lack of central forms of authority required greater interference and oversight by Baganda agents. But internal divisions in Uganda also traversed ethnic identity. Among the Baganda, internal division was fomented along religious lines. Conversion to Catholic, Protestant and Muslim religions had divided the Baganda population and created a basis upon which to organize competition for Baganda leadership. Cooperation between Muslim and Catholic factions against the Protestants did not last and soon degenerated into war between the different religious factions at the end of the nineteenth century. In this war, the British supported the Protestants, providing them arms that eventually allowed them to defeat the Catholics and Muslims. The subsequent signing of the 1900 Agreement between the British colonial administration and the Buganda kingdom institutionalized the political advantages of the Protestants which also came to characterize religious divisions across the rest of the Protectorate.

At the time of independence, therefore, divisions traversed Ugandan society, fragmenting the population and presenting considerable challenges to the smooth transference of power. While Uganda was a productive nation at the time of independence with a solid tax base and strong economic potential, the divisive ruling system implemented by the British undermined the political and social unity necessary for successful governance. Economic control was largely held by Asians and other foreign nationals, particularly British; whereas social and political preeminence had been invested in the southern populations at the expense of northern populations. Moreover, as the strength of the southern populations began to mount, especially during the period of the World Wars, fear that a concentration of power was a threat to the British culminated in selective recruitment in the armed forces. Recruitment into the military and the police was reserved largely for northern populations, especially Langi, Acholi and Iteso, in order to balance the instruments of power in the population. As

independence approached, political parties in Uganda began to develop and were often organized around these divisions with a stated purpose of overcoming them. For example, the Democratic Party (DP) grew out of tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Buganda. While the party attempted to be a national party and drew membership from across the country and from different religious backgrounds, the main platform of the party was to challenge the domination of the Protestants and as such it was typically perceived as a Catholic party. On the other hand, the United People’s Congress (UPC) was borne out of a union formed between the All Uganda People’s Union and a section of the Uganda National Congress (UNC). The party prioritized independence for Uganda, but also sought to address unequal development in the country, particularly the perceived political and economic domination of the Baganda. In contrast to DP, UPC was also associated with Protestantism, especially the Anglican Church. In describing the relations of politics and religion in Uganda after independence, Mahmood Mamdani writes that “popular language of the 60s used to refer to the DP as Dini ya Papa (religion of the Pope) and to the UPC as “United Protestants of Canterbury”” (Ochola 2006:135).

The nature of the colonial administration also provided no positive role model for effective governance. The British administration had ruled Uganda and derived its legitimacy through ideologies of racial superiority and military dominance, but such forms of domination could no longer remain unchallenged internally or externally, particularly once the government was made up of Ugandan nationals. Moreover, the role of the colonial administration was not to work for the betterment of the population for the sake of the population, rather its logic was based on the aim of maintaining power and fulfilling the requirements of the British government. Decisions regarding administrative and economic policy were driven by these aims and the benefit of the population was considered only insofar as it was perceived as means to an end. The legacy

left by the colonial administration, therefore, promoted division and competition between groups based on ethnicity and religion and concentrated economic and political power in foreign nationals and the southern tribes, especially the Baganda. The British model had demonstrated rule by domination and not rule by democratic design based on the principle of a state’s responsibility to its citizens. This left the Ugandans with an oligarchic understanding of legitimate governance alongside interethnic inequality and resentment.

At Independence in October 1962, while Ugandan political leaders may have recognized the need to address divisions, experience in effective governance was lacking. Particularly challenging to overcome was the position of Buganda and other small kingdoms relative to the central government and the rest of the country. In order to build a unified and cohesive nation, the political leaders had to satisfy the needs of the population as a whole, but also the demands for autonomy by the Baganda and to a lesser extent other former kingdoms of Bunyoro, Toro and Ankole. Divisions within Buganda also complicated the political landscape. The ”neotraditionalist” leaders of Buganda, mainly Protestant (Anglican) families closely linked to the Kabaka, were struggling to maintain their political relevance and power in the changing political times; however, linked as they were to Buganda nationalist interests, they could not present themselves at the national level of Ugandan politics. On the other hand, the leaders of the DP party were better placed strategically to gain prominence at the national level since they had sought membership from different groups across the country, though with a clear vision to rectify the historical advantages of the Protestants. In the 1961 elections which took place before Independence, DP won slightly more seats than UPC; however, the Kabaka had encouraged a boycott of the elections in Buganda which had resulted in extremely low representation in the Buganda districts, the districts where DP had won most of their seats. This eventually led to a unanimous call for fresh elections to take

place in April 1962. In order to overcome the political threat of the Democratic Party within Buganda, the Kabaka Yekka (Kabaka Alone) party, made up of the “neotraditionalists", formed an alliance with UPC during the constitutional conference and into the elections of 1962. The alliance permitted the political leadership in Buganda to remain largely intact. And, with the Kabaka’s open support for the KY party, the DP party became characterized as an anti-Kabaka party, losing them any serious support in Buganda. In the 1962 elections, KY and UPC won the most seats and their alliance allowed them to form the new government with the leader of UPC, Milton Obote, becoming Prime Minister. The leader of Buganda, the Kabaka, was also later selected to become President, a symbolic rather than executive position based on a Constitutional arrangement which allowed for a traditional leader to be selected by the National Assembly.

The alliance between the UPC and KY was not to last, however. There was deep- rooted suspicion between the two parties as each was ultimately working toward incompatible objectives. The KY was a party made up of the traditional Baganda leadership who sought to maintain their own positions as well as the primacy of Buganda as a nation within a nation. On the other hand, the UPC and its leader Milton Obote were determined to reduce the power of Buganda and raise the economic and political power of other regions in Uganda; this inevitably led to continuous clashes. One of the first points of tension arose around the ”lost counties” of Bunyoro. There was general consensus outside of Buganda that reparations had to be made to Bunyoro for the loss of their territory during the colonial period. A decision was made by Parliament to hold a referendum in two of the counties lost to Buganda. The Baganda resisted and the Kabaka himself is said to have had a Banyoro village burnt down because they were planning a demonstration against him. The referendum was conducted, nonetheless, and the population voted to return to Bunyoro. The Kabaka, as President of Uganda, was required to sign the Bill transferring the counties to

Bunyoro, but he refused, so Obote signed in his place. During this period, political balance also shifted further in favor of the UPC in 1964 when some members of KY party crossed the floor to the UPC. Some remaining members joined DP, but UPC now had a clear majority and no longer needed an alliance, so the KY-UPC alliance was dissolved. The dissolution of the alliance between UPC and KY was viewed by some in Buganda as a treacherous betrayal of their leadership and separatist emotions were stoked (Kasozi 1994). Tensions between Buganda and the UPC government continued to build and to complicate matters competition within UPC was becoming critical. Members of the UPC more inclined to right-wing politics were competing with center and left-wing leaders. There have also been some allegations that the Kabaka may have tried to infiltrate and influence UPC by strengthening the right-wing group against Obote and his followers in a strategic move to replace Obote with a more sympathetic leader. As a result of this suspected link and based on the Bantu origins of many of the right-wing leaders, the move was interpreted as a struggle between Bantu and the Nilotic or Nilo-Hamitic northerners. This characterization was to become an important ingredient in political struggles in Uganda for years to come and has shaped interpretations of almost every significant event since that time (1994:82).

Power struggles between the Obote leadership and the right-wing group culminated in 1966 when the balance of Idi Amin’s bank account was presented in Parliament along with a motion of corruption implicating Obote. Amin had been put in charge of a covert operation in the Congo by Obote in order to assist a group of rebels and was now accused of removing and selling gold from the region. The Cabinet first rejected the motion, but a few days later the matter was revisited while Obote was out of Kampala and they voted in favour of an investigation. Parliament decided to set up a commission of inquiry, but Obote did not wait and instead had four ministers arrested. The activities also

coincided with attempts by the right-wing to gain control of the army. The army had maintained its ethnic make-up since the colonial period, heavily favouring the recruitment of personnel from the northern regions. Yet, in February 1966 while Obote was out of Kampala, unscheduled troop movements occurred, raising further the suspicions of Obote and his followers. The military commander at that time was an ally of the Kabaka and the right-wing group; therefore, he was removed by Obote and replaced with Idi Amin. By the end of February and the first days of March, 1966, Obote abolished the position of the President and the Vice-President, accusing Kabaka Mutesa II of instigating unauthorized troop movements and seeking military assistance from foreign governments. Obote then abrogated the constitution, declared Uganda a republic, and assumed executive powers (Kasozi 1994:82-85). In response, the Buganda government, the Lukiiko, voted to order the central government out of Buganda. The move was negatively received by the government and some Buganda chiefs were arrested. This was followed by public protests and finally the army was called upon to intervene. Idi Amin was in charge of the operation and was sent to the palace of the Kabaka where he met with armed resistance by the Kabaka’s bodyguards. Kabaka Mutesa II eventually escaped and Amin mercilessly finished off all who remained in the area. Amin also had all the royal regalia destroyed and the palace was looted and vandalized. The destruction of the palace and the regalia had a lasting impact on the Baganda people who held their leader in religious esteem and the symbols of his rule as artifacts of their collective history (1994:86).

The years following Independence are crucial to understanding subsequent events in Uganda. Patterns of abuse were put into place and came to color future events. Power and economic imbalances between the northern and southern regions which existed at the time of Independence were politicized and took on ethnic demarcations as power struggles between groups were

characterized as a struggle between the Bantu and Nilotic/Nilo-Hamitic speaking populations. Furthermore, the use of violence to address political struggles came to be a hallmark of Ugandan politics and control of the military became the key to political rule. The last point proved in the end to be the downfall of Obote, as the force he had unleashed in Idi Amin was turned against him in a coup in 1971. Idi Amin had enjoyed a positive relationship with Obote for the immediate years following the attack against Buganda and was consistently promoted within the military. However, in 1969, an assassination attempt against Obote which was first blamed on the Baganda, eventually began to point toward Idi Amin. Once Obote was aware that his main political rival was Amin he attempted to isolate him in the army, but it was too late, Amin had been allowed to freely recruit individuals into the army which he did, largely from his own ethnic group, the Kakwa as well as related Sudanic tribes; he therefore had a strong personal base of support. He also had the backing of the Baganda who viewed Obote as their ultimate enemy. In 1971, before leaving for a Commonwealth Conference in Singapore, Obote told Amin that he had been made aware of financial mismanagement of the military and he would expect an explanation from Amin upon his return. Amin would never be called to answer for the misappropriation of funds; rather, while Obote was still in Singapore, Amin violently took over the government of Uganda (Kasozi 1994:101-103).

The coup d’état organized by Idi Amin Dada and other military personnel took place on January 25, 1971 and was initially welcomed by many Western governments, particularly the UK. Within Uganda, the Baganda are said to have celebrated in the streets. Following the coup, Amin’s first move was to consolidate his power in the armed forces by eliminating any potential threats. He identified his enemies based on ethnic affiliation and therefore he moved to purge the army of Luo speaking groups, especially ethnic Acholi and Langi, the tribes most closely associated with Obote, himself a Langi. In most cases,

soldiers were called to the barracks where Luo speaking soldiers were separated out and subsequently killed or carted away to another location where they would be shot. Amin maintained complete control of the army and filled the ranks with soldiers largely from the West Nile region of Uganda as well as related groups from Sudan and the former Zaire. He began to narrow his field of allies in the army, however, and West Nile groups such as the Alur, Madi and Lugbara were also eventually marginalized. Amin used violence freely to eliminate any perceived political threat and had many of Uganda’s brighter politicians and intellectuals killed. Amin also attempted to gain some political and economic advantage by forcing all Asians out of the country and confiscating their businesses and properties. The Asians had enjoyed a privileged status under the colonial administration which had allowed them access to business opportunities denied the African populations. This had provided the Asian population with significant economic advantages that most Africans resented. Their expulsion, therefore, was considered by many Ugandans as a form of justice, righting the wrongs of the colonial past. The repercussions of the expulsion were quickly felt by other Ugandans, however, as most businesses appropriated by the regime failed in a short period, driving down the economy and eventually rendering even basic goods such as salt as a rare commodity. Amin’s violent form of governance, his destruction of the economy and his systematic marginalization of almost all groups in Uganda gained him an international reputation as a vile and brutal dictator, and by the time of his defeat in 1979, few in Uganda mourned his departure.

Attempts to overthrow Amin during his reign were largely unsuccessful and resulted in many deaths when Amin exacted revenge against any community he felt was remotely sympathetic or complicit. It was his decision to invade and annex part of Tanzania which eventually led to his downfall. The Tanzanian government responded to Amin’s attack by mobilizing its army and coordinating

with the Ugandan exiles in Tanzania to overthrow Amin. The two main Ugandan forces included the Kikoosi Maluum under Obote and Yoweri Museveni’s FRONASA with about seven hundred and three hundred troops respectively. A third force, the Save Uganda Movement, was comprised of a number of individuals not loyal to any single Ugandan leader. As the war progressed, and the overthrow of Amin appeared imminent, the Tanzanian government under Nyerere encouraged a meeting of all interested groups in Moshi where the umbrella organization, the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF), was formed. The UNLF included both military and political branches with the collective aim to depose Amin and act as the interim government and army until democracy could be established. Shortly after the formation of the UNLF, the Tanzanian forces overran Kampala and Amin and his fighters fled Uganda, destroying property and killing civilians on their way (Kasozi 1994:125-126). Unfortunately, ethnic division and violence continued to animate social and political life; the reign of Amin had only intensified these elements and those who participated in his overthrow failed to excise these elements from within their own organizations. Instead, vengeance by soldiers and non-soldiers was exacted on any groups considered to be affiliated with Amin’s regime, either by ethnicity or religion. Many Muslims were killed, their property stolen or destroyed and ethnic groups in West Nile were targeted despite the fact that Amin had eventually marginalized many of these groups. Many fled into neighbouring Sudan, while their homes were destroyed and property looted.

In the meantime, the political situation was also unstable. Yusuf Lule had been made President of Uganda, but he had a very limited base of support and was soon forced out and replaced with Godfrey Binaisa. Once again, however, Binaisa was unable to unite the competing interests of different political players and found himself deposed by the Military Commission in May 1980. The Commission went on to announce that general elections would be held and all

parties were invited to campaign. Obote’s UPC and DP under Ssemogerere were the parties with real stakes in the election, but Museveni also started his own party, the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM). In the end, UPC was declared the winner and Obote was pronounced the president, but claims of election rigging soon followed and the legitimacy of the election results has never been accepted. Nonetheless, the UPC and Obote formed the new government. Members of DP decided to contest the results through the courts, but Museveni vowed to take the struggle to the bush.

Museveni is believed to have begun his insurgency against the government in Buganda territory in order to capitalize on the anti-Obote sentiment in the region. The Baganda continued to harbour resentment against Obote because of his treatment of them during his first regime. In this way, Museveni hoped to attract recruits from the local population and to rely on their loyalty to hide and sustain them. In order to incite the population against the government, Museveni is said to have encouraged people to fight against the “northerners”, clearly defining the struggle as one between what he conceived as the historically violent populations of the north and the “civilized” populations of the south. But the use of ethnic identity as a mobilizing tactic in the conflict ran both ways; commanders in the national army, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), are also said to have played on resentment against Baganda to motivate soldiers. Another factor in the characterization of the opposing fighters was the link made between Museveni and the Banyarwanda, Rwandese refugees he had recruited during the Liberation War who are said to have disappeared from the ranks of the UNLA along with their weapons when Museveni started his bush war. Since the time of Obote’s first presidency, the Banyarwanda had at times been conceptualized as a threat to other Ugandans and their link to Museveni’s fighting force only intensified this fear. Museveni’s fighters eventually joined with other small groups, particularly Yusuf Lule’s forces known as the Uganda

Freedom Fighters, renaming themselves the National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/A).

Most of the fighting between the government and the NRA took place in an area known as the Luwero triangle. Between 1981 and 1985, battles were ongoing and the local population suffered harshly, pushed into camps, their property destroyed. The events of Luwero have never been fully clarified, and while it is certain that both sides committed atrocities, most blame has been laid at the feet of the government army, the UNLA. Thousands of civilians were brutally killed by the army, but counter-claims by many government supporters also put the responsibility on the NRA soldiers, stating that many of the massacres were carried out by the NRA in government uniforms in order to delegitimize the government and rally the population behind the rebels (see e.g., Mwenda 2005). The presence of multiple renditions of events is commonplace in Uganda’s political history, leaving the average citizen with an uncertain set of markers guiding the past and the future. Without a well-established and widely accepted account of Uganda’s history, political actors have the opportunity to manipulate representations of the past to further political agendas and to influence the population. A good example is the use of skulls and grave sites from Luwero as political tools to incite certain responses from the population. Reference to the killings in Luwero, or simple photos of the burial sites have been used, particularly by Museveni near election times, in order to remind the public of the violence that took place there, likely to imply that a vote against Museveni is a vote for the opposition which would likely return Uganda to its former violence. It is also a specific reference to the violence carried out by northerners and represents the wider suggestion that Uganda has suffered extreme violence under the leadership of northerners such as Idi Amin, Milton Obote and the short-term leadership of Tito Lutwa Okello who overthrew Obote and was subsequently overthrown by Museveni. The conclusion being drawn is that

northerners are inherently violent and in order to contain this violence, the status quo should be maintained. Museveni has even used the Luwero sites to ‘educate’ foreigners about Uganda’s history. Following the 2006 elections when Museveni was criticized for human rights abuses against the main opposition party, Museveni took diplomats to the Luwero sites in order to remind them of the violence that took place there. His purpose was to suggest that the perpetrators of such violence lived in exile in their respective countries, and, therefore, the individuals pressuring their governments to act against human rights abuses occurring in Uganda are themselves responsible for human rights violations. Museveni brought a number of foreign diplomats on a “tour” of Luwero and stated that:

The purpose of your coming here with me is because some of your countries have interest in the human rights situation in Uganda especially European countries. As human beings, it’s okay but you should do so with knowledge. Because you don’t know, instead of being part of the solution, you can be part of the problem. To cure this, I am going to partner with you to enable you know Uganda so that when you talk, you don’t talk from ignorance…. We shall instruct the ministry of foreign affairs to expose these horrors to the outside. We are going to document them including pictures so that they can guide you. (Mukasa 2006)

Museveni and the NRM/A, therefore, have been blamed for perpetuating and even intensifying the so-called north-south divide and by playing on these antagonisms to gain political support (Ochola 2006:33). Moreover, the conflict between the NRM/A and the former Obote and Okello governments is considered by many to have simply continued in the form of the current conflict. Robert Gersony, a researcher who undertook an analysis of the conflict for the United States Embassy, states in his report that, “in a sense, the struggle initiated by the NRA in Luwero in the early 1980s has never been concluded. It continued

in Luwero through 1985. In early 1986 it was fought in Kampala and has continued in Gulu and Kitgum since that time. In essence, the opposing parties remain the same, as do some of the tactics” (Gersony 1997: 22).

In 1985, divisions within the government army, the UNLA, resulted in the overthrow of Milton Obote by Lieutenant-General Basilio Olara-Okello and General Tito Lutwa Okello. Though the exact events leading up to the coup remain unclear, there was increasing division within the army ranks including tensions between Langi and Acholi officers. There existed a perception that Langi officers, belonging to the same tribe as the President, were being privileged over Acholi officers. This perception was accentuated by the promotion of a Langi officer, Smith Opon Acak, to the position of Chief of Staff following the death of David Oyite Ojok, passing over other senior officers such as Bazilio Olara-Okello. Following the coup, Tito Okello was made President and he immediately set out to gain the support of other political parties and insurgent groups. Most political groups accepted, but Museveni’s NRM initially refused; he did, however, agree to participate in peace talks sponsored by Kenya’s President Moi. Eventually, the NRM signed a power-sharing agreement, but shortly after agreement was signed, the NRA overran Kampala and seized control of the government. Museveni officially became President of Uganda on January 26, 1986.

Once Museveni and the NRM/A were in control of Kampala, the government soldiers fled to their home districts. In the Acholi region, former UNLA soldiers returned to their villages or continued across the border to the Sudan. Some were reported to bring with them items which they had looted along the way, including iron sheets and other material goods. At first, the former soldiers are reported to have settled in their home districts peacefully, but there was widespread fear that the NRA would eventually exact revenge against the

population following a historical pattern of attack and counter-attack. However, in the first few months the situation remained calm and when the NRA came to Gulu and Kitgum in March 1986, the soldiers are reported to have maintained a certain discipline. In a short time, however, reports of mistreatment began to circulate. The NRM required all former UNLA soldiers to hand in their weapons and, initially, many did so voluntarily. Some handed their firearms over to the Resistance Councils which were being formed by NRM while others handed their arms into church leaders (Lamwaka 2002:28). One such church leader who assisted in the process of disarmament said that in hindsight he was unsure if he had done the right thing since most of the people who had surrendered to him were now unaccounted for. Reports of abuse and violence during the disarmament phase increased and some former soldiers disappeared. It was with deep suspicion, therefore, that the announcement in May made by the new government that all former UNLA soldiers should report to the NRA barracks in Kampala was met. Most recalled the same type of announcement made by Amin years earlier when hundreds of soldiers were subsequently put to their death.

As fear in the Acholi population began to spread, former UNLA soldiers began to mobilize a force with an aim to defend the population and overthrow the NRM government. The increasing indiscipline of the NRA caused many Acholi to flow into the force’s ranks. The leaders of the newly forming rebel group also fed upon the fears of the citizens by telling the population that the NRA was going to seek revenge for the killing and looting in Luwero, or, as told to me by one informant, that the Banyarwanda were going to take over the area (Interview with author, November 2005). The emerging force, known as the Uganda People’s Democratic Army/Movement (UPDA/M), was made up of former UNLA soldiers, especially those who had initially fled to the Sudan, as well as new recruits from the population. Initially, the UPDA/M enjoyed considerable support of the population who wanted protection from the NRA, which they

viewed as a foreign force. In August of the same year, one battalion of the NRA made up of former FEDEMU fighters killed about 40 civilians in the home area of Tito Okello. FEDEMU was mainly a Baganda force from the Luwero region, and the attack was considered clear retaliation for the violence in Luwero. Such incidents seemed to confirm the fears of the population and the support for the UPDA only increased. Battles between the NRA and UPDA continued and much looting of cattle and goods are reported to have occurred during this period (Finnström 2008:71; Lamwaka 2002). Near the end of 1986, the government began to approach the UPDA/M in order to come to a negotiated solution. However, during the same period, a second rebel force was initiated by Alice Auma, a traditional healer who had been overtaken by spirits in 1985.

Alice claimed that the spirit “Lakwena” possessed her and instructed her to resist the NRM government. She began to recruit soldiers from the population to form the Holy Spirit Mobile Force (HSMF). Alice’s charismatic leadership combining Christian and traditional religious beliefs provided a powerful alternative to the conventional politics and armed forces that were wreaking havoc in the region. The organization of the resistance movement in moral and spiritual terms gave the struggle a legitimacy that could not be equalled by struggles based on political and economic gain. The divine power of this force seemed to be confirmed following the success of a major battle at Kilak Korner in November 1986. Following this victory, many peasants and some former soldiers joined the HSMF, initiated into the army through rituals of purification. Soldiers of the HSMF followed strict instructions going into battles, including the prohibition of alcohol, theft or sex. Soldiers would smear themselves with shea butter before battles for protection; they were told that bullets could not penetrate their skin and to retreat or even attempt to take cover from bullets was considered a sin that could bring their death. Many soldiers were armed only with stones said to become grenades and are reported to have gone into battle with bare chests,

singing hymns. Despite the unconventional methods, the HSMF had many successful battles against the NRA until early 1987 when a defeat caused the rebel force to change tactics and avoid engagement with the NRA, moving rapidly toward the capital Kampala. Recruiting forces along the way, the HSMF managed to come within 80 kilometres of Kampala before being defeated near Jinja at the end of 1987 (Doom and Vlassenroot 1999:16-20; Nyeko and Lucima 2002:22-23). Alice Auma Lakwena escaped to Kenya where she remained in a refugee camp until her death in 2007.

Meanwhile, talks between the NRM government and the UPDA/M began in earnest in late 1987 and early 1988. There were many internal disagreements within the UPDA/M, particularly between the political wing and the military wing, but also between certain members of the high command. But, by late 1987, the population in Acholi were growing weary of the suffering brought about by the war and many were ready to resolve the conflict so peace could return to the region. Though not all commanders or soldiers of the UPDA were in agreement, the Pece Peace Accord between the government and the UPDA was signed in June 1988. In the process, the UPDA had separated itself from the political wing and had voted out the chair of the UPDA/M, Otema Allimadi, and their commander, Odong Latek, who mistrusted the intentions of the government and refused to finalize the deal. Instead of surrendering, Odong Latek decided to join Joseph Kony’s emerging rebel group, with the support of some of the exiled political wing (Lamwaka 2002:32).

Joseph Kony had apparently joined the UPDA in early 1987 as a spiritual mobilizer (Behrend 1999:79). Like Alice Auma, Joseph Kony was considered to have been a spirit medium. According to one account, Alice Auma’s father, Severino Lukoya, who is thought to have a familial link with Joseph Kony on the maternal side of the family, came upon a large snake, which represents an evil

spirit. The event is said to have impacted the entire family, including Severino, Alice and Joseph Kony, and was also blamed for the death of Joseph Kony’s brother. Eventually, Kony took over his own battalion and began to attack and forcibly recruit other UPDA battalions. Kony also gained supporters from some of Alice Lakwena’s former fighters and he apparently attempted to join forces with her father, Severino Lukoya, who had tried to revive his daughter’s movement after her defeat (Doom and Vlassenroot 1999:20-21). Lukoya’s Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) was never as successful as his daughter’s and he eventually signed a peace agreement with the government in 1989. As with previous agreements between rebel forces and the government, the HSM fighters unwilling to surrender remained with Joseph Kony. Kony then renamed his amalgamated force the United Democratic Christian Movement/Army (UDCM/A), later changing it once more to the Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) (Finnström 2008:77; Nyeko and Lucima 2002).

Kony organized his force in strict military hierarchy, however, Kony himself was subordinate to the spirits who possess him and provide him with information on how to lead the rebellion. The most important spirit is ‘Lakwena’, the Holy Spirit who had first possessed Alice Auma, but there were also a number of other spirits including Silly Silindi, a Sudanese spirit, Ing Chu, a Chinese spirit as well as a Ugandan spirit, Juma Oris who had been a minister in Amin’s government and a commander in the West Nile Bank Front rebel group (Doom and Vlassenroot 1999:23).12 Most former members of the LRA/M, whether forcibly abducted or voluntarily recruited, attest to Kony’s powers of prophecy. In an interview I conducted with a former LRA/M officer, I was told that Kony consistently predicted the movements of the Ugandan government forces and this was why he felt the government would never succeed to overcome the rebels. Kony is generally described as instilling fear and awe in his subordinates through his

12 Juma Oris, however, was still alive at the time.

charismatic character and violent actions. Similar to the HSMF, ritual initiation is undertaken when new recruits are added to the force and all LRA/M members are required to follow rigid guidelines of behaviours. Kony also mixes a form of fanatical Christianity with African spiritualism, justifying violence through interpretations of the Bible that define his struggle as divinely inspired and killing as necessary and legitimate in order to bring about the fundamental change needed to purify society and restore order. Over time, as the population became victims of the LRA/M and the general support for any form of conflict had waned, Kony began to use more violent forms of initiation in order to secure compliance from new recruits who were now forcibly abducted. By the beginning of the 1990s, Kony became suspicious of volunteer recruits, fearing infiltration by the government. Consequently he began to forcibly abduct young men and some women to become fighters or to provide other support to his army. The number of troops in the LRA/M has continually fluctuated and no accurate estimates exist, however, at its peak in the mid to late 1990s, with the support of the Sudanese government, the LRA/M appears to have swelled to several thousand. A number of persons who escaped the LRA/M reported staying in camps in the Sudan with populations of a few to several thousand including the small children of the rebel fighters and their ‘wives’ (Human Rights Watch 1998).

The aim of the LRA/M conflict has been a particularly contentious subject. Most contend that the LRA/M has no political agenda and are simply a band of criminals causing enormous suffering to the northern populations. No doubt, the LRA/M have been less articulate in stating their objectives in the conflict and the violent tactics they use against the civilian population they pretend to support has served to confuse most observers. Most people I spoke with in the Acholi region felt that Kony simply wanted power for himself and his fight was with Museveni. They did not perceive Kony and the LRA/M as fighting on their

behalf or for their benefit. On the other hand, when the LRA/M has managed to convey their grievances and voice their objectives, they have held out demands that resonate with the population. The LRA/M has never had a fully defined and organized political wing, but on occasion they have published manifestos stating their political aims, which include the protection of the population from abuses carried out by the army, the desire for equitable development in the northern region, and better political representation by northerners. Though there may be some residual support for the LRA/M, and certainly a great deal of ambiguity since many members may be related in one way or another to families remaining in the towns and camps, most support for conflict ended in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It cannot be overstated, however, that the population was caught between the government and the rebels, accused by both sides of treachery and experiencing the daily violence perpetrated by both. Without an effective political outlet, at least until the late 1990s, the population has been completely overcome.

In the political and historical context of Uganda, it should also be noted that the formation of rebel groups to contest the political order had become a common pattern. Following Museveni’s capture of the government in 1986, other rebel groups resisted the NRA, including the Ugandan People’s Army (UPA) from the Teso region in the northeast and the West Nile Bank Front (WNBF) in the northwest. The pattern of using violence to solve political problems had become deeply entrenched in the post-colonial period as no effective alternative had been successfully established and systematized. To some degree, the early rebellions against Museveni could be viewed as a natural response to the NRA’s own violent capture of power. In such a context, deeply developed political or ideological agendas are not as necessary in order to justify rebellion or recruit fighters. Kony’s well publicized aim to take over the country so he could rule by the Ten Commandments has been over-emphasized by the media and the

Ugandan government as a means of delegitimizing any real grievances the LRA/M or the Acholi people may have. Yet, in many regards the religious aspects of Kony’s LRA/M have served more as a medium through which he could organize and discipline his forces, instilling fear as well as a sense of purpose rather than a political agenda at the national level.

While peace talks between the NRM and the UPDA succeeded, this did not completely put to rest the distrust and fear of the population toward the NRM. After the government successfully negotiated peace agreements with the UPDA in 1988 and later with the political wing, the UPDM, in 1990, a number of ex- UPDA members were killed or arrested. The most famous incident was the killing of Mike Kilama, a well-known commander in the UPDA who was killed under uncertain circumstances in 1990. The government claims there was a coup plot organized against them by former members of the UPDA, but no evidence was ever provided and the exact circumstances of Kilama’s death remain unknown (Lamwaka 2002:31-32). Incidents such as these tended to sustain the suspicion of the population that the government was determined to see the population suffer.

High levels of violence also continued, even after the finalization of the peace agreements. Throughout the period between 1986 and 1989, cattle rustling was rampant, largely carried out by the Karamajong, but most believe they did so with the encouragement, or at least the blessing of the government since little was done to prevent their actions (Dolan 2000b; Weeks 2002:35). The army also continued to commit violence and loot cattle and goods in the northern region. A high number of extra-judicial killings were reported by civilians as was rape, assault and arbitrary arrest. At the end of 1988, Amnesty International describes whole villages being emptied and destroyed by the NRA (Dolan 2009:45). The LRA/M had also begun abducting recruits, first largely from the UPDA, but

eventually also from villages. Since the beginning of the war, rebels had depended on food and material goods from the villages to support their troops, but the violence associated with this intensified as villagers became less willing to support the rebels voluntarily. The year 1989 is remembered by many Acholi as the year the government forces began to rape male citizens, an act known locally as tek gungu. Meanwhile, the LRA/M began to mutilate its victims in 1991, cutting off lips, noses and sometimes ears, supposedly to send a message to the community not to cooperate with government officers or to report on LRA/M activities. Some believe this was directly related to the development of local security units known as “bow and arrow defence units” or local defence units (LDU). This was also the year that the government began a military operation known as Operation North led by Major-General Tinyefuza. The aim of the operation was to wipe out any remaining rebels in the region. However, for most local people in the region, the operation, along with its commander Tinyefuza, is remembered more for its brutality against the population than any success against the rebels (Dolan 2009:45; O'Kadameri 2002:35).

The population, suffering at the hands of both the rebels and the government army, grew weary of fighting and welcomed the first opportunity for a negotiated solution that was sought between 1993 and 1994. Betty Bigombe, then Minister of State for Pacification of Northern Uganda, sought contact with the rebels with the aim of bringing the conflict to a conclusion. Bigombe, herself an Acholi, was appointed by Museveni in 1988 with the hope she would be able to discourage Acholi from joining or supporting the LRA/M and perhaps convince some rebels to return. Her actions had resulted in little real success, therefore, she apparently decided on her own to seek direct contact with the rebels in order to try and convince them to come to a peaceful solution. Working through an intermediary, she made contact with Joseph Kony and suggested the rebels should sit with the government to resolve their differences. Once Kony

responded positively, she approached the President with her plan, which he eventually approved. The first direct meetings between the government and the LRA/M were held near the end of 1993. The LRA/M proceeded cautiously, with only middle-ranking officers attending the first meeting. The LRA/M set out their demands that their soldiers receive amnesty and were adamant that the negotiations should not be perceived as surrender by the LRA/M since the rebels had not been defeated. They also requested certain economic and service investments in the northern region and for certain rituals to be performed by the Acholi elders in order to reconcile the rebels with the NRA soldiers. Finally, the LRA/M demanded a reasonable period of time to bring all their members together, including those from overseas, in order to ensure that all LRA/M members would be committed to the peace process. The government responded positively to the requests, however, they said the rebels would have to move quickly to bring their forces together. Further talks were scheduled, but the government had yet to make public their support for the peace talks, a point which did little to ensure the confidence of the rebels. At subsequent meetings, tensions between army commanders and LRA/M rebels grew and Bigombe struggled to maintain positive relations. Shortly before a scheduled meeting, the LRA/M declined to attend, claiming there was a plot to arrest them. In the meantime, the government publicly stated that the LRA/M was in contact with the Sudanese government. Finally, in early February, during a speech made by President Museveni in Gulu, he announced that the rebels had seven days to surrender, effectively ending any possibility for a peaceful solution. While the government is blamed for ending the talks, it is clear that shortly after Museveni’s ultimatum that brought the talks to their unsuccessful conclusion, the rebels opened bases in southern Sudan and began to receive support from the Khartoum government (O'Kadameri 2002).

Since at least the early 1990s, the government of Uganda had been providing some assistance to the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) who were fighting the Khartoum government in Sudan. The SPLA leader had been seen a number of times in northern Uganda during this period (Dolan 2009:45), but some argue that real material support began largely in 1993 when Uganda provided direct support and assisted in funnelling foreign assistance to the SPLA. In retaliation, but also as a tactic to destabilize the region, the Khartoum government began funding rebel groups from Uganda. Along with the LRA/M, the West Nile Bank Front (WNBF) and Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were provided assistance by Khartoum (Prunier 2004). Once the Sudanese agreed to assist the rebels, the LRA/M set up a number of large bases in the Sudan where they planted crops and even established schools for children of the rebels. Attacks against the SPLA as well as Ugandan troops were planned on a regular basis, with small groups of rebels undertaking missions to obtain loot, abduct people, or to simply attack villages or enemy troops. During this period, the LRA/M carried out a number of vicious attacks against villages in Uganda, the most famous attacks include the massacre of more than 200 people in Atiak in 1995, an attack against a refugee camp in Acholpi over a few days, killing more than 100 refugees, the abduction of girls from St. Mary’s College in Aboke, and the massacre of over 400 people in Lokung and Palabek in 1997 (Gersony 1997:38-42). It was also during this period that the government began their policy of forcing the population into what they called “protected villages”.

The forcible displacement of the population into camps took place over a number of years, largely beginning in 1996 but continuing in 1997. By the end of 1997, the majority of the Acholi sub-region was residing in a camp or one of the district towns (Weeks 2002:20). By 2002, almost a million people were displaced in the affected Acholi, Lango and Teso districts (Dolan 2009). The expulsion of the rural population from the villages was likely aimed at cutting off the rebels

from the population in order to remove any remaining resistance and to reduce the opportunity for looting of crops and animals. The government portrayed the movement of people to the camps as voluntary and for the benefit of their own safety. While there are certainly some households which voluntarily moved to trading posts or towns during the violence, the majority were forced into the camps at the command of the army. Many were beaten and some even killed if they delayed or refused. In many cases, homes were looted or burned once the population had been removed. There are also accounts of indiscriminate shelling towards villages in order to incite the population to leave. Once in the camps, the army provided meagre protection and even less basic necessities for survival. The initial years were particularly difficult since crops had been left behind and there was no coordinated relief for the population either from national or international relief agencies. The army also laid out strict rules governing movement of the population. Movement outside the camp was usually allowed only between about eight in the morning and four in the afternoon depending on the security situation and only for a few kilometres outside the camp. Anyone found moving around beyond the boundaries or outside the curfew would be considered a rebel collaborator and could be shot. Displacement into the camps has been one of the more destructive policies of the government. The population has basically been cut off from any significant livelihood activities, so even basic survival is difficult. The process has debilitated the population at a physical and moral level, leaving most feeling despondent and helpless and resulting in widespread social problems of alcoholism, domestic violence, rape and assault. In many cases, the army sent to protect the population has committed violence in the form of rape, beatings and even killings. And even during attacks by the LRA/M, the government forces, now renamed the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) following the establishment of the 1995 Constitution, were often accused of doing little to protect the population (ARLPI 2001; Dolan 2009). To be fair, many of the soldiers were underpaid and under-

equipped to effectively protect the camps, but little was done to improve protective services to the population until international attention to the situation had become acute in the early 2000s. The total effect on the population residing in the camps has been described as “social torture” by Chris Dolan (2009), a political scientist who has written extensively on the war, and “enforced domination” by Sverker Finnström (2008) an anthropologist working in the region. By contrast, when Human Rights Watch published a report entitled Uprooted and Forgotten the government military spokesperson is reported to have said in response, “the people are not uprooted, they are displaced, and they are not forgotten, they have the international assistance” (Gulu, 2005). The government’s misleading representation of the camps as ‘protected villages’ was quite successful and most Ugandans felt the camps were the result of voluntary movements by the population seeking protection from the LRA/M rebels. Residents in the camps described their circumstances much differently; one person stated to me that the camps were like prisons, while another said that “if you stay there (the camp) you just want to die” (Pabbo, March 2007). Nonetheless, many in Uganda still believe that movement to the camps was completely voluntary.

Up until the late 1990s, the LRA/M conflict had been largely ignored by others in Uganda and in the international community. However, the inability of the government to end the war, the increase in the frequency and brutality of LRA/M attacks, and the advocacy work of local political, religious, traditional and civil society leaders that began in this period had the combined effect of attracting international attention and criticism. Attempts to end the war peacefully continued on and off, largely by traditional leaders, Betty Bigombe and some religious leaders. Between 1996 and 1998, an effort by the international religious organization Sant’Egidio was undertaken to mediate talks. Unfortunately, the talks appear to have been sabotaged by internal divisions

within the LRA/M and no real progress was made (Obita 2002a). Parallel talks between Uganda and Sudan were having more success. The Carter Center sponsored talks between Sudan and Uganda in order to bring hostilities between them to an end. Though the talks went through many difficult periods, the parties eventually signed the Nairobi Agreement in 1999, resolving to end support to rebel groups and to begin more positive relations between the two governments. The Sudanese government had been supporting a number of rebel groups, including groups which attacked Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), leading to a series of regional wars. The Nairobi Agreement did not immediately reverse the hostilities between the two governments, but support to the rebels decreased dramatically and, eventually, the UPDF was allowed to enter Sudan to attack the LRA/M bases. The willingness of the Sudan government to allow the UPDF into their territory to attack the LRA/M followed upon significant international events. The September 11 terrorist attacks in the US changed US policy toward rebel groups and many other governments followed suit, freezing assets belonging to suspected terrorist groups and providing support to end rebellions classified as terrorism. Museveni took advantage of the global preoccupation with anti-terrorism and declared the LRA/M terrorists, publicly pronouncing his desire for a military solution (Dolan 2009:52-53; Otto 2002).

Following a period of relative calm, therefore, the UPDF began its military operation against the LRA/M in the Sudan in 2002. Operation Iron Fist, as it was called, sent up to 10,000 troops into the Sudan to attack LRA/M bases, but most rebels managed to slip through the UPDF offensives and back into Uganda where they began attacking the civilian populations once again. The fighting between the groups resulted in many deaths, as noted by Dolan, “seen from northern Uganda, the primary indicator of military activity was trucks carrying live soldiers northwards and corpses southwards” (2009:54). The government had hoped the

operation would conclude after one month, but the government continued to extend the operation and put pressure on district governments to recruit locally into the army and the local defence units. The LRA/M moved further into the country and continued to attack camps and villages. The ongoing violence increased international attention and in 2003 Jan Egeland, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Humanitarian Affairs vowed to increase international efforts to resolve the conflict and bring relief to the population. This announcement convinced many relief organizations, INGOs and UN agencies not yet present in the region to set up offices and begin programs. It also brought more pressure on the government to seek peaceful solutions to resolve the crisis. Both international and local efforts to bring the government and the LRA/M to the negotiation table continued throughout this period (2009:55-57).

Probably the most significant event at the international level was the announcement by the International Criminal Court that it would investigate the conflict. The announcement followed a referral of the case to the ICC by the Ugandan government in late 2003. The press conference in London announcing the investigation was an important historic event as it represented the ICC’s first case. However, for many in northern Uganda, the event was marked with great disappointment as most local leaders who had been struggling to arrive at a peaceful solution felt that the ICC intervention was working in complete opposition to their own objectives. The announcement did not immediately change the situation for the people in northern Uganda, for, shortly after the event, another widely publicized massacre occurred in Barlonyo camp in Lango where more than 400 people are reported to have been killed. Abductions, killings and other forms of violence continued, however, the government had begun to improve the security policies in the camps and military personnel were placed around camps, thereby improving their ability to fend off rebel attacks. Over the next couple of years, security slowly improved and people began to

hope that the LRA/M was finally weakening. The Nairobi Agreement between the Ugandan and Sudanese government that was signed in 1999 had stipulated that both governments would cease funding to rebel groups on their territories. The Agreement did not result in a complete cessation of assistance to the LRA/M, but it likely marks the beginning of a decline in relations between the Khartoum government and the LRA/M. By 2005, when the SPLM and the government of Sudan signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), assistance to the LRA/M had all but ceased. The cooling of relations between the new Government of Southern Sudan and the Khartoum government along with heightened international attention to the situation of human rights in Sudan meant that support to the LRA/M was becoming a political liability (Schomerus 2007:25-27).

The change in the political environment of Southern Sudan which resulted in reduced support to the LRA/M, the intervention of the ICC and the international attention that accompanied this event, along with the increased commitment of the Ugandan military to protect the population and engage the LRA/M all contributed to the weakening of the LRA/M and likely to the eventual decision by the LRA/M to seek fresh peace negotiations. From 2005, many LRA/M are reported to have crossed over into DRC since they were no longer safe in Sudan or Uganda. In late 2005, Vincent Otti is reported to have announced on the radio that the LRA/M were interested in peace talks which incited the government of Southern Sudan to initiate contact with the LRA/M command in order to offer their services to facilitate the talks. The attention focused on the LRA/M conflict worked to put significant pressure on all parties to find a solution to the conflict and a Cessation of Hostilities agreement was eventually signed between the government of Uganda and the LRA/M in August 2006. The agreement was the first step in a series of negotiations known as the Juba talks which brought unprecedented international influence and resources with the aim of ending the

war. Though the talks were successful on a number of levels, laying the ground work for disarmament, development and reconciliation, the final agreement was never signed by Kony, and the failure of the peace talks were finally acknowledged in late 2008 when the LRA/M left the designated points and began attacking villages in DRC. The stumbling block throughout the talks was the refusal of the ICC to withdraw the indictments against five LRA/M members (two of whom are now deceased) or to support local and national jurisdiction over these cases. Since that time, the rebels have not returned to northern Uganda, but they have carried out attacks on populations in DRC, the Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR). In northern Uganda, families have been returning to their villages where they are attempting to rebuild their homes and cultivate their land. However, continued violence in the region, along with the ever present threat that the conflict may return to northern Uganda means that speaking of peace is premature. Until the LRA/M is neutralized and the grievances of the population of northern Uganda are addressed, there will always be a risk that violence will return.

Nonetheless, the return home is a significant step-forward for communities in northern Uganda. Life in the camps was never celebrated. Though most people were forced into the camps, after some years, a kind of dependency and fear had settled in the population and few felt confident that they would be able to return to their homes any time soon. One man told me he had no hope of returning to his home, he said he would probably die in the camps. The same man described to me his experience of the war. He told me that during the colonial period people were social, they stayed together as friends, and there was money. He said,

We grew cotton; that is how we took our children to school. Our money was also in goats and cows. That is how we fed our children. And they were healthy. At Independence,

Obote said he would administer the country, but he did not, he only quarrelled. That is why the problems between the tribes came. After he failed to manage the country, Museveni took over. Museveni took over and he took over Acholiliand. He took our cows and goats and gathered people together; some were burnt in their own houses. After killing people, he gathered them together in one place without food. Our homes were left and destroyed. Eventually, WFP began to give food. But we don’t have clothes for putting on or proper shoes. There is a school – universal primary education – but no clothes, so the children fear to go. They do not let us move more than a couple miles or they say you are a rebel. Gathered together in this place, there are too many sicknesses, the military is beating people. We don’t know when we will be able to go back. (Interview with author, September 2005)

He went on to say he didn’t know much about the war. He said, “Kony went to the bush because of what Museveni was doing, to protect the people. Then Kony changed like Museveni, he started abducting and killing people. That is the problem. You go to Kony...atrocity; you go to government...problems. Amnesty is good, but I don’t think Museveni wants this. We are just waiting for elections. We hope there is a change in power so we can go home” (Interview with author, September 2005). His sentiments about life before the war and life in the camps were repeated time and again. One woman told me when I asked if she had come to the camp willingly: “Willingly to here? You don’t come willingly. You come bare-handed, you come without food. They don’t even let you go and dig” (Interview with author, September 2005). Another man told me that before the war people lived happily. He said, “The war destroyed many things, they used to live happily, then life changed. Their animals were raided; people lived with a lot of sadness.” When I asked about going home, he said, “There will be many problems. People have seen too many bad things, like people making money in bad ways, and this may continue. People will be a bit sad. There will be much

land-wrangling because many will fight over land, some may even kill each other. Even here in the camps there is land rivalry, so after the camps will be worse.” He also said he thought amnesty was the best way to achieve peace: “forgiveness is good. It improves social wellbeing and reconciliation” (Interview with author, October 2005).

Typically, when people described life before the war they spoke of abundance, of diversity, and of independence. They would describe the various crops they grew: millet, sim-sim, sorghum, groundnuts and greens. They would speak of their goats and cows and the possibility to hunt for food or find honey. People would repeat to me how they could take care of themselves and would never need to ask for assistance. This always stood in stark contrast to their descriptions of the camp which were characterized by scarcity, limited food variety, and crippling dependence. Most men spoke to me of their terrible sense of helplessness and their lack of freedom to speak, to move around. Before the war, people would tell me, we could dance, we could move around, we could tell our stories, but in the camps, nothing is the same. The contrast between life in the village and life in the camps was no doubt idealized, but returning home was the singular source of hope held out by most of the population. That is the reason behind the strong desire for peace. War, for most people in the camps, was manifested most comprehensively in the loss of their way life, the lack of control over their futures. Peace and the possibility of returning home that this would entail was understandably, then, the single most important objective of the majority of the population. The return home that is now taking place, therefore, is no small accomplishment, but in order for real serenity to sink in, for the population to feel secure in the building of their future, the rebel threat has to be removed definitively.

3. INTRODUCING THE ICC AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE

Kony should return to them. It would be better for him to come here. If he comes here he won’t be persuaded to return to the bush. If he comes home he could stay here until he dies. Killing him will not bring back the dead. Many others have also killed, not just them – like the President. He has killed many and he is still there. We can forgive him, we can even vote for him. (Woman from Alokulum camp, Gulu district, March 2007)

To most people reading this, the idea of welcoming home a man responsible for the mutilation and slaughter of thousands of Ugandans, not to mention the comparison of this man to the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, may seem ridiculous, even outrageous, but for many of the people living in the squalid and cramped conditions of the camps for the displaced in northern Uganda, the comments are a fairly bland reflection of the reality they have been forced to confront. The comments are illuminating on many levels, providing insight into a conflict that has metamorphosed from being a “hidden” or “forgotten” war, to a war that has not only gained the attention of the international community, but has also become the focal point in a controversy that brings home long-standing questions about whether or not a universally accepted model of morality and justice is possible or even desirable. 13

13 The Northern Ugandan conflict has been alternatively referred to as a “hidden” or “forgotten” war, most famously perhaps by Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from June 2003 to December 2006 who was quoted in November 2003 describing the conflict as the “world’s worst forgotten crisis” by the Agence France-Presse.

The debate has centered on the indictments of five key members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA/M), including Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti, issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in October 2005. The ICC accepted to investigate the conflict in January 2004 and since that time, contrary to what might have been expected, the ICC and the indictments have faced enormous criticism and opposition from the political, religious and cultural leaders of northern Uganda, particularly those from the Acholi sub-region which has been the worst affected area of the conflict. The reasons behind their opposition have been multiple, but the two most consistent and widely held concerns are alluded to in the comments above. The first is that the indictments may obstruct the peace process not only by removing space for negotiation, but also, should the peace talks fail, by not providing the means to execute the arrests of the alleged perpetrators. The second concern is that the ICC has not adequately addressed the crimes perpetrated by the government against the people of northern Uganda, thereby becoming an agent of impunity and contributing to long-term sentiments of injustice.

The situation in northern Uganda is complex and there is much at stake. The people of northern Uganda have suffered a debilitating and devastating war for over twenty years and peace is their priority, so any obstacle to that peace is understandably viewed with extreme caution or antagonism. For the International Criminal Court, a fledgling institution, there is a need to build legitimacy and credibility as an instrument of international justice.14 It faces many challenges, not the least of which is the need to resist becoming a political tool in both international and local struggles. In the face of these challenges, the

14 The terms “international justice” and “global justice” are often used interchangeably. I am using the term “international justice” more often than “global justice” in order to refer more clearly to judicial processes of international criminal law. The term, as I use it here, also encompasses the moral and political aspirations that are associated with these processes, including the aspiration of a more equitable and just world (see also Dembour and Kelly 2007a:3).

situation in northern Uganda has reached a difficult impasse. At the time of writing this, the peace talks have all but failed. Despite what appeared to be a positive trend towards a peaceful solution, Joseph Kony, at the last moment, refused to sign the final agreement unless the indictments against him and his associates are lifted (Wheeler 2008: viii).15 The ICC has remained firm, however, with the chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, making it publicly clear that he does not intend to be blackmailed into submission by a notorious rebel leader. The rebels are now in hiding, with groups said to be located in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), and Southern Sudan where they have recommenced their attacks on civilians, killing and abducting many, particularly in DRC. In contrast, relative peace has returned to northern Uganda where many people are in the process of returning to their homes, beginning the long project of reconstruction. As long as the rebels remain outside of Uganda, peace in the area should be maintained, but this is a very delicate peace. At best it could be considered what Johan Galtung (1996) has termed a “negative peace”. Negative peace provides for an end to direct violence and the prevention of war, but does not transform structures that underlie the advent of violence in the first place.16 Until the LRA/M leaders and their fighters have been definitively prevented from continuing the war on Ugandan or foreign soil, even the idea of negative peace appears illusive.

The involvement of the ICC in the affairs of Uganda is not accidental. Museveni referred the case of the LRA/M to the court in December 2003. There is much

15 Joseph Kony was scheduled to sign the peace agreement during a ceremony in April, 2008, but did not appear; a subsequent and final opportunity to sign the agreement was scheduled for November 29, 2008, but again he did not appear.

16 Unfortunately, the violence has simply been displaced and recent reports released by the UN OHCHR detail numerous incidents allegedly perpetrated by the LRA/M in DRC and Southern Sudan. At least 1200 people were reportedly killed and 1400 abducted between September 2008 and June 2009 and more than 200,000 people have been displaced in DRC. In Sudan, at least 81 civilians are reported killed with many more abducted and injured (UNOHCHR 2009a; UNOHCHR 2009b).

speculation about the motivation behind Museveni’s referral, some point to the fact that the war had begun to attract international attention and criticism. Donor governments were beginning to pressure Uganda to do something constructive (Allen 2006: 73) and the referral is thought by some to have been an attempt to appease the international community by demonstrating the government’s commitment to ending the war and by displacing some of the responsibility.17 In a more recent statement, Museveni claimed that he had invited the ICC to intervene solely because the LRA/M was located in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the time, which is outside of Uganda’s jurisdiction (Croft 2008).18 One of the most plausible, though rarely noted, speculations was put forth in a Wall Street Journal report by Jess Bravin who notes that, following a July 2003 announcement by Moreno-Ocampo that the ICC might investigate crimes occurring in DRC, an attorney was sent to the ICC from Uganda to assure the prosecutor that Uganda had not been involved in any atrocities committed in their neighboring country. It was during this meeting that the possibility for an investigation of the LRA/M conflict was allegedly conceived and Uganda agreed to refer the case (Bravin 2006).19 Whatever the initial motivation, Museveni approached the ICC in late 2003 and a joint press conference was held in January 2004 with Museveni and the ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo standing side by side for the announcement.

For the ICC, the referral was historic. The court had been many years in the making. The first idea to create an independent international court can be

17 Many have speculated on Museveni’s motivation for referring the case to the ICC; some assume it was largely political, an attempt to assuage internal political opposition and win votes during the 2006 elections (Goldston, et al. 2004). 18 This explanation seems unlikely since the presence of the LRA/M in DRC is reported to have begun in September, 2005. It is likely either the President misspoke or the reporter misquoted him and he was referring to Kony’s residence in Southern Sudan (Puijenbroek and Plooijer 2009: 8). 19 The account does seem to reconcile with the ICC report that says the Prosecutor obtained his first two cases by inviting voluntary referrals (International Criminal Court 2006).

traced back to the 19th century, but the most serious work towards the formation of the existing court began first in the 1950s with the request of the UN General Assembly for the International Law Commission to draft a statute for an international criminal court. The proposal was not pursued at that time due to the Cold War, but momentum for the court was renewed in 1989 with another request by the General Assembly that the International Law Commission complete its work towards the drafting of a statute that would establish an “international judicial organ” (CICC). The referral of the Ugandan case was the first in the short history of the ICC and it is not unlikely that the Prosecutor and other members of the ICC felt it would be a good test case. By all accounts, the LRA/M is a brutal and murderous group that has brought years of suffering to a large population. The extent and cruel nature of the violence they have inflicted would leave no one in doubt of its criminal classification. The intervention of the ICC and the subsequent arrest warrants for members of the LRA/M that were released, therefore, were generally expected to be welcomed by the international community and especially by the people of northern Uganda, by and large the major victims of the conflict.

Though the international media and many human rights organizations immediately hailed the referral and the subsequent indictments of five LRA/M members as a step towards ending impunity, opposition to the ICC intervention was quick to develop. Leaders and activists in northern Uganda spoke out against the announcement of pending arrest warrants. Rwot David Acana II claimed the anticipated issuing of arrest warrants was “the last blow to the peace process”, according to a March 2005 news release from IRIN News (2005b).20 In the same article, Walter Ochora, then District Council Chairman (LC V) of Gulu, also condemned the warrants as “counter-productive to the ‘already successful *peace+ processes on the ground.’” Even local religious leaders,

20 Rwot David Acana II is the current paramount chief of the Acholi people.

generally thought to be the most trusted and respected leaders of the Acholi people and those with their ears closest to the ground, demanded a serious rethink of the ICC position regarding the issuing of arrest warrants. A member of the the Gulu Catholic Archdiocese's Justice and Peace Commission stated: “their officials seem to lack some serious grasp of the situation, particularly the fact that to start war crimes investigations for the sake of justice at a time when the war is not yet over risks having, in the end, neither justice nor peace delivered” (IRIN News 2005a).

For most observers outside northern Uganda, particularly those from the West, the negative reaction of the northern Ugandan leaders was met with bafflement. The decision of the ICC to investigate the LRA/M conflict and the issuing of the subsequent indictments were for many the natural outcome of what appeared a very simple case. Understandably so, given that a quick survey of any news articles from the region describes a demonic madman bent on destroying his own people in a dubious quest to replace the current political regime with his own form of government based on the Ten Commandments. Horrid scenes of abducted children made to kill family members or used as sex slaves were graphically described in many a news article, followed generally by an often repeated background paragraph that described the LRA/M as a group of fighters led by messianic leader Joseph Kony. As one journalist wrote of his own experience, “From our crow’s nest in Nairobi, the conflict looked like a classic tale of pointless savagery. The rebels had massacred villagers, mutilated hundreds of people and abducted thousands of children – all for the sake of one man’s ambition to rule according to his warped reading of the Bible” (Green 2008: 10).

The overly simplistic renditions of opposition to the ICC intervention made it difficult for observers without more intimate knowledge of the conflict to

understand the rationale for such opposition. In contrast, the legitimacy of the ICC, even as a fledgling institution, is almost taken-for-granted in articles depicting the stand-off between the Court and the Acholi leaders of Uganda. This is evidenced in the fact that the possibility that persons in northern Uganda may be opposed to the ICC indictments requires much greater explanation than the position of ICC supporters. It is a basic assumption of almost all observers that the ICC will administer justice, but there is also a less conspicuous assumption that the Court is an essential component in the quest to end oppression, violence and conflict worldwide. These assumptions allow officials of the Court to take bold steps and put opponents of the Court on the defensive. Yet, how is it that an institution with no track record of accomplishments has managed to captivate the imaginations of the public so quickly and completely? This is not to say that the actions of the ICC Prosecutor are not under scrutiny, but it is to ask how, from the outset, the basic mandate of the Court is considered so essential for the global community and so capable of achieving its objectives.

To some degree, the acceptance of the ICC as a fundamental component of international justice is simply an extension of the taken-for-granted nature of the value of legal systems in general. As has been noted elsewhere (Comaroff and Comaroff 2006), there has been a decided increase in the establishment and use of legal systems worldwide, even where their forms are questionably put to use. Moreover, in the West in particular, it can be argued that law has come to replace or at least compete with other institutions, most notably religious institutions, in the production of normative behavior and actions. However, as regards the ICC, the most significant factor contributing to the Court’s presumed legitimacy is the degree to which justice, writ large, is rendered equivalent to the outcomes of penal law in the imaginations of most observers. Though “alternative” forms of justice exist, even in Western countries, the very label

“alternative” denotes the marginal status such systems are granted. Instead, it is the condemnation of the individual and their actions along with the prescribed punishment that occurs through the court proceedings that is considered the key symbolic moment of justice. The point of denouncement is considered so significant that when an individual comes to an untimely death before a trial can reach its determination on the innocence or guilt of that person, the individual is thought to have escaped justice, such as in the case of the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Thus, the defining powers of law have to be considered. Law can be “conceived as a worldview or structuring discourse which shapes how the world is apprehended. ‘Facts’ are not simply lying around waiting to be discovered; they are socially constructed through rules of evidence, legal conventions, and the rhetoric of legal actors” (Cowan, et al. 2001b:12).

Yet the inviolable nature of the International Criminal Court also has roots in the discursive construction of the Court leading up to its establishment. Over the years, proponents of the establishment of a permanent international court that could deal with some of the worst instances of violence have drawn on a number of significant global discourses to argue for its necessity and to distinguish its purpose. Specifically, supporters of a permanent court have drawn on discourses of human rights, globalization, transitional justice, and human security to construct both the need for such an institution and to depict its qualities.21 The eventual establishment of the Court came about as a result of a confluence of events that created the “conditions of possibility” for an institution that could have far-reaching consequences, particularly in its challenge to sovereignty.22 The possibility to establish a court that has the capacity to

21 Discourse as it is used here follows Foucault’s designation and is referring to categories of understanding that link certain concepts with much broader meanings, values and beliefs. Usually discourses are related to an area of specialized knowledge with specific terms and references. Discourses not only set relations of meaning, they determine what is defined, what is natural or true, thus they are productive and constitutive. 22 “Conditions of possibility” refers to central themes in Foucault’s writing which refuse “any assumptions about the direction of social change or the role of human plans or intentions.

challenge the sovereign powers of the state, powers that until very recently were universally considered to be sacred, would have been considered impossible only a few years ago. However, through the strategic alliance of governments from a number of middle-power countries, a collection of influential INGOs, and supporters from other overlapping movements such as the human rights movement, the concept of an international criminal court was fostered as a necessary response to current events and part of the natural progression towards a more ideal world. This coupled with the overlapping goals of some aspects of neoliberalism and the particular context of the post-Cold War era set the stage for the possibility of adopting new approaches to addressing international crimes and violations. Through the mobilization of multiple global discourses, the Court has been produced in the imagination of the average observer as a panacea to contemporary problems, such as increased transnational crime, violence and conflict and as a less expensive and demanding form of global governance that can rein in the chaotic and lawless nature of the post-modern world. This discourse of international justice provides legitimacy and supremacy to the Court by linking it to moral endeavors and pragmatic solutions to imagined problems of the globalized world. However, a closer examination of the reality of the Court reveals this discourse to be flawed and highlights the power of discursive constructions to influence concrete practices and actions.

The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to examine how the establishment of the Court became a possibility given that it challenges fundamentally held beliefs in the sanctity of sovereignty and could potentially have an enormous transformative impact on international relations. By doing so, the manner in which the Court has been conceived in the imagination of supporters of the

Instead it asks: what combination of circumstances in dispersed and seemingly unconnected fields of social activity combines in such a way as to give rise to some outcome?” (Hunt and Wickham 1994:6).

Court as well as much of the global public can be revealed. This is important because the constitution of the Court in ideal terms impacts the way actions taken by the Court are interpreted. As a legal institution, the ICC is already constructed through legal discourses and practices which empower the Court to define its subjects as well as the nature of actions and events. However, in the minds of many observers, the Court is understood as much more than a legal institution. It is also a moral institution that promotes righteous behavior and it is viewed as a practical institution that can resolve seemingly intransigent problems. Such constructions of the Court have had an impact on the interpretation of the Court’s initiative to investigate crimes in northern Uganda since it is laden with restorative and moral qualities. These qualities have made it difficult to oppose the Court, particularly in international circles, with any serious credibility. By deconstructing the Court as it is produced in news media, public addresses and scholarly works, it is possible to reveal the disjunction between the ideal presentations of the Court and the reality. Deconstruction of an international justice discourse also demonstrates how power can be invested in institutions by linking them with outcomes that do not necessarily hold true.

History of the International Criminal Court Rules of war have been in existence for millennia, but the first major international treaties codifying laws of war were the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The Hague Conventions did not criminalize violations of the law, but they did set out particular duties for States (Schabas 2007:3). Following World War I, however, there was an increasing desire by some countries, particularly England, to criminalize certain violations which had taken place during the war. England as well as other allied countries called for the prosecution of actions carried out by Germany. Furthermore, the actions taken against Armenians by the Turkish government were described as “crimes against the laws of humanity”, which referred to provisions in the Convention for the protection of

civilian populations. During the Paris Peace Conference the issue of prosecution was debated. The United States and Japan were adamantly against such prosecution, arguing that it was ex post facto justice. The United States particularly opposed the idea of criminalizing such actions as it considered them to be of moral and not legal substance (Bassiouni 1999-2007).

It was the conduct of the Nazi regime and the events of World War II which finally brought the allied parties together in an effort to criminalize various violations of the laws of war. In 1945, the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of Major War Criminals of the European Axis and the accompanying Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) which set out the parameters of the tribunal was adopted and signed by representatives of the four allied powers, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. This set the groundwork for the Nuremburg trials which included three categories of offence within their jurisdiction: crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In defense against allegations of ex post facto justice, the Tribunal pointed to the Kellogg-Briand pact as precedent for crimes against peace and The Hague Conventions as precedents for war crimes. The precedent for crimes against humanity was more challenging to assert, but the declaration of Allied powers after WWI describing the killing and persecution of Armenians as a “crime against humanity” was noted along with an argument that leaving Nazi crimes unpunished would be a gross injustice (Schabas 2007: 5- 6). The eventual prosecution of war criminals after World War II opened the door to the possibility of a more permanent international court that could prosecute those guilty of such crimes, but it was many years before this was realized.

The International Criminal Court only came into force on July 1st 2002. This was the culmination of many years of work. The idea of an international court was

first circulated in the late nineteenth century. It was proposed by one of the founders of the Red Cross Movement as a court where prosecutions for the breach of the Geneva Convention of 1864 could take place (Schabas 2007: 2). It proved to be a premature idea and the next time a permanent world court was considered was in 1937 when the League of Nations adopted a treaty that considered the creation of an international criminal court. The number of supporters for the treaty proved insufficient however and the treaty was never realized. It was in 1948, on the heels of the Nuremburg and Tokyo Tribunals, that the first steps towards the realization of a permanent international criminal court were established. Genocide had been among the charges laid against the Nazi war criminals, but, given the absence of any description of this crime in the Statute for the Tribunal, they were never found guilty of this crime. As a result, the General Assembly of the UN requested the drafting of a convention on genocide. The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was subsequently adopted in 1948 and within its text was the proposal for an international court to hear crimes of such magnitude. While the proposal was not accepted at the time, the General Assembly requested the International Law Commission to draft a statute for an international court as laid out in Article VI of the Genocide Convention (2007: 7-8). Though the Commission submitted a proposal in 1954, it was not pursued as Cold War tensions had overtaken the will of nations to work together on such a project. It was in 1989 that the current court began its course towards eventual establishment. A resolution for the International Law Commission to examine the possibility of an international criminal court was proposed by Trinidad and Tobago. The final draft statute for an international court was subsequently submitted to the General Assembly in 1994 (2007: 9-10). Meanwhile, the war in former Yugoslavia had drawn international attention and condemnation, and, after several calls for the establishment of a tribunal to address various war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed in the course of the war, the Security Council

agreed upon the creation of just such a tribunal in 1993. In 1994, a similar tribunal was established to address the massacres that had taken place in Rwanda during the same year. The creation of these ad hoc tribunals arguably contributed to the sustained momentum to establish a permanent court. The atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda had the impact of reinforcing public opinion in favor of international legal solutions.

The continued momentum for the development of an international court in the early nineties allowed the General Assembly to take the necessary steps for its founding. In 1994, the Assembly determined to work towards the court’s establishment and thus created an Ad Hoc Committee to review the draft statute of the International Law Commission. Subsequent meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee, however, exposed many divergent opinions between States on the nature of the court. Several changes to the draft statute were recommended including the concept of “complementarity”, which stressed that only if national courts were unable or unwilling to prosecute would the international court exercise its jurisdiction. The separation between the Code of Crimes and the Statute were also dropped in lieu of a statute that would combine the detailed definitions of crimes with the principals and procedural rules of the court. In 1996, a Preparatory Committee was convened with participation from Member States and non-governmental organizations. A number of sessions were held between 1996 and 1998 when a Diplomatic Conference was scheduled to receive the draft submission for consideration. The draft, known as the “Zutphen draft”, contained numerous revisions to the original Law Commission draft and retained sections that were as yet highly contested between various States (2007: 15-17). On June 15, 1998 the Diplomatic Conference convened in Rome and after weeks of exhausting negotiations, the final proposal was finally presented. On July 17, the final day of the conference, a successful vote for the adoption of the Rome Statute was concluded with 120 votes in favor, twenty-one abstentions and

seven votes against. Significantly, the success of the proposal was the result of a number of combined factors, including the formal backing given to the ICC by the UN; the strong lobbying capacity of the Coalition for the ICC (CICC), a coalition of more than 800 NGOs; the alliances of blocs of countries with shared interest, particularly the “Like-Minded Group” (LMG) that was closely allied with a number of countries; along with the highly strategic and aggressive approach to steering the program taken by the Chair Philippe Kirsch (Washburn 1999:366- 367). The deadline for States to sign the Statute was December 31st 2000 and according to the agreement, once sixty states had ratified the agreement the court would come into force following a predetermined period. More rapidly than anticipated, the sixtieth ratification of the Statute occurred on April 11, 2002 which brought the Statute into force on July 1, 2002 (Schabas 2007:18-20).

The Discursive Construction of the International Criminal Court Though the support for the establishment of a permanent court gained momentum in the last decade of the twentieth century, the very recent establishment of the ICC, and the relatively shallow history of war crimes in general, beg the question of why such mechanisms have apparently become so indispensable in such a short period, particularly when such mechanisms are utilized in the context of an ongoing conflict. The advent of pursuing the prosecution of war crimes during an ongoing conflict began only in the 1990s with the prosecution of war criminals in the former Yugoslavia. Thus, while international criminal legal processes have only a short history they are firmly planted in the imaginations of many observers as critical institutions providing justice. Why they have become so securely implanted in the imaginations of many despite shortcomings and limitations is the question that is posed here. Largely, the response to this question can be found in an examination of the discourses that surrounded the establishment of the ICC and which served to construct the Court as the ultimate response to several merging concerns at the

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international level. During the years that the establishment of a permanent court was debated, proponents of the court drew on a number of important discourses that resonated with the wider public and which provided important foundations for the legitimacy of the Court. Discourses of globalization, human rights, transitional justice, and human security have all contributed to the justification for the establishment of a permanent court. Moreover, the agendas that power such discourses have often overlapped with or been appropriated by a neoliberal agenda. Such overlaps, for example, can be evidenced in the shared preference for democratic governance by proponents of both neoliberal and human rights advocates. When agendas overlap this can provide increased material and discursive support to both agendas, but it can also have the consequence of driving the discursive practices in particular directions. In the case of the ICC, a number of agendas have overlapped and one result is the establishment of an important discourse of “international justice” that can be said to actually produce the ICC in the imaginations of the general public in ways that do not necessarily reflect the actual institution, but which serve to instill it with a level of legitimacy and value that ultimately inject the Court with significant influence in global affairs. Discourses of international justice can be found in the international news media, in academic commentaries and studies, in press statements and interviews given by ICC or government officials, as well as in the reports of many human rights organizations or other INGOs.

The degree to which the idea of a permanent court had become constituted as the ultimate solution to twentieth-century ailments can be seen in the rhetoric which swirled around its founding days. The establishment of the International Criminal Court was considered by many to be an epic moment that marked the beginning of a new era. The Chairman of the Drafting Committee for the Rome Statute, Cherif Bassiouni, claimed that “the world will never be the same after the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court” (United Nations

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1998). John Washburn, co-chairman of the Washington Group for the International Criminal Court, described the charged atmosphere that followed the historic vote:

In Rome, on the night of July 17-18, 1998, there was an international epiphany. The world community agreed by 120 votes that the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court should be adopted. In so doing, diplomats abandoned themselves to cheers and chants, tears and embraces, and rhythmic stomping and applause. (Washburn 1999)

On the fourth anniversary of the Adoption of the Rome Statute, Kofi Annan stated that,

The date of 17 July 1998 will long be remembered as the day the world finally united to bring an end to the culture of impunity….The message from the international community was clear. Never again would it stand aside and let the fabric of humanity be torn asunder by those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. (United Nations 2002)

The comments made by the supporters of the establishment of the ICC reflect how emotionally charged the push for the institution had become. They also present the moment as a turning-point in history. Each of the comments points to a new beginning; a departure from old practices. Rhetorically, the “birth” of the ICC is linked to the “death” of impunity in a world that will no longer be the same. It is considered an epic moment. News headlines throughout the world marked the event. And ongoing analyses of the Court continue to link it with the goal of “ending”, “challenging” or “fighting” impunity (e.g., Bedont and Hall- Martinez 1999; Beigbeder 2005; Tarsy 2009).

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This discourse feeds into a larger discourse of civilization that sees humankind as progressing on a linear path towards an increasingly enhanced state. In this narrative, the Court is an essential instrument in the struggle to bring humankind towards this ultimate state. Kofi Annan’s statement on the fourth anniversary of the court is a good example of this narrative: “Our journey is part of a wider quest in search of a peaceful and just world, in which all human beings live in freedom and harmony. We have an individual and collective responsibility to do our utmost to reach that destination” (United Nations 2002). The statement presupposes an ultimate “destination” where “all human beings live in freedom and harmony”. And reaching this destination is an “individual and collective responsibility”, a formulation that invokes a kind of divine destiny consequently imbuing the establishment of the ICC with righteous significance. Falling away from this path, it can be assumed, could have damning consequences.

An indication of the strength of the connection between the idea of impunity and the ICC is made clear in an article that discusses changes made to the language used by the Canadian Foreign Service that was revealed in an email message that followed a change in government from the long-serving Liberals to the Conservatives. The change in language is noted as “bringing subtle but sweeping changes to traditional Canadian foreign policy” (Collins 2009). The article quotes a professor of international law from the University of Ottawa who reacts to the language changes, particularly in reference to the International Criminal Court from where he had just returned:

Particularly telling, he said is the example cited in the email of changes that had been made to “a standard docket response” of Canada’s position with regards to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the new docket, the minister’s office has removed the words “impunity” and “justice” when calling for an end to sexual violence in the DRC, and is instead calling only for efforts to “prevent” sexual violence.

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“The word justice, whenever it’s linked into the word impunity, is code-word for the ICC, especially when it’s referring to the DRC because of the handful of cases that the court has right now, most of them are from the DRC and most of them, interestingly enough, deal with sexual violence, child soldiers, and impunity,” Mr Mendes said. (Collins 2009)

The association of the concepts impunity and justice with the ICC as related here makes clear how the Court has been defined and even produced in the minds of its supporters. The ICC in this sense is not defined by its limitations but by the idea of its limitless possibilities. Up to the point of the establishment of the ICC the world was constructed as a place where impunity reigns. Gross violators of humanitarian law are able to live their days out in luxury. The title of one website providing in-depth analysis of ICC related issues is entitled: “Justice in a Lawless World: Rights and Reconciliation in a New Era” (IRIN News 2006a). This title echoes the notion of the world as lawless and the establishment of the Court as the reckoning of a new era, key constructions for the championing of an international legal regime.

As noted, the establishment of the ICC is embedded in a language of idealism that constructs international humanitarian law as part of a larger project that seeks a better and more peaceful world. This narrative places the establishment of the Court within a wider trajectory of a morally driven pursuit to free the world of misery. In the narrow understanding, it is about realizing the vision that was put forward after World War II, a vision that conceives the possibility of a world without violence and war. It is the world that is conjured in the multiple memorials of the Holocaust that repeat the refrain, “never again.” This refrain was alluded to by Kofi Annan in the statement quoted above: “never again would it stand aside and let the fabric of humanity be torn asunder.” It is also the culmination of the efforts of many activists who have sought just such an institution to address the kinds of brutality that were witnessed during World

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War II. A permanent international court is considered to be a crucial component to bring an end to such brutality and to make those responsible accountable. In the wider sense, the Court is part of an even larger vision. This vision imagines humankind as making slow progress towards a more civilized world. The Court is a symbol of movement in the right direction. As described by one observer: “Thanks to the vision of its builders and thanks more than anything to the brave eye-witnesses to horror who testify in its courtrooms, the ICC is fitting right in among towering icons of the march of human progress” (Tarsy 2009).

Despite the emotional quality of the arguments for the establishment of a permanent international court, the timing was not always conducive to its creation. Apart from the moral argument to end impunity, the political will to actually bring about the permanent court was contingent on certain historical events and the convergence of a number of political and social agendas. Although there had been interest in developing an international court after World War II, the opportunity for such an eventuality dissipated as the Cold War developed. It was only in the post-Cold War period that an environment conducive to the establishment of a permanent court emerged. At this time, a number of existing and emerging economic, political and social practices and related discourses created a space in which the creation of a permanent court became a possibility. Though the year 1989 marks the year the Berlin wall came down and it symbolically represents the end of Communism, changes in the political and economic policies began in the mid-1980s and Soviet support of foreign insurgencies had begun to decline even before this period. The post-Cold War period placed Western countries in an economically and politically advantageous position that created a kind of euphoria, often described in terms of a “brave new world”. Neoliberalism, a set of political economic policies promoted by many Western countries, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States, appeared poised to spread its influence across the globe. The

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moment led to optimistic speculation that most countries would voluntarily embrace democratic governance and institutions as well as liberal economic reforms that would eventually lead to improved political and economic conditions for all.

Though the rise of neoliberalism is not directly related with the establishment of the ICC, certain elements in the agenda of proponents of neoliberalism overlapped with other struggles and movements of the period which created a kind of synergetic force. The link of neoliberalism with certain freedoms, particularly those related to market freedoms, is particularly important as the apparent need to create democratic institutions and allow individuals freedom of speech and movement has meant that the neoliberal agenda has at times become enmeshed with other social and political agendas such as the human rights movement. According to David Harvey, a geographer and professor of anthropology,

Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. (Harvey 2005:2)

While neoliberalism is widely understood as an economic policy, its philosophy that economic advancement is best achieved through the promotion of individual freedom leads to a necessity for political reforms. While market freedom at the domestic and international level are of the highest priority, in order to produce a conducive environment for the “individual entrepreneurship” that fuels neoliberalism, a number of political shifts towards democratization with its corresponding freedoms, such as freedom of the press, freedom of movement and freedom of speech are also considered fundamental. The

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placement of individual freedom and dignity as a central tenet of neoliberal thought has proven to be a highly attractive element and driving force behind much of the spread of neoliberalism. As Harvey points out, following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, former President Bush continually referred to the events of September 11th as attacks on the freedom of the American people and declared the need to defend these freedoms wherever they were under threat (2005: 5). The point Harvey is making here is that by making reference to freedom as being under attack, Bush was playing to the sensibilities of the American people whom he felt held freedom to be a fundamental right and therefore something worth dying to defend.

The link between personal freedom and economic well-being can be traced back to the founding years of neoliberal thought. In 1947, a group of mainly historians, philosophers and economists formed the Mont Pelerin Society which sought to inform economic and political policy. The group referred to themselves as liberals and the founding statement of their Society makes clear how individual freedom is considered critical to the economic and social advancement of humankind:

The central values of civilization are in danger. Over large stretches of the earth’s surface the essential conditions of human dignity and freedom have already disappeared. In others they are under constant menace from the development of current tendencies of policy. The position of the individual and the voluntary group are progressively undermined by extensions of arbitrary power. Even that most precious possession of Western Man, freedom of thought and expression is threatened by the spread of creeds which, claiming the privilege of tolerance when in the position of a minority, seek only to establish a position of power in which they can suppress and obliterate all views but their own.

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The group holds that these developments have been fostered by the growth of a view of history which denies all absolute moral standards and by the growth of theories which question the desirability of the rule of law. It holds further that they have been fostered by a decline of belief in private property and the competitive market; for without the diffused power and initiative associated with these institutions it is difficult to imagine a society in which freedom may be effectively preserved. (Harvey 2005: 20)

The link between freedom, law and order, and morality with neoliberal thought is a potent combination, but faced with the economic and political contingencies of the post-war period, the ideas remained on the sidelines. The tenets of neoliberal thought and policy remained marginal until the late 1970s when they were reinvigorated as a response to the economic difficulties of the period, providing an alternative to the Keynesian policies which had dominated since the end of World War II. By the 1980s, neoliberal policies and philosophies were being implemented and championed by the United States under Ronald Reagan and in the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher. The key point made here, however, is that there were fundamental social and political elements of neoliberal policies, particularly the extension of democracy and the protection of individual rights which merged with the agendas of other powerful movements of the period such as the human rights movement and later with proponents of a human security framework, both of which supported the establishment of an international court. The shared agenda, even if they embodied only certain elements, made each of the paradigms stronger in their shared objectives, but also sometimes had the unintended consequence of strengthening the progress towards other discrete objectives.

The end of the Cold War also marked the beginning of processes and discourses of globalization. Globalization is a concept which posits that the world has

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undergone important changes in recent years, changes that typically are considered to have increased communication and connectivity between people and places. Exactly what globalization is and how it functions is a highly contested subject, but definitions generally include a reference to increased links and networks that have transformed social relations, and greater mobility of things, people and ideas. A particular discourse and strategy associated with globalization is that of globalism. “The key feature of ‘globalism’ is that it interprets globalization in a neo-liberal way as primarily the liberalization and global integration of markets, linked to the spread of a particular version of ‘(western) democracy’, and the strategies it is associated with are aimed at shifting or inflecting globalization in a neo-liberal direction” (Fairclough 2006: 7- 8).

The significance of globalism to an international legal regime is the degree to which the legitimizing discourse of neoliberalism, which places the principles of freedom and progress at its core, overlaps with other relevant approaches that have underwritten the course towards a permanent international court. Human rights and globalization have been particularly important discourses that have been drawn upon in arguments supporting the establishment of an international court. While the discourses and practices of human rights, globalization and neoliberalism conflict as often as they coalesce, aspects of each have served to mutually reinforce each other. As noted above, neoliberalism can be said to be “hijacking globalization in the service of particular national and corporate interests” (2006: 8). While globalization is meant to refer to diverse processes and connections, a globalist discourse seeks to present globalization in narrow terms as the spread of economic neoliberalism. Neoliberal discourse also legitimizes its economic agenda by associating neoliberal economic policies with political freedom and individual freedoms that are at times linked to a human rights agenda, even if it perceives of human rights in a narrow sense.

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The convergence of human rights and neoliberal agendas, however, are viewed by some as highly imbalanced and the neoliberal agenda is thought to have steered the form that human rights has taken. Tony Evans, (2005), for example, has argued that political and philosophical discourses to do with human rights have given way to legal discourses and the legal discourses are susceptible to the imposition of “market discipline”. The use of the term “discipline” here is strictly in the Foucauldian sense and refers to a type of power that in its most simple sense involves “techniques” and “procedures” that work towards the internalization of sets of codes or rules, though these rules are not necessarily explicit or acknowledged (Foucault 1979:135-228). Evans describes market discipline as the most powerful discipline extant today. He states that market discipline “stresses economic growth and development, deregulation, the free market, the privatization of public services, and minimum government. Market discipline describes a set of normative relationships with a global reach, supported by discourses of truth, and widely accepted as “common sense”” (2005: 1056). Common sense in relation to neoliberalism supports the extension of trade across borders, economic growth and limited government intervention in matters of the economy. In this context, human rights discourse is most influential in those areas where it runs parallel to the common sense of market discipline and is strained in areas where it runs counter to market principles. As Evan notes,

For critics, the human rights regime is partial. It offers an idealized vision of human rights that obscures the consequences of the discourse. While the discourse makes claims for the pursuit of human dignity and community, it also provides the context where free will, equality within exchange relations, and property converge to create social relations characterized by selfishness, gain, and private

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interests, rather than the pursuit of human dignity and community. (Evans 2005:1057)

As Evans sees it, therefore, human rights are generally contained by market discipline which prioritizes the needs of the market. The containment and reframing of human rights and globalization discourses by a neoliberal agenda exposes not only how deeply embedded many neoliberal notions are in the threadwork of current social movements, but it also displays the subtle ways in which power asserts itself across different fields. The convergence of a number of agendas, especially human rights and neoliberalism, along with the particular environment of the post-Cold War period which has seen accelerated globalization alongside political instability have set the conditions of possibility for the establishment of the court, but the active lobbying of legal experts, human rights activists, scholars, and a variety of NGOs has also drawn on multiple discourses to justify and explain the need for a court and to shape what the court should look like.

One of the most important discourses linked to the establishment of a permanent international court is a human security discourse or framework. A human security framework blends many of the principles, ideals, agendas and fears that are contained in globalization, human rights and neoliberal discourses. The concept of human security first appears in a 1994 UNDP Human Development Report that extends the concept of security from state-based concerns to that of the ordinary individual. Since that time, human security has become an influential framework in global politics, shaping the foreign policies of governments, particularly Canada, Norway and Japan, and transforming the priorities and institutional linkages of international organizations, UN agencies, NGOs and IGOs. The definition of human security and what it entails has remained somewhat vague and contested, but its central theme is a focus on individuals rather than the state. Moreover, the meaning of security is extended

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from simple references to the removal of violence or threats of violence to one that includes freedom from poverty, famine or other threats to individual integrity. Lloyd Axworthy, the former Foreign Affairs Minister of Canada has been a central figure in the promotion of a human security paradigm which he also introduced into Canadian policy. In an article that outlines Canada’s role in supporting a human security agenda, Axworthy attempts to define the concept:

In my address to the 51st United Nations General Assembly in September 1996, I argued that human security is much more than the absence of military threat. It includes security against economic privation, an acceptable quality of life, and a guarantee of fundamental human rights. This concept of human security recognizes the complexity of the human environment and accepts that the forces influencing human security are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. At a minimum, human security requires that basic needs are met, but it also acknowledges that sustained economic development, human rights and fundamental freedoms, the rule of law, good governance, sustainable development and social equity are as important to global peace as arms control and disarmament. It recognizes the links between environmental degradation, population growth, ethnic conflicts, and migration. Finally it concludes that lasting stability cannot be achieved until human security is guaranteed. (Axworthy 1997: 184)

As a result of the need to ensure that individuals are at the center of development, humanitarian and human rights work is critical to the human security approach. The link between the general principles of a human security and international justice is made quite clearly in a statement made by the ICC Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo:

We must learn our lesson at last: there is no safe haven for life and freedom if we fail to protect the rights of any citizen

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in any country of the world. In order to protect each citizen, we have to protect every citizen. That is why we must solidify national judiciaries as part of a global system of justice. (Moreno-Ocampo 2007c)

At the core of a human security discourse is the assumption that humanity is currently not secure; that peace and continued prosperity for the developed world relies on improved conditions in the rest of the world. Thus, fighting for human rights, economic development and improved law and order throughout the world are in everyone’s best interest. If these things are not achieved, so the narrative would continue, life as we know it is under threat. The threat that we face – that which makes us insecure and in search of security – involves a number of fears including a perception of increased criminal behavior, more frequent and more violent warfare, terrorism and even a breakdown of social norms. These fears have been most dramatically depicted in articles written by the journalist, Robert Kaplan, particularly a 1994 article first published in The Atlantic Monthly entitled The Coming Anarchy. In the article, Kaplan argues that the crime, political corruption, poverty and social disorder we see in many developing countries is not isolated but poised to become our collective future without sufficient intervention. Under the subheading, “A premonition of the future”, Kaplan states:

West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real “strategic” danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate introduction to the issues, often

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extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will soon confront our civilization. (Kaplan 2006: 189)

While Kaplan’s description may represent a more extreme version of the assumed threat facing the world, it captures many elements that underlie arguments for a human security approach. Moreover, the suppositions of Kaplan’s article managed to gain considerable public support, a fact which demonstrates the degree to which such fears play on the imagination of the general public. The wars of Sierra Leone and Liberia which involved a kind of violence that appeared meaningless, random and exceptionally brutal along with the genocidal wars of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda presented a reminder to the world that the horrors of World War II had not been left behind. And given the much more interconnected nature of the world, such atrocities appear to be much closer to home and more imminently threatening.

A human security approach suggests that stability is threatened and promises to address these threats by improving governance, economic and social inequality and law and order. In short, a human security discourse justifies international action on many levels, but most relevant to this paper is the justification of international legal regimes that can address the perceived threat of anarchy. Many arguments supporting the establishment of the court drew deliberately on the changing nature of crime, the increased risks posed by globalization and the power of a human rights discourse. In the UK, British Member of Parliament William Powell addressed the House of Commons in support of the establishment of a permanent court saying that,

Many people both in the House and elsewhere have distinguished reputations for proclaiming human rights. Long may they continue - - but it is not enough merely to declare human rights: we must provide a forum in which we can enforce them. Some human rights can be enforced in

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the domestic courts of individual countries, but the world is getting smaller all the time. More and more crimes are being carried out across borders, and many of those crimes are becoming more serious in their extent, scope and inhumanity. (Powell 1991)

The statement by Powell in support of a permanent court makes allusions to the supposed effects of globalization, particularly the decreased ability to contain criminality and violence within borders. He also makes the link between human rights and an international criminal court. Technically speaking, human rights law and international criminal law are separate legal spheres, however, in popular representation and in their political make-up they have similar origins. Powell makes this point prior to the statement above in a quote of Professor Bassiouni’s saying, “Many of the international crimes for which the court would have jurisdiction are the logical extension of international protection of human rights.” The authors of a book on international justice also explain their reasons for linking human rights and international criminal law by stating that “this approach implicitly recognizes that the two ‘separate’ areas of international law share a common set of political and philosophical assumptions about the nature of justice, sovereignty and responsibility. Furthermore…the two forms of international law are inseparable, both sociologically and politically” (Dembour and Kelly 2007b: 6). A similar statement to the one above linking globalized crime and the need for international justice can also be seen in an academic article that argues for the establishment of a permanent court:

The need to develop an international criminal code and an international criminal court is indispensable in the context of the transient nature of international society, the sophistication and transnational nature of modern crime, and the ever-increasing interdependency of the new, international world order. As the world becomes a smaller place, the various parts and peoples are more

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interdependent and more concerned with the same problems of international and transnational criminality (Bassiouni and Blakesley 1992: 154-155).

The foundations of the ICC, therefore, have been built upon the presumed need for a new solution to new problems facing the world in the era of globalization. The establishment of the ICC promises to address growing fears of increased international criminality and violence by bringing those individuals responsible to justice and thereby deterring future crimes. The presumption that a permanent court will deter future crime and wanton violence is an important factor in the construction of support for the court and it is an assumption that is often implicit in the text, but just as often the assumption is made explicit such as in the lecture given by Richard Goldstone, a former South African Constitutional Court judge and former Chief Prosecutor for the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda where he stated that “if some would-be war criminals believe that they are likely to be arrested and brought before the ICC they might well think twice before becoming outlaws” (Goldstone 2005: 10; see also Moreno-Ocampo 2007b). The promise of deterrence is particularly relevant for its association with a human security framework. As pointed out in one document linking the ICC to the human security agenda, “the foundations for a peaceful and prosperous global society cannot be laid without stronger mechanisms for preventing and prosecuting perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes…. The existence of the ICC will improve global security and potentially prevent further destruction in conflict situations” (Williams N.d.).

In a human security framework, an international court must play a role in alleviating insecurity by removing threats to the safety and freedoms of individuals. While a court that promises only retribution might provide some psychological appeasement and arguably reduce the chances of a future cycle of violence, it would not directly promise the reduction of future war crimes or

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crimes against humanity. Thus the promise that the end of impunity will lead to the deterrence of future aberrations such as those witnessed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda is critical to the promotion of the establishment of a permanent court and the imagination of what that court would look like. This led proponents of the Court to equate the establishment of the Court with an end to the horrific violence that had been witnessed in recent years. For example, in one article arguing for the establishment of the Court the author states, “Now is the time to stop these breaches of international humanitarian law, and to prevent their recurrence in the future, by creating a permanent international criminal court empowered to try these violators and to enforce their sentences” (Jamison 1995: 419). Such claims placed a great deal of faith in the possibility that by bringing war criminals to justice one would see an end to such crimes, but such claims are built into the Rome Statute itself as can be seen in the Preamble of the Statue:

Mindful that during this century millions of children, women and men have been victims of unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity, Recognizing that such grave crimes threaten the peace, security and well- being of the world, Affirming that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished and that their effective prosecution must be ensured by taking measures at the national level and by enhancing international cooperation, Determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention of such crimes….(International Criminal Court 1998)

The embedding of the establishment of the court in the discourse of human security required the court to provide practical responses to the needs set out by this discourse, namely, that it could address the problem of growing criminality

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and violence. This was the key to rendering it useful to the demands of a human security framework. It was, in fact, a coalition of ‘like-minded’ countries and NGOs under the banner of human security that managed to push through the treaty of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. In all, the statute of the ICC, the protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Ottawa convention banning landmines are all considered to be “human security treaties” (Oberleitner 2005: 195). Thus, in a later publication Axworthy celebrates the achievements of a human security discourse and reinforces its need:

This international discourse on human security is beginning to effect change on the institutions and practice of global governance. In this interconnected world, our own security is increasingly indivisible from that of our neighbors – at home and abroad. Globalization has made individual human suffering an irrevocable universal concern. While governments continue to be important, global integration of world markets and instant communication have given a role and a profile to those in business, civil society, and NGOs and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). (Axworthy 2001:20)

In many ways, the human security discourse is a rationalization of a number of agendas that are often confronted with multiple challenges in garnering multilateral support. Human rights, the environmental movement, social justice are all promoted under the banner of human security which posits that these agendas are not simply idealistic notions, but absolute essentials if the status quo of more developed nations is to be maintained. Within a human security discourse, new life is breathed into ideas that had to some degree been stagnating in a lack of political will or failed policy. The promotion of such ideas rallies support from a wide public, but also conceals other aspects of the overall agenda. Human security, by drawing on human rights, environmentalism, and

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social justice, legitimizes the extension of global governance by suggesting that economic, political and social inequality will lead to conflicts, corruption and criminal activity that ultimately threaten more developed countries in the world. As Mark Duffield has said in his book, Global Governance and the New Wars, “the threat of an excluded South fomenting international instability through conflict, criminal activity and terrorism is now part of a new security framework. Within this framework, underdevelopment has become dangerous” (2001: 2). But Duffield argues that the threat of violence and crime as a result of inequalities is overstated and serves to legitimize increased “surveillance and engagement” that form global governance. Global governance, according to Duffield, is not a single institution, but a series of “networks and linkages that bring together different organizations, interest groups and forms of authority in relation to specific regulatory tasks”(2001: 44). And as Duffield continues to explain, the “dominance of the liberal paradigm means that in relation to such networks we should talk more accurately of global liberal governance” (2001: 44). By liberal governance, Duffield is referring to the political aspects of a liberal agenda such as democratization, rule of law, and individual freedoms, such as freedom of speech.

A permanent international court is meant to play an important role in global governance, promoting legal norms across borders and providing the mechanisms needed to deal with individuals perpetrating crimes of war and crimes against humanity. A permanent court, however, is not only meant to end impunity and prevent future crime, it is also meant to contribute to peace building. International justice is increasingly considered to be a significant component of transitional justice, an approach to conflict transformation and peace building which brings together criminal and restorative forms of justice. In the words of Pierre Hazan, a researcher who has spent many years following the conflicts and peace processes of several countries in Europe and Africa,

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“transitional justice has become the new mantra of domestic and international politics since the end of the cold war” (2006: 19). As the world becomes increasingly interconnected and scenes of suffering from war zones across the world are multiplied through various media such as the internet, television and social networks, greater pressure is placed on governments and multilateral agencies to address this suffering. Activism protesting perceived political inaction against violence such as the conflicts of Darfur and northern Uganda has become highly sophisticated, drawing attention to problems and pushing governments for solutions. The push for greater intervention has led to a more aggressive form of peace building which has sometimes entailed military intervention or peacekeeping troops. On the other hand, such interventions have come under ever greater scrutiny and their level of success is questionable. Thus, while the demand for solutions to international problems of conflict and suffering increase, the ability to invest large sums of money and military personnel without political consequences has decreased. In this context, transitional justice and particularly international judicial mechanisms are increasingly considered the most palatable solutions. In regions where instability poses less of a strategic or economic threat to Western countries, such as most countries in Africa, international justice presents a relatively economical and politically safe alternative to more engaged interventions.

International justice has benefited from the overlapping agendas of several movements and the mobilization of powerful discourses. A human security discourse is particularly important for its strategic gathering of agenda items from promoters of neoliberalism and human rights and by presenting a solution to the real and imagined threats of globalization. The narrative that underlies the foundations of the International Criminal Court and international justice is critical to its legitimization and functioning. According to the narrative, the world and, more specifically, developed nations are increasingly threatened by

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the violent conflicts, corruption and crime that occur in distant countries. Globalization has changed the nature of wars and crime and has brought this threat to the doorstep of civilized nations. Conflict, crime and corruption are all caused by various elements of underdevelopment and inequality; therefore, it is the duty of developed nations to address these issues in order to ensure their own well-being. One aspect in the struggle for improved security is the establishment of a permanent court that can address the impunity of individuals who are responsible for mass atrocities. The creation of a permanent court and the necessary legal statutes will create order and prevent future crimes and violence. The development of the court is legitimized as a means by which the chaos of the underdeveloped world can be contained, the violence and anarchy prevented from spilling over into other countries. International justice will bring law and order by recognizing the rights of every individual and by imposing stricter policies and practices on national judiciaries.

In the specific case of northern Uganda, the narrative that underlies an international justice discourse is particularly potent since the violence perpetrated during the conflict is especially repugnant, involving mutilation, forced killing, and child abduction, all elements that play well into the imagination of the savage “Other”. The containment of this type of violence and the mindsets presumed to accompany it would appear to be paramount, rendering criticisms of the ICC intervention in Uganda very dubious to most observers. Along with this narrative, however, is a more sober discourse that is generally utilized by officials of the ICC. This discourse is a legal discourse that relies upon the construction of the juridical field as autonomous and apolitical. It is a discourse directed more at the people of Uganda and the reporters or activists that challenge the ICC intervention as an obstacle to peace and therefore as potentially contributing to a prolongation of violence. Using a discourse that highlights the decisions made by the Court as legal decisions and

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not political decisions is meant to side-step the growing counter-discourse confronting the ICC which has begun to characterize the Court as insensitive to the suffering of the people of Uganda. By characterizing the actions of the Court as following processes that are divorced from human interference, members of the Court are able to deflect criticisms of decisions and actions taken by the Court. This is especially important as the predominance of cases from sub- Saharan Africa have attracted criticisms suggesting that African countries have been targeted based on ethnocentric ideas about the people as well as the relatively weak political influence of African governments in international relations.

In defense of the ICC intervention in Uganda, supporters utilize legal discourse that attempts to distance decisions from emotional, political or even human influence. Once the decision is taken to accept the case, the process of investigation and prosecution is characterized as apolitical and impartial. An article summarizing an interview with the ICC President, Phillipe Kirsch is particularly revealing:

The Canadian who heads the International Criminal Court said the court’s job is to enforce the law, not get involved in the politics of peacemaking – a clear response to allegations its war-crimes investigations are undermining peace efforts. Phillipe Kirsch, the respected Canadian diplomat and international lawyer who’s serving his second term as president of the ICC, said the reality is that the pursuit of justice isn’t necessarily “synonymous with the interests of peace.” “We’re not dealing with shoplifting. The court is dealing with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, all of extreme gravity. Once a crime of that nature comes to the court, we can’t simply decide we are going to ignore it and it is inconvenient.” He treaded carefully on the political and diplomatic impact of its investigations, stressing that, once the legal process begins, the court must see it

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through. It can’t bend and yield to political pressure or “convenience”. Kirsch acknowledged the court can’t isolate itself from what’s happening in the world, especially when investigating atrocities in the midst of ongoing conflicts, but “I am sure the court has acted only judicially and not politically at all,” he said. But the ICC fights a misperception it can “behave as a political body” and start, stop or delay its investigations on the basis of convenience, he added, and none of its cases in Africa was initiated by the court’s prosecutor. All were triggered by referrals from signatory states or the UN Security Council. “Once a process has been triggered, then the court has to function as a court, not as a political body, and that is something I don’t think is completely clear to everyone,” he said. (Ottawa Citizen 2008)

Kirsch’s statements emphasize the apolitical nature of the Court. He sets the work of the Court in contrast to the work of “peacemaking” which is considered inherently political. In this contrast, the work of the ICC is placed outside of the political and even social realm. It is simply enforcing the law; therefore it is neutral in its practice. In this structure, the law is also situated as something which exists a priori and not something which is created within political, cultural and social practices. This attempt to dissociate itself from the social realm is something Pierre Bourdieu has defined as critical to the construction of the juridical field as an autonomous field. In his essay entitled The Force of Law, Bourdieu points out that:

The tacit grant of faith in the juridical order must be ceaselessly reproduced. Thus, one of the functions of the specifically juridical labor of formalizing and systematizing ethical representations and practices is to contribute to binding laypeople to the fundamental principle of the jurists’ professional ideology-belief in the neutrality and autonomy of the law and of jurists themselves. (Bourdieu 1986:844)

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Thus, Kirsch is enacting his role in the labor of reproducing the juridical field as autonomous and neutral. He does this through a discourse of technical authority that separates him from the general public. In reaffirming the apolitical nature of the ICC, Kirsch suggests there is a gap between the knowledge of the general public and the legal experts. This instills Kirsch, and other legal experts with the authority to establish the reality of what actually is. Kirsch notes that “the court has to function as a court, not as a political body”. He also sets himself apart from critics by using sarcastic language in the characterization of opposing arguments, such as his statement that “we’re not dealing with shoplifting”, or his statement that the process cannot be stopped as a matter of ”convenience”. The use of sarcastic language emphasizes his contempt for opponents of the ICC, and constructs the ideas attributed to its detractors as absurd.

As Bourdieu has pointed out, what is particularly powerful in the juridical discourse is the representation of the law as acting impartially and independently. Thus, it is often reiterated by supporters or officials of the ICC that, once the case was accepted, the legal process simply takes over. This is why when the ICC Registrar, Silvana Arbia, is asked the sensitive question of whether the ICC would have recognized the peace agreement between the LRA/M and the government had it been signed, she responds that “our role is not to recognize agreements made between Governments and rebel leaders (like Kony). We are a judicial body that hears cases on crimes committed and pass a sentence accordingly” (Muyanja 2008). The emphasis on the very limited function of the Court steers political responsibility away from the Court and depersonalizes its activities. The authority of the juridical field is also established through continued use of legal language as well as persuasive and authoritative rhetorical styles even where its grounds may be weak, such as in the ability of the Court to have its arrest warrants executed. When asked about the arrests of

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the LRA/M commanders, a public information officer of the Court responded, “The governments of Uganda, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo are obligated to give effect to the arrest warrants, and we are confident that they will honour their joint commitment to do so.” She also cites Article 86 of the Rome Statute, saying “State parties shall… cooperate fully with the Court in its investigation and prosecution of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court” (IRIN News 2006b).

In a final exposé of how international justice has been constituted, a look at Pierre Hazan’s (2004) opening to his book on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) demonstrates a gathering of many of the discourses presented here. Hazan’s depiction is meant to represent the larger aspirations that lay behind the establishment of the ICTY:

This international court, equipped with a budget of $100 million and eight hundred employees to judge a mere handful of individuals, aims to be a lesson to the world: the serene justice of The Hague set against the tumult of the Balkans, civilization founded on law juxtaposed against hatred and barbarity. But the stakes of the tribunal surpass even Yugoslavia, even the legitimate aspirations of the victims and of public opinion, for, ever since Auschwitz and Hiroshima, humanity has glimpsed its own extinction. In this world haunted by vulnerability, liberated from a cold war that had paradoxically checked its own demons, justice appears as both a hope and a barrier against the chaos unleashed by ideologies of hatred and destruction. (Hazan 2004:5)

Deconstructing the ICC in Uganda The description of the ICC as a moral institution that is contributing to the advancement of humankind through its civilizing forces is a difficult narrative to challenge. The idea that the Court is working to end impunity and prevent

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further atrocities and conflict while remaining a neutral and apolitical observer initially serves to render opponents to the Court as seemingly hostile and irrational. After all, any sensible person would wish to see the masterminds of mass killing imprisoned and future violence forestalled. By imagining the ICC as a key component or symbol of our “march of human progress”, the Court is instilled with a righteousness that is difficult to overcome. The Court is perceived as a vehicle of what is morally right. It is presented as an institution which is neutral, apolitical and above human manipulation. But this international justice discourse that constructs the ICC as a moral institution has important political implications. It allows the observer to overlook numerous limitations and weaknesses of the Court while promoting a kind of faith in its activities.

Upon closer scrutiny, as will be discussed below, the ICC, particularly in its activities in Uganda, does not live up to the key characterizations of the international justice discourse. Such a discrepancy between real processes and discourse has been described as an evaluation of its “practical adequacy” by the sociologist Andrew Sayer and linguist Norman Fairclough (Sayer 2000). Practical adequacy refers to the degree to which discourses “are reliable guides to action, whether what they suggest or imply about what will happen if we act in certain ways actually does happen” (Fairclough 2006: 5). Fairclough goes on to say that discourses “which can be shown to be not adequate for real processes, which lack ‘practical adequacy’, can also be shown to be used to create and sustain unjust or undemocratic positions and relations of power, and can in that sense be regarded as ideologies.” The degree to which an international justice discourse differs from real processes and disguises certain elements of its agenda would suggest that an international justice discourse indeed functions as an ideology, working to maintain certain relations of power. At some level, the establishment of a criminal court can be seen as a means by which seemingly

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uncontrollable processes, institutions and individuals can be brought under control. As attempts to promote democracy, end corruption and conflict have not been completely successful and major interventions into countries have come increasingly under attack the possibility of extending some control through legal measures without great expenditures of money is likely very appealing.

The keystone foundations of the international justice discourse can each be challenged by looking closely at the situation of northern Uganda and the nature of the Court itself. To begin with, an examination of the claim that the ICC is ending impunity illustrates huge gaps in the practical adequacy of the discourse and the actual situation. The claim to ending impunity is quite significant to the ICC; it was key to the rationale behind its creation, and it is an idea that continues to be circulated in conjunction with the Court. Most certainly, the establishment of the ICC has contributed to the transformation of the international legal landscape and has the potential to seriously challenge the expected life outcomes of persons responsible for horrific crimes, but to mark the establishment of the ICC as equivalent to the end of impunity is at the very least an overstatement.

As has become very apparent, the Court faces considerable challenges. Without the authority to make arrests, it is feasible that persons indicted by the Court may never be made to answer the charges against them. The case of Omar Hassan Al-Bashir is one example, and, as of yet, Joseph Kony and his two colleagues themselves remain at large, out of reach of the ICC. More importantly, an end to impunity suggests that impunity everywhere will be addressed, but the ICC was created with very apparent shortcomings. The United States, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Myanmar, Iran and Israel (among others) all refused to become members of the International Criminal Court. The absence of these countries is significant, not only because

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they represent a large portion of the world’s population and a considerable portion of global political and economic strength, but also because each country could arguably merit investigations by the ICC for their actions either inside or outside of their borders. Since the ICC can only investigate the actions of individuals who are nationals of a state party or who committed crimes on the territory of a state party, it is highly unlikely that any individuals from these countries will be held accountable for their actions. The only other means of bringing an individual before the Court who is not a national of a state party is if the Security Council refers the case, as was done for the investigation of activities in Sudan. However, the political weight of countries such as the United States, China, Russia and Israel makes a Security Council referral against many non-member states almost impossible.

This contests the idea of ending impunity, but also challenges the suggestion that the Court is making a break with history. The Court embodies many of the global political inequalities that exist and, some would argue, reinforces the current political and power structures in the geopolitical landscape which are heavily weighted in favor of a few powerful countries. Moreover, it promises a very limited form of justice in northern Uganda. Nonetheless, it is presented as the best means to handle individuals responsible for mass atrocities and suffering, at least in those distant places where the government is considered unable to bring justice on its own. An international court, so the story goes, is the only rational route to a savory outcome.

Not only is universal impunity unlikely given the limited jurisdiction of the Court, but many in northern Uganda would argue that it is also supporting impunity by allowing selective prosecution. A common sentiment expressed to me by individuals in northern Uganda is the feeling that the ICC has targeted only one

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side of the conflict.23 Many Acholi people stuck in the displaced camps of northern Uganda feel that they are victims of the rebels and the government and that only dealing with one side could simply allow unsettled issues to fester. Quoting one camp resident, “the government and the LRA/M should both go to the ICC since they both disturbed them [civilians] they both should answer for what they have done” (Interview with author, March 2007). But it is not only the people of northern Uganda who have made such statements. In a 2004 news release, Richard Dicker, the director of the International Justice program of Human Rights Watch, is quoted as stating, “Human Rights Watch has documented many shocking abuses by the LRA/M in Uganda, but the ICC prosecutor cannot ignore crimes that Ugandan government troops allegedly have committed.” The news release also notes that Human Rights Watch has “reported on abuses by Ugandan government troops, the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF). Violations committed by the UPDF include extrajudicial killings, rape and sexual assault, forced displacement of over one million civilians, and the recruitment of children under the age of 15 into government militias”24 (Human Rights Watch 2004, see also Apuuli 2004).

The forced displacement of the population into poorly serviced camps has been argued by many to be a kind of collective punishment against the Acholi people and other northern populations (Apuuli 2004; ARLPI 2001; Dolan 2005; Gersony 1997: 52). The government has claimed it is for the security of the people, calling them “protected villages”, but the violent way in which many were

23 The ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has stated on numerous occasions that the investigations will cover both sides of the conflict, but they chose to begin with the LRA/M due to the gravity of their crimes. However, to date, no case against any government or army official has been made public nor has there been any indication that one is forthcoming (e.g. International Criminal Court 2005). 24 Government militias in Uganda, otherwise known as Local Defense Units (LDU) are locally based security forces recruited by the government to assist in the protection of the population. They have been heavily criticized not only for recruiting minors, but also for providing scant training and only basic weapons, usually old rifles or even bows and arrows.

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pushed into the camps and the poor conditions under which the people were made to live has seriously called into question this explanation. Indeed, the Rome Statute describes “deportation or forcible transfer of a population” as a “crime against humanity” under Article 7 in Part 2 of the Statute. It defines deportation or forcible transfer of a population as “the forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law” (International Criminal Court 1999). Whether or not the context in which the people of northern Uganda were pushed into and kept in camps is considered legal or illegal under international law is the legal argument that would need to be put to the test, but there are many who believe the evidence speaks for itself, including former UN Under-Secretary General, Olara Otunnu (Butagira and Richards 2009), who has been very outspoken about what he describes as “war crimes” in northern Uganda (see also Branch 2008; Olara 2009).

It is also important to note that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over events which happened prior to its inception in July 2002. This often overlooked detail is quite significant to the case since, on the one hand, it was the Ugandan government which invited the ICC to investigate the conflict, providing the government with a clear advantage over the rebels since they were able to consider their position and amend their operations as necessary in order to ensure their actions would not attract the scrutiny of ICC investigators. On the other hand, and arguably the more important point, the acceptance of a case by the ICC involving an ongoing conflict that dates back before the jurisdiction of the Court rejects the historical nature of conflict and violent events. It single- handedly reifies ahistorical presentations of the conflict, leaving one to believe that particular incidences of violence that occur in war have no antecedent, but are simply random acts of violence. In the case of northern Uganda, this leaves

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out the actions of the NRA/UPDF in the early years of the conflict that are often considered as a contributing factor in the root causes of war.25 The brutality of the then NRA between 1988 and 1992 is considered to have caused many residents of northern Uganda to join rebel groups fighting the government. Amnesty International reported on many extra-judicial killings by the NRA in their 1991 report, including the alleged killing of civilians in Bur Coro and Komyoke (Amnesty International 1991). During this period, especially under Operation North, the NRA has also been accused of publicly raping women and men, burying people alive and indiscriminately killing civilians (ICG Africa 2004: 3, 30). 26 Within the camps, memories of such incidents still linger in the minds of the older residents. One man who had been shot in the leg by NRA troops in 1987 said, “…at that time the troops just get you and shoot you” (Interview with author, October 2005).

Given the very limited scope of the ICC in the events of the conflict in northern Uganda, it is difficult to make the claim that the Court is even challenging impunity. It could certainly not be argued that the institution is ending impunity in northern Uganda. Nonetheless, alternative methods of seeking justice and obtaining accountability such as those suggested in the agreement between the government and the LRA/M as part of the larger peace deal were held up to just such scrutiny. Amnesty International declared “that the proposed accountability systems set out in the Agreement and Annex only provide for very limited justice, truth and reparations and will, therefore, not end impunity” (Amnesty International 2008: 4). So while the various methods put forward in the Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation between the Government of

25 The imbalanced attribution of blame between the LRA/M and the Ugandan government may also have had an impact on the peace process if one is to believe the comments made by the late Vincent Otti to the effect that the LRA/M commanders would turn themselves over to the ICC only if members of the Ugandan army were also indicted for their actions (Egadu 2007). 26 The rape of men is locally known as tek gungu.

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Uganda and the LRA/M that was signed in June 2007 were evaluated on their ability to end impunity, the intervention of the ICC has come under much less scrutiny for its ability to do the same. Instead, the main critique aimed at the Court asks whether it is obstructing peace; its ability to end impunity appears to be widely taken for granted.

The notion that the ICC is a neutral and apolitical institution is also questionable. As a fledgling institution, the ICC was particularly vulnerable to politics. It needed to find cases quickly in order to justify its existence, but the possibility that countries would rush to refer cases to the Court seemed unlikely. The Prosecutor therefore claims to have examined the possible cases around the world and found that the crimes committed in Uganda and the DRC the most grave examples. His public announcement in July, 2003, that the DRC could qualify for investigations by the Court made explicit the Court’s intentions and was probably meant to put pressure on DRC and Uganda to cooperate with the Court by referring their cases voluntarily. In the end, the two countries did voluntarily refer their cases to the Court in what the ICC has described as a “policy of inviting and welcoming voluntary referrals” (International Criminal Court 2006: 7). In the case of northern Uganda, the invitation by the government has proved controversial since the government is also considered to be responsible for committing abuses. Though the Prosecutor has stated that the Court investigates both sides it has had difficulty asserting its impartiality due to the Prosecutor’s decision to announce the Court’s acceptance of the referral standing side-by-side with the President of Uganda. It has been reported that the Prosecutor was advised against his decision to stand publicly with the President, but that he went against this advice since he felt he needed to obtain the cooperation of President Museveni (Bravin 2006).

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In the context of an ongoing conflict, it is difficult to understand how a Court that becomes involved in the issuing of arrest warrants for individual actors partaking in the conflict can consider their actions to be apolitical, particularly if one takes into account their need to obtain the cooperation of host governments. In the case of Uganda, the Prosecutor has said the gravest crimes committed since 2002 were committed by the LRA/M, but this excludes acts allegedly committed by the government army prior to 2002, a fact that is itself political, since it provides a political advantage to the Ugandan government by ignoring the history of the conflict. Moreover, the lack of indictments against any member of the army or government in either Uganda or DRC may appear to send the message that cooperation with the ICC will provide some lenience for alleged abuses by governments.

In cases of ongoing conflict, ICC intervention can only be considered to have an impact on the outcome of the conflict, whether positive or negative, making the ICC a party to the conflict in a similar way that humanitarian organizations have come to understand their own relationship to conflicts. Furthermore, the Court is also vulnerable to instrumentalization by different parties in the conflict. In the case of Uganda, the President’s relation to the Court has been very questionable. On the one hand, he invited the Court to investigate the conflict, but has since that time taken part in peace talks that have promised to deal with the rebels in national courts. The wavering position of the government has angered supporters of the ICC and has sent mixed signals to everyone. In one article published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, it was noted that “some ICC officials and non-government organizations believe Museveni has toyed with the court, cynically undermining its credibility” (Glassborow 2006). In the same article, Judge Richard Goldstone is quoted as saying “that the ICC cannot be used opportunistically, “like a convenient hot water tap that can be turned on or off.” However, Museveni’s position appears to be even more

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complicated than simply deciding he no longer needs the assistance of the ICC, since on the one hand he offers alternative mechanisms to the LRA/M; on the other hand, he does little to actually remove the ICC from the case. Though legislation has been passed and some steps have been taken to establish a Special Division of the High Court that could deal with the cases. Some grey areas in the legislation and jurisdiction of the Court remain, however, and these have served to perpetuate skepticism regarding the government’s ultimate intentions. Meanwhile, Museveni appears to purposefully undermine the possibility that the ICC would have confidence in national justice systems by making controversial statements about the government’s intentions. For example, during an interview in London in 2008, Museveni was quoted as saying that “what we have said in the agreement is that instead of using this formal Western type of justice we are going to use the traditional justice, a traditional blood settlement mechanism” (Croft 2008). Not only does this contradict the understanding of the Agreement, which suggests that the LRA/M commanders would be tried in a High Court, but his word choice, particularly while speaking to reporters in London, appear to be intentionally provocative. By using the term “blood settlement” he would seem to be purposefully evoking ideas of archaic rituals that can be juxtaposed to the “formal Western type of justice”, very likely inspiring horror in what would be a largely Western audience in London. 27 He goes on to say that “under this system, someone who has ‘committed a mistake’ asks for forgiveness and pays some compensation, ‘that settles their accountability’”. His exceedingly nonchalant way of describing the traditional system of justice and the association of the horrific crimes committed by the

27 A blood settlement or blood compensation is a form of accountability identified first by Evans- Pritchard among the Nuer and other similar groups. A blood settlement, usually involving the payment of cattle in return for the taking of human life, worked to assuage the desire for vengeance and end the pollution caused by homicide. Though the terminology used by Museveni is technically correct, the context within which he chooses to use this terminology is remarkable since the average observer would not have this anthropological understanding of the term.

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LRA/M with the idea of a “mistake” also appear poised to create controversy. It is difficult to interpret Museveni’s intentions; however, it is clear that his relationship with the ICC as well as the LRA/M is not straight-forward. This entangles the ICC in a complex web of power-plays and politics from which it is difficult for the institution to extract itself. In such a context, the ICC, and particularly the Prosecutor can become vulnerable to involvement in political games that encourage them to begin to act according to more personal motivations. Political strategizing and the use of leverage in order to gain cooperation can become the order of the day, moving the Court further into the field of politics.

Another foundation upon which the International Court has been built is that of deterrence. Many of the arguments supporting the establishment of a permanent court cited the deterrent effects it could have on future atrocities as key to its justification. Whether or not international criminal justice will increase deterrence is a subject of debate and there has been little consensus in the field. Actual assessments of the impact of international law based on international tribunals and special courts that have existed since the early 1990s appear to have mixed results, but many argue it is too soon to declare a verdict one way or the other (e.g., Akhavan 2001; Wippman 1999-2000). In truth, the deterrent effect of the Court will be difficult to measure even after the Court has been given some time to establish a track record of accountability. Causal links are not always easy to identify and appearances of greater compliance to international standards are sometimes strategies of political domination that work to conceal ongoing abuses. On the one hand, if there is evidence of a government applying more rigid standards of rule of law and accountability particularly in relation to acts of violence within their territory, this could be considered a positive sign of deterrence. On the other hand, one has to ask if cases where violence and other violations of law increase as a result of

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prosecutorial threats should be balanced against the positive examples. Although it is speculative, it is likely that the impact of the Court will be mixed with some positive and some negative impacts related to deterrence, especially in the short term. It is certain, however, that the lofty aspirations of an end to future atrocities as a direct result of international criminal justice is a vision more closely related to utopia than reality. Not unlike other forms of criminal activity, economic, historical, political and social circumstances are likely more important factors in deterring violations of humanitarian law than legal factors. Particularly in a post-conflict setting, continued peace requires much more than the prosecution of some individuals. The underlying causes of the conflict must be addressed, including economic inequities, political exclusion, unequal resource distribution and other factors. Certainly, the immediate effect of the Court’s intervention in Uganda cannot be described as deterrence. More than one thousand people have been killed in DRC and tens of thousands are displaced. This does not refute the overall possibility of a balance toward deterrence in the future, but the assumptions should be modest and contingent on a variety of other factors.

Conclusion An international justice discourse constructs the ICC as an institution which will end impunity and move humankind towards an increasingly elevated level of civilization by achieving justice and bringing peace. This discourse relies on other important discourses of our time, including human rights and human security. The power of these discourses lies in the degree to which many of their elements have become naturalized; that is to say, they have become a kind of common sense that is taken for granted and left unspoken. This is especially true in Western populations, but also increasingly so around the world as these discourses have become instrumentalized and internalized in different struggles. The intervention of the ICC in northern Uganda, however, has brought many

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elements of this discourse into question, since the intervention was not well received by the population and leaders of the northern Ugandan region where most of the violence during the two-decade conflict has occurred. What the disruption to the international justice discourse has revealed, however, is the degree to which the discourse does not fit the reality. This separation is not easily articulated, however, given the level of naturalization that has occurred in terms of discourses of human rights and law and order as well as our fear of the dangers that have accompanied the processes of globalization. The result is that, despite reasonable protests by leaders in northern Uganda about the potential consequences of bringing indictments against rebel leaders before the war is ended, most outside observers are convinced of the virtue of the Court and its actions without giving serious consideration to the particular context of the intervention.

The deconstruction of an international justice discourse also demonstrates how power is embedded in our notions of institutions and processes through their presentations in the media and other public arenas. Our belief in institutions to achieve certain outcomes and to resolve relevant problems of our times, even if these beliefs are not substantiated, is an important means by which institutions become instilled with authority and influence international affairs. Such beliefs allow institutions such as the ICC to direct elements of the international agenda and shape the nature of international relations based on assumptions of legitimacy and efficacy. The danger that exists in this scenario is that we will not recognize the essential difference between an ideal project set out by an institution and the actual limitations under which it operates. In other words, while the overall project of the ICC may be quite worthy, in its current form the limitations of the court risk to undermine its very premise by handing out unequal justice, allowing selective impunity and by creating ever greater intractability in ongoing conflicts. Instead, the Court should attempt to function

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with a knowledge of its limitations and the understanding that it cannot exist outside of the politics of peace building, this will assist the Court in making decisions that may impact the lives of thousands of people and bring it closer to the real needs of those people.

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4. HISTORIES OF A CONFLICT

Introduction The announcement by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court that he had accepted the invitation of President Museveni of Uganda to investigate the ongoing conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the government of Uganda for war crimes and crimes against humanity in January 2004 did more than just signal the beginning of a new era of international justice. It quickly ushered in a debate that challenged the sincerity of founding principles of the Court. More than any previous international legal institution, the ICC was founded on the principles of victim’s justice. Under the Rome Statute, victims are given more opportunity than ever before to participate in cases and can be awarded reparations or damages by the court. On the Canadian government’s foreign affairs website the relationship of the ICC with victim’s rights is described as follows:

One of the International Criminal Court's primary goals is to deliver justice to the victims of the world's most horrific crimes. Indeed, the plight of the victims of conflict around the world was a major source of motivation for the delegates who drafted the Rome Statute. As a result, the Rome Statute is sensitive to the needs and rights of victims both as individuals who have suffered traumatic experiences and witnesses who play a crucial role in bringing criminals to justice. (DFAIT N.d.)

And yet, shortly after the historic announcement of the Court’s first case, instead of being welcomed by the victims of LRA/M atrocities, the ICC was met with a great deal of skepticism and antagonism. Rather than being portrayed as coming

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to the aid of the Acholi people in northern Uganda, the population who suffered the most in the more than 20 year conflict, the ICC was represented as denying the victims their right to peace and stability. For most outside observers, the ICC intervention read as a reasonable action responding to the violence that had engulfed the population for many years, but for the local leaders in Acholi this response was not understood and, I would argue, could not be understood in the same way.

This chapter explores the reasons why the actions of the ICC were so ill received by the very people the ICC is meant to serve. While most examinations of the debate surrounding the ICC intervention in northern Uganda tend to take the relevant arguments at face value, this examination of events will look more closely at what underlies the debate through a critical analysis of the discourse. The examination will begin by exploring the discursive space which the ICC entered when it announced its decision to investigate the conflict. This discursive space is important because it precipitated the reaction to the intervention by the local leaders in the Acholi region and also shaped the nature of the debate that followed. Particularly at the international level, observers failed to understand the underlying significance and meaning of the arguments put forward by the local leaders regarding the best way forward to end the conflict. Unfortunately, the underestimation of the importance of the positions of the local leaders meant that the negative reception of the ICC intervention was, arguably, a foregone conclusion. This is the case because the ICC intervention tended to contradict elements of a critical counter-discourse that was emerging as a response to the policies, actions and representations of the government regarding the conflict and the situation of the Acholi people. Though the dominant presentation was particularly fluent in the southern region of the country, it shaped how people inside and outside of Uganda thought

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about the war, how the government chose to address the war, and how people imagined the nature of the Acholi people.

When the ICC entered Uganda it was entering an ongoing conflict, but also an already established, albeit continually constructed discursive space. Within this discursive space, the history and nature of the conflict had been produced and reproduced by different actors throughout the almost two decades of its existence; but in more recent years a more localized interpretation of the conflict had begun to prevail over the national level discourse. This trend had involved the active advocacy of many local leaders, but they also enjoyed the support of international actors, particularly the staff of INGOs working in the region who had become more intimately familiar with the political and emotional landscape of northern Uganda. Thus, it is not to argue here that this was a locally circumscribed discursive space – if such a thing is even possible – but that the ICC entered into this arena without necessarily understanding the consequences or the degree to which the positions and potential actions of the Court were to run counter to the local and already present understandings. In order to understand how the ICC intervention came to be situated in opposition to the agenda of the Acholi leaders one needs to examine the competing narratives that were in existence at the time of the decision of the ICC to investigate the LRA/M conflict and the underlying struggles that these narratives represented.

Histories of a Conflict For most of the duration of the conflict in northern Uganda, the events went largely unnoticed by international media and foreign governments. As has been argued elsewhere (e.g., Finnström 2008), this oversight can in part be attributed to the over-enthusiasm of Western donors and institutions such as the World Bank to highlight Uganda as a development success story. When Museveni seized power from Tito Okello Lutwa in 1986, Uganda had been through a

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decade-and-a-half of political instability, violence and conflict. Idi Amin’s military coup in 1971 brought with it almost a decade of authoritarian leadership backed by extreme violence. Political uncertainty, the expulsion of the Indian merchant class, as well as financial mismanagement and corruption, all wreaked havoc on the economy leaving infrastructure and social services in disrepair. The years following Amin’s defeat at the hands of the Ugandan National Liberation Front and the Tanzanian Army during the Liberation War did not bring immediate relief. Continued political division and conflict in Uganda made recovery almost impossible and the economy continued to decline.

Once Museveni had seized power, his political inclinations initially caused him to be reluctant to accept IMF and World Bank funds to finance the stabilization and rehabilitation of the economy. He had criticized the Obote II government for corruption he felt was linked to IMF programs, but it was soon clear external funds would be necessary if recovery was to occur (Hansen and Twaddle 1991b:2). Once Museveni agreed to accept the economic reforms that were a condition of IMF funding, the Economic Recovery Programme was launched. From the outset, the programme was largely driven and financed by external institutions and individuals. This can be evidenced by the 1992-1993 fiscal year when the government of Uganda acknowledged that 92 percent of the Rehabilitation and Development Plan would be financed by foreign donors. Moreover, the administration of economic policy was also carried out mainly by foreigners, as noted in one analysis: “given the extent of decline, and even the total disintegration of some elements of the Ugandan state apparatus, donor agencies became directly involved in what remained of the national administrative regime” (Himbara and Sultan 1995: 90).

This level of foreign investment in Uganda had a number of consequences; most important in this case is the degree to which Western donor governments were

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willing to overlook weaknesses of the Ugandan government in order to highlight its relative successes. Despite the fact that contemporary policy objectives of Western donors were to promote democracy in sub-Saharan Africa as a condition of ongoing aid, the West put relatively little pressure on Museveni to institute a multi-party system or to undertake other political reforms. In one author’s analysis (Hauser 1999: 632-4), the main reasons Western donor governments chose to use persuasion rather than tie funding to political reform – as they were doing in other African countries – included the desire to promote the success of liberal economic policies in Uganda. This was particularly true since the West had come under attack for their imposition of Western economic programs and policies in highly vulnerable and dependent developing countries. In contrast to many other countries undertaking structural reform, Uganda was exhibiting positive economic growth and was held up as a model of how structural adjustment can work in Africa. Moreover, Hauser argues, Uganda proved to be a keen Western ally in the region during a time when most other East African countries were politically or economically unstable. The need for a positive example of Western economic policy and a political ally in the region meant that Western donor governments were willing to overlook increasing criticisms of Museveni’s autocratic governing style and human rights abuses in the continuing conflict to the north. To some extent, the desire to create stability in a politically unstable context may also have influenced decisions to continue funding to the Ugandan state, but this does not explain the level of praise that has been extended to the government even while abuses by the government continued to occur.

The ability of Western donor governments to overlook the conflict in northern Uganda and the atrocities committed by both sides also depended upon the representation of the war at the national level as a local and marginal conflict. Within Uganda, the northern war had attracted little attention in the capital of

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Kampala or in other regions of Uganda. Initially, it was just one of a number of conflicts that arose following Museveni’s capture of Uganda. Fighting in the north, as in the northeast and northwest began with groups that were made up of former government soldiers. These conflicts were largely viewed as the final battlefronts of the former government and Museveni’s NRA. Once Lakwena’s HSMF was defeated and the UPDA/M had signed peace agreements with the government, resistance to the NRM/A in the north was generally considered to have been defeated and resolved. The subsequent continuation of conflict in the form of Joseph Kony’s fighters, eventually known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, was generally represented by those outside of northern Uganda as a new conflict that reflected the interests and actions of a small and rag-tag group of fighters with unclear motivations or objectives. Though Kony’s fighters were also made up of many of the same people as previous insurgencies, the government has managed to isolate the LRA/M as a group of belligerents determined to continue fighting, but with no real political agenda. This perception allowed the government to dismiss the conflict and delegitimize the struggle in the eyes of the general Ugandan public.

Apart from the occasional sidebar in the newspaper noting the number of rebels killed or civilians ambushed, the conflict had escaped any significant scrutiny at the national level. The generally accepted representation of the conflict was that a band of criminal elements led by a self-described messianic prophet were attempting to overthrow the government. However, the threat to the central government was considered insignificant and the violence inflicted on the population in the north was either overlooked or viewed as an outcome of the population’s complicity with the rebels – in the sense that the population only needed to cease support for the rebels and the violence would end. Thus, the population was considered responsible for their own predicament. The emphasis on the apparent religious ambitions of the LRA/M to rule by the Ten

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Commandments and the lack of attention to any political agenda meant that the government could easily characterize the rebels as a lunatic fringe that required only military attention (see Finnström 2008). But even the lack of success by the military to overcome the rebels was initially met with little criticism. This could at least be partly explained by the fact that the population most affected by the conflict was far from the capital in distance and also marginal in other respects. According to received wisdom in the southern regions of Uganda, the Acholi population was generally considered to be a violent group, and, they were blamed along with other northern populations, for much of the violence that has taken place in Uganda since independence. The Acholi in particular were blamed for the violence that occurred during Museveni’s insurgency against the Obote II government. And because Museveni ultimately ousted a government led by an Acholi, namely Tito Okello Lutwa, the Acholi became the ultimate opponents of Museveni and the NRM/A, which likely caused their situation to be looked upon with less sympathy than it might otherwise have been.

The degree to which ethnicity has played a role in the conceptualization of the LRA/M conflict can be seen in the way in which the conflict is debated in the public sphere. An article written by Mark Leopold (1999) about representations of the conflict in the Ugandan press is particularly insightful. The author notes that most explanations of the conflict emerging in the press between mid-1996 and early 1997, a period of heightened interest in the conflict, largely due to a Parliamentary Inquiry into the conflict that was established at this time, focus on ethnic elements ranging “from historical constructivism to pure primordialism” (1999: 223). Ethnic stereotypes of Acholi as a naturally violent and militaristic group fed into representations of the conflict as an ‘Acholi conflict.’ This representation posits that the conflict is simply a case of Acholi killing Acholi, placing the government in the role of referee. Leopold quotes one newspaper contribution with a particularly extremist primordialist position: “Those Acholi

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are murderers and they should be isolated from a true human society. The only life they have lived is plundering and shedding blood. Anything short of that, they will not accept. They hate anybody who tries to stop them from killing. That is why they hate Museveni’”(1999: 225). Another letter sent by a correspondent to the Monitor states,

The fact is clearly visible that Acholi are killing Acholi whatever journalists and politicians want us to believe. The trend is part of Acholi history when you consider the Labong-Gipir28 saga where an infant accidentally swallows your wife’s bead and you insist and ensure that the babe gets dissected and the said bead washed from the gory entrails. In a nutshell, most Acholi that other Ugandans have met...have little respect for human life. (1999: 224-5)

This type of stereotyping of the Acholi population was also evident during my own research. On one occasion, an officer in the army remarked to me that “this conflict is grassroots; it is us who are bringing peace to these people, because these people like to fight” (Discussion with author, February 2007). The construction of the conflict as a local conflict that has little to do with the rest of Uganda, let alone the government, diminished the responsibility placed on the

28 The author is referring to an important myth that describes the historic division that occurred between the ancestors of the Alur and the Acholi people. Labongo and Gipir are brothers of Luo origin who enter into a dispute when the younger brother, Gipir, uses his elder brother’s spear against an elephant that had entered the village. The elephant escaped with the spear still embedded in its flesh. Since the spear was an ancestral spear that symbolized the position of the elder brother, he grew angry with his brother and sent him to find the spear. The journey put the younger brother’s life at great risk, but he succeeded nonetheless with the help of an old woman. Gipir returned to his village and gave the spear to his brother, though still fuming with resentment. In the commotion of his return, some beads fell from the pocket of Gipir and were picked up and swallowed by a young daughter of Labongo. The beads were a gift of the old woman, and, seeking vengeance, Gipir ordered his elder brother to return the beads immediately. Filled with rage, Labongo grabbed his daughter, cut open her stomach and returned the beads. The event struck anguish into the hearts of the people and the brothers decided to part ways forever. The younger brother, Gipir, eventually crossed the Nile and became the ancestor of the Alur people, while Labongo became the ancestor of the Acholi (Finnström 2008:47-49).

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government to put an end to the violence. It also heightened the sense of heroics on the side of the government when they did decide to intervene in this conflict for the sake of the local population.

The Acholi were not always considered to be militaristic, however. In fact, in a study carried out by the colonial administration in the early 1940s to assess the soldierly qualities of Ugandan ethnic groups, the Acholi were placed seven out of ten in a hierarchy of ranking (Kabwegyere 1995: 102). However, the colonial administration was hesitant to place both political and military power in the hands of the Baganda, particularly in the post-World War period, and therefore found it expedient to create a division of labour along ethnic lines. The Nilotic and Hamitic northern populations were commonly recruited into the army and police force of the country, while the Southern Bantu populations were recruited as white collar workers. This division was legitimized through the discursive construction of the northern populations as more savage and militaristic populations who were well suited for fighting, but too backward for the task of administering and leading the country (Mamdani 1976). As noted in Chapter Two, the ethnic stereotype of the Acholi as a warlike population has been reinforced through the political instrumentalization of ethnicity since Independence. Museveni in particular is believed to have stoked ethnic division during his insurgency by encouraging negative stereotypes of northern populations as uncivilized and barbaric and relied on the antagonism of the Baganda against northerners to gain support for his rebellion against the government. The authors of one report go so far as to suggest that the NRA promoted ethnic hatred, particularly against the Acholi, and they trained their fighters to despise the northern enemy and dispose of them (HURIPEC 2003).

The atrocities that occurred in the Luwero triangle were particularly critical in popularizing the concept of the Acholi people as violent. Even though Acholi

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made up only a portion of the government forces at the time and held few leadership positions in the military, the Acholi nonetheless became commonly associated with the violence and looting that took place (Finnström 2008:82). The concentration of blame on the Acholi may be a result of historical processes that retroactively highlighted the role of the Acholi in the Luwero triangle as the insurgencies against the NRM/A based in the Acholi region continued. On the other hand, the Co-ordinator of Kacoke Madit, Dr. Ben Latigo, argues that the ethnonym ‘Acholi’ has simply become a catch-all reference for all northern tribes:

For most of the people of southern Uganda, Acholi is used erroneously to identify most Nilotic, Sudanic, and Hamitic peoples of northern Uganda. These include the Alur, Jonam, Jopadhola, Itesot, Jie, Kakwa, Karamajong, Kumam, Labwor, Langi, Lugbara, Madi, etc. Considering that the pre-1986 Uganda Armed Forces were dominated by nationals from these ethnic groups, President Museveni and some in his government have created a stigma in the use of the Acholi identity to gain political advantage from citizens from other parts of Uganda. As a consequence, the “real” Acholi have suffered untold discrimination and inhuman treatment in all sectors of Uganda life since 1986 (Latigo 1997:1).

The already existing notion of the northern tribes as naturally martial combined with the events of Luwero triangle solidified ethnic stereotypes of Acholi as violent troublemakers. In turn, as violence in northern Uganda accelerated, particularly LRA/M violence against the Acholi, these stereotypes have come to seem like self-fulfilling prophecy. As a result, there has been little pressure on the government to put all their resources into ending the war. The Acholi could simply be written off as an ungovernable population in the throes of self- destruction. Unfortunately, ethnic stereotypes and dismissive attitudes also extended beyond the Ugandan population and gained legitimacy in international

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audiences. For example, in his book on northern Uganda the anthropologist Sverker Finnström describes a conversation he had with a Swedish diplomat: “For him *the Swedish diplomat+, the religious dimension was proof of something tribalistic, even uncivilized and savage, and he dismissed the religious claims of the LRM/A rebels as ‘humbug,’ only proving the Acholi’s ‘inability to take their responsibility’ in the development of Uganda. ‘This is typical for Africa. Why should the people in southern Uganda take the responsibility for Acholis killing other Acholis?’”(Finnström 2008: 26). In all, negative stereotyping of the Acholi and other northern populations has contributed to a felt sense of discrimination and subordination. Many Acholi communicated to me the perception that other populations looked down upon them and this sensation tended to deepen suspicions regarding the actions and intentions of the government. For example, some persons I spoke with stated that they thought the government was punishing them for the actions of previous regimes or simply attempting to exterminate or severely compromise the population so that the land may be confiscated. One person even speculated that the Ebola outbreak that occurred in northern Uganda in 2000 was a result of an intentional government plot to infect the population by transporting soldiers infected in DRC directly to the Acholi region. Similar allegations have also been made about HIV/AIDS. Rumors that the government intentionally sends infected soldiers to the region abound and perpetuate cynicism toward Museveni and the NRM/A.

The idea that the conflict is a local conflict also suggests that at least some of the population in the Acholi region support or benefit from the war. In many cases, the rest of Uganda perceives all Acholi as guilty by association. Some Acholi individuals I spoke to described to me how they are referred to as “Kony“ when they travel in other parts of the country, essentially equating them with the actions of the LRA/M leader. One young woman described how she was referred to as a “stone-age person” in school because the other students believed

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northerners were backward. A number of people also said they had been warned by friends not to speak Luo when they are in other parts of the country or they could be abused. This was especially true following the violence that took place in Lango and Teso districts in 2003. At this time, antagonism towards Acholi people was high and they were collectively blamed for the atrocities. This blame was often internalized by Acholi people who on some level appear to accept responsibility for the acts of the rebels. A meeting I attended between the traditional Acholi chiefs and local politicians illustrates this point. Before the meeting began there was some discussion between participants about reconciliation between districts; one local female politician recounted her experience at some meetings set in Lira and Soroti districts aimed at bringing reconciliation. She described how the women from Lira and Soroti showed a great deal of anger towards them and stated that “your sons and your daughters have killed our children.” She said that initially she and the other Acholi women who accompanied her had simply bowed their heads in shame and felt embarrassed since they felt the truth of the women’s statements. She said it took some time before they had enough courage to reply back to the women of Lira and Soroti and to defend themselves.

The degree to which these stereotypes run deep is evident in the fact that only simple referents need to be alluded to in order to conjure up much more complex understandings, such as Museveni’s use of the skulls of Luwero to convey messages of warning against northern leaders. The current LC V, Norbert Mao, explained how when he was campaigning for guild president at university, one of his opponents raised the specter of the “northern bogeyman” as his primary campaign platform against Mao’s candidacy. He was pretending to promise protection from “those people”, thereby making subtle reference to associations that are clearly understood by the general population. Even during Parliamentary discussions regarding a particularly brutal LRA/M attack against

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residents of Atiak in Gulu district, one MP, though joining his colleagues in condemning the attack, still felt comfortable in making public insinuations about local support of the rebels:

I would like to appeal to local leaders because Kony cannot operate without a local support. I think our people who come from there should come out and say, and tell us why is Kony really continuously in that area. They should also real responsibility because me I do not want to believe that Kony flies from Sudan and lands there without a local support I think really it is important for local leaders to come and explain why Kony has really refused to leave the area. (Bbaale 1995)

The trend to place collective blame on the Acholi for the conflict fails to take into account the very complicated nature of the conflict. While there may be some cases of limited support of the LRA/M by Acholi citizens living in northern Uganda, such support is often the result of complicated familial relations. Some individuals who have been abducted by the LRA/M attempt to re-establish contact with their families and may give their families gifts of stolen property or food. These gifts compromise the position of the family, but commitment to their relative or an eagerness to improve their material situation may motivate them to establish positive ties with the rebels. However, limited cases such as these do not legitimize the indiscriminate labeling of Acholi as complicit in the war.

Up until the late 1990s, therefore, the generally accepted narrative of the conflict tended to assert that the conflict was of marginal consequence; it was an internal struggle mainly consisting of Acholi fighting Acholi; the rebels had no political agenda; and the rebels benefitted from local support. For most Ugandans living outside of the Acholi region, this narrative was accepted at face

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value. For most it involved events far outside the concerns of their daily lives and therefore required little scrutiny. For the government, however, the narrative provided justification for the continuation of military efforts to end the war as a preference to negotiated solutions, it removed political pressure to deal with the rebels definitively, and it gave the government a great deal of latitude in policymaking decisions affecting the area.

Local Challenges Understandably, many foreign governments and Ugandans placed a great deal of hope in Museveni and the NRM to transform the country. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of optimism that accompanied Museveni’s seizure of power also fostered willful blindness to shortcomings of the NRM. After years of violence and inept governance, both international and local actors were hopeful that the NRM would bring about promised change. Indeed, in the early years of NRM leadership, many changes were put in place that appeared to address previous weaknesses. Museveni supported a 10-Point Programme that, among other things, was meant to strengthen the rule of law and protect human rights. A Code of Conduct was put in place to govern the actions of the NRA and ensure respect of civilians by the military. These and other policies reassured Ugandans and foreign observers that Uganda was on the right path (see for e.g. Hansen and Twaddle 1991a; esp. Khiddu-Makubuya 1991). The positive perceptions of Museveni and government policy initiatives under NRM meant that official narratives of continuing conflicts, especially the conflict in northern Uganda, were generally accepted. It was not until the late 1990s that ruptures in the popular representations of the northern conflict began to appear. By this time, the conflict had existed for a decade and a number of circumstances were beginning to chip away at the overly positive evaluations of Museveni and the NRM. Evidence of this falling out can be seen in reports by international organizations and academic articles that begin to take on more critical tones in

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their assessment of events. One example of such critical analyses was written by Ellen Hauser, an academic and Fellow of US AID’s Center for Democracy and Governance. In her article published in the late nineties she writes that,

Uganda is a more divided country today than it was when the NRM came to power in 1986. Corruption is rampant, and regionalism and ethnicity continue to be the usual means of determining who gets what in the political and economic arenas. The war in northern Uganda has intensified since 1995, with newer insurgencies in other areas of the country. There is an increasing lack of tolerance and cooperation between the NRM and the political parties. Whereas in the early years of the NRM government, the leadership of both the NRM and most of the political parties displayed a spirit of reconciliation and cooperation, currently there is less tolerance and compromise (Hauser 1999: 635).

Museveni’s refusal to allow multi-party politics, evidence of continued corruption, along with increased violence in northern Uganda created a space for an alternative discourse to gain influence. The LRA/M had stepped up attacks in 1995 and 1996, causing massive suffering and gaining some international attention. The particularly horrific tactics of the LRA/M could no longer be ignored. Widespread abductions of children and adults who are then forced to commit atrocities as well as the mutilation of victims, cutting off ears, lips and other body parts were becoming the trademarks of the LRA/M. Meanwhile, Sudanese support of the LRA/M had become public knowledge. The government’s response to the increased violence of the LRA/M was to forcibly push villagers into camps around trading centers, ostensibly for their protection, but the move was understood by most as a military tactic The forced displacement of the population was heavily criticized by leaders of northern Uganda and eventually by international organizations (e.g., ARLPI 2001; Weeks 2002).

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Certainly, little trust of the agenda of the NRM government existed in the region, leading to negative interpretations of most government policies. There was a strong sentiment in northern Uganda that the government has not been serious about ending the war. There is a widespread belief that commanders of the army stood to gain financially from the war and therefore were not committed to ending it. The existence of “ghost soldiers” that allowed army commanders to collect the salaries of non-existent soldiers as well as some questionable pursuits in economic development of the region give credibility to such accusations (HURIPEC 2003:63-64). The government is even accused of letting the conflict continue in order to justify military spending and to profit economically. In a report on the LRA/M conflict in the Sudan, the UPDF are accused of attacking civilians and looting property. Often such attacks are carried out with the intent of placing the blame on the LRA/M or simply to incite fear in the population. The soldiers are also accused of chopping down forests of teak trees for economic gain. All such activities parallel closely with the actions of the UPDF in DRC which have been corroborated by UN investigations and the decisions of the International Court of Justice (Schomerus 2007:28-32). Apparently, the agenda of the UPDF in the Eastern Equatoria district of Southern Sudan is severely criticized by the local population who commonly retort, “Why is the UPDF in Sudan? To make sure the LRA/M is not defeated” (2007:29). Such sentiments mirror those of the Acholi across the border in Uganda. One informant I spoke with stated, “The government doesn’t really care about the Acholi. That is why he lets Kony kill us” (Interview with author, March 2007).

The overwhelming sense that neither the government nor the LRA/M actually represent the views or priorities of the Acholi people had left the population vulnerable and isolated. Most Acholi I spoke with in the camps expressed their complete sense of helplessness and questioned why more wasn’t being done by

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the international community to end the war. A woman in Bobi camp complained to me that “The cause of the war is a fight for power. The rebels simply want to become President, but ever since they started the war they have never even taken a district. And, meanwhile, the government continues to profit. Aid is given to the government, but it is never distributed. Right from the time Museveni came into power there were the cilil, 29 then Lakwena, then the LRA/M. In those days, it was fair, the rebels were friendly and would ask for food and assistance, but not these rebels, they are killing people” (Interview with author, November 2005). The sentiment she expresses of being caught between two forces in a never-ending struggle for power was one constantly repeated to me during my fieldwork. In such a context, it is not surprising that a common question posed by Acholi individuals was “if the rebels are fighting for northerners, why do they come and kill their own people?” (Interview with author, March 2007). However, while the Acholi population does not view the LRA/M as their spokespersons, they do share their grievances against the government, which creates a very complex situation and complicates attempts at peace building. This political vacuum, however, eventually came to be filled by a number of civil, religious, traditional and political leaders of the region.

The Making of a Counter-Narrative The conflict had already been through two particularly brutal phases and critiques of the government’s handling of the conflict were beginning to multiply. The increased vulnerability of the government and the heightened criticisms that were beginning from both inside and outside of Uganda framed the context within which local leaders from the Acholi region were finally able to contest the perceptions of the conflict and the Acholi people that tended to prevail in the rest of Uganda and even in the international community. Beginning in the late

29 Cilil is the local name for the various rebel groups that existed shortly after Museveni took power, including the UPDA. In general, the population were sympathetic to the cilil in the early days.

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1990s, a number of local religious, traditional and political leaders began to organize and mobilize themselves in order to address the issues of suffering and conflict in the region. Four groups became particularly noteworthy and succeeded in drawing attention to the problems of the Acholi, demanding more action from the government and the international community. The four groups include the Acholi Parliamentary Group, the rwodi moo30 and Ker Kwaro Acholi (council of Acholi chiefs), the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), as well as the association of expatriates known as Kacoke Madit (literally, “big meeting”). The first group, the Acholi Parliamentary Group was formed in the mid nineties by all the Members of Parliament emanating from the Acholi districts. The group worked to keep the conflict on the agenda of the Parliament and to seek solutions that would bring peace and development. Eventually, some members of local government, particularly the Local Council Chairpersons (LC Vs), have also become vocal critics of the government and its actions in northern Uganda, but this has been a more recent development as the arena of politics in Uganda has begun to open up.

The second group consists of the traditional or cultural leaders of the Acholi known as rwodi moo (plural; or rwot singular). The traditional leaders were given national political legitimacy as an outcome of the 1995 Constitution. The new Constitution reinstated cultural leaders and institutions with the objective of promoting cultural integrity and socio-economic development. In Acholi tradition, a rwot is the leader or chief of a group of clans. The position of the rwot is hereditary, passing from father to son, ideally to the first born of the royal wife, but if the character of the first son is not suitable he can be passed

30 Rwodi (sing. rwot) refers to the traditional clan leaders or chiefs of the Acholi. Rwodi moo translates literally as “anointed chiefs” and is used to distinguish between the traditional clan leaders and the offices established during the colonial period which selected leaders based on education and allegiance to the colonial administration. The chiefs selected by the colonial administration are often referred to as rwodi kalam or “chiefs of the pen.”

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over for another. The clan from which the rwot is chosen is referred to as kal and it is considered to be a royal lineage as opposed to other commoner lineages. The rwodi moo are chiefs of their respective clans, but historically they have held little real power. They relied upon consensus with the elders of the clan lineages in order to effect decisions. Generally, however, their role has been as mediators during conflict and at times they are considered to have special rainmaking abilities (Atkinson 1989: 21). The group of clans that fall under one rwot are known as chiefdoms. Chiefdoms could come into conflict with each other or create alliances based on perceived advantages of the times. The pre-colonial and colonial periods were particularly volatile and three chiefdoms managed to gain some supremacy through greater accumulation of wealth and the ability to offer protection to other chiefdoms in return for their alliance. In particular, during the colonial period the rwodi of Payira, Atiak and Padibe competed for supremacy over other chiefdoms, but it is the Payira clan that has arguably had greater success at promoting their own legitimacy as the center of power over the Acholi. During the colonial and post-colonial period, the hereditary chiefs struggled against external pressures to limit their influence (Allen 2006: 150-151). Administrative chiefs paralleling the traditional system were installed first by the colonial government, then by the government after independence. These administrative chiefs had legitimacy at the national level, but continued to be challenged at the local level. Nonetheless, traditional chiefs lost influence during this period and the trend continued as conflict and displacement in the 1980s began to erode many customary practices.

The 1995 Constitution, therefore, presented an opportunity for the traditional chiefs to regain legitimacy. Their reinstatement was supported by many in the Acholi community as the chiefs were seen as vehicles for cultural reunification and healing following years of cultural degeneration. The re-instatement of the chiefs was also supported by some in the international community and funding

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was put in place to investigate the history of the institution of the rwodi and its functions. The study was funded by the Belgium government and carried out by the INGO ACORD. Along with research on traditional leadership, the study sought to identify the existing rwodi. While some of the more prominent chiefdoms had continued to recognize their chiefs and instill them with some symbolic and functional duties, other chiefdoms had ceased to identify the successors to the position of rwot. Naturally, this led to some degree of conflict and competition for recognition between individuals of a lineage, but also by groups of sub-clans claiming the status of chiefdom. Eventually, fifty-two rwodi were identified and an executive council, Ker Kwaro, was founded to represent the Acholi as a whole. Furthermore, the position of Paramount Chief was officially established and Rwot Achana II of the Payira clan was selected to hold the position (Baines 2005).31

Even before the changes to the 1995 Constitution, the traditional leaders have played a significant, though sometimes ambiguous, role in negotiating peace. When the UPDA began to establish itself, the clan leaders are reported to have discouraged the UPDA leadership to bring war onto Acholi territory (Latigo 1997: 2). Then in 1988, while the government finalized the arrangements of the negotiations with the UPDA, it also attempted to reach out to Joseph Kony and former UPDA Commander Odong Latek who had since joined Joseph Kony’s rebels. Betty Bigombe, who had been appointed as Minister of State in Charge of the North, contacted the Acholi elders and requested that they initiate contact with the rebels. Communication between a committee of rwodi moo and Odong

31 Again, though it was generally agreed that a paramount chief should be selected, the manner in which he should be selected and the nature of the position were debated topics. Some felt the position should be hereditary, while others felt the position should rotate between clans or should be elected on a periodic basis. It was apparently agreed that Rwot Achana II’s father be selected as Paramount Chief and then the position should be rotated, but upon his death, his son was named as successor based on the particularly volatile conditions of the period (see also Allen 2006: 146-159; Baines 2005; Dolan 2009).

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Latek culminated in arrangements for a meeting that was to take place in early 1989. Unfortunately, the meeting point was apparently attacked by a helicopter gunship, the first of similar incidents which served to break down trust between the rebels, government officials and Acholi leaders (Simonse 1998: 7). A group of elders also ran a reception center for rebels who returned from the bush in response to the presidential amnesty that was being offered at the time. Apparently, 135 former rebels came to the center, but many fled when an army bus came to collect them from the center, fearing the government was now going to arrest them. The center subsequently closed down after only a few months due to a lack of funds (1998: 7).

The peace talks in 1993-4 led by Betty Bigombe also involved the efforts of the Acholi elders and chiefs. A number of meetings were held between the chiefs and LRA/M Commanders in order to discuss how the rebels could be reintegrated into Acholi society and the traditional leaders began to prepare communities for the return of the rebels. The period of peace talks is remembered very positively as a period when a lot of good will was circulating, even between the rebels and the NRA soldiers. It was a time when rebels could be seen patrolling the area undisturbed; there are even reports of some NRA soldiers mixing with the rebels. Unfortunately, a request by the LRA/M to provide the rebels with another six months to prepare themselves was met with suspicion and Museveni reacted by giving the rebels a seven day ultimatum to turn over their arms which ultimately sent the rebels back to the bush.

On the other hand, Kony and other members of the LRA/M have also made claims that some elders blessed their mission to fight the NRA at the outset, but have since turned their back on them (Latigo 1997: 2). In one reported incident during the 1994 peace talks, an LRA/M Commander is said to have threatened one elder, “claiming that Akera was one of those who ‘pointed his penis towards

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the bush and cursed us’ – traditionally the ultimate curse a father can perform against his offspring” (as cited in Van Acker 2003: 24). A subsequent incident also revealed the ambivalent relationship between the LRA/M leadership and the traditional Acholi leaders. In early 1996, apparently with the blessing of President Museveni, the Acholi chiefs once again attempted to make contact with the rebels. Kony would not agree to begin talks as presidential elections were imminent, but he agreed to speak to members of the Elders’ Peace Committee after the elections. In fact, the son of the Chairman of the Elders’ Peace Committee was given a message from LRA/M stating that Kony wanted to meet with his father Okot Ogony and Rwot Achana I, the Payira clan chief and most prominent Acholi elder. The government warned the elders that danger awaited them and Rwot Achana I decided to decline the offer. Okot Ogony, on the other hand, agreed to meet with the rebels and he was joined by Olanya Lagony, the brother of then LRA/M commander, Otti Lagony. At the designated meeting time and place, the elders were seen by witnesses walking away with LRA/M members and sometime later, their bodies were discovered by residents of the area. The motivation for killing the elders is thought to be related to an article published in a local newspaper which noted money paid to the elders to support their efforts towards peace. The belief that the elders were attempting to profit from the war is thought to have angered the LRA/M leadership, particularly in light of their already ambivalent relationship (Gersony 1997: 54).

Despite the loss of the Acholi elders, the Ker Kwaro Acholi has continued to work for an end to the war and they conducted a survey in a number of communities impacted by the conflict. Based on the results of the survey, the elders submitted a Memorandum to the President which advocated for peace talks as the means to end the war. It also requested the resettlement of the displaced population and a number of development initiatives for the region (Simonse 1998: 9). Thus, by the late nineties, the traditional leaders had established

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themselves as an important link between the rebels, the local population and the government. They had begun to formalize the leadership institutions and they made peace-building a key focus of their efforts, emphasizing the traditional role rwodi moo have played in conflict resolution and community reconciliation. In late 1997, the chiefs also produced a joint resolution that was significant for the establishment of key principles guiding their actions. The resolution laid out the key message the elders wished to communicate to the community and the role the elders should play in reconciliation. The key points of the resolution are as follows:

1. Confirming that they forgive their children who are fighting the government 2. Requesting all Acholi, at home and abroad to also show forgiveness, and the government to proclaim an amnesty 3. That rwodi moo and elders should contribute to the resolution of the conflict in the following ways: a. By mobilizing and sensitizing their people for peace, reconciliation and reintegration of returnees in a spirit of forgiveness b. by taking steps to ritually purify the land of the effects of past bloodshed to ensure fertility and prosperity for the country; c. by all royal families to appoint successors to their respective thrones; d. by settling all outstanding disputes between commoners and different royal clans.

Along with the traditional leaders, the religious leaders in Acholi have also played an important role in the struggle to bring peace to the Acholi region. The religious leaders have been especially instrumental in steering the direction of policy and discourse in the region and conveying these messages to the international community. As previously noted, religion and politics in Uganda are not historically isolated spheres of influence. When Museveni took power,

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the Catholic clergy cooperated with the government, but relations soon began to decline, reaching a low point in 1997 when six members of the Catholic clergy in northern Uganda were accused by Brigadier Kazini, the former commander of the army’s 4th Division based in Gulu, of being rebel collaborators (Simonse 1998: 13). Despite government suspicion, the Catholic leaders were active in the area, particularly through the Kitgum Peace and Justice Committee founded by Father Carlos Rodriguez. The committee worked to promote peace and to keep a record of human rights abuses carried out by either party in the conflict. In contrast, the Anglican clergy have enjoyed greater freedom in their relations with the government which has allowed them to be openly critical of government policy and practices in the region without serious repercussions. Bishop Baker Ochola and Bishop Nelson Onono Onweng have both been outspoken in their criticisms of the government as well as the actions of the rebels. Bishop Onono is particularly remembered for his remarks upon his enthronement in 1998 when he criticized the government, in the presence of the President, for their continued preference for military solutions (1998: 15). The most significant achievement of the religious leaders, however, is the collaboration that was established between Catholic, Protestant and Muslim leaders to address the suffering of the population in the form of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI).

The Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative has its roots in activities that began in Kitgum. A group of Catholic, Anglican and Muslim leaders organized a prayer meeting in Kitgum in August 1997 with the intention of spreading the message of peace to the general population and promoting a non-violent solution to the war. The event was considered a success and the group soon joined with religious leaders in Gulu to organize subsequent prayer meetings together. In 1998, the group inaugurated the formal structure known as the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) that would serve to effectively organize activities

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and attract and administer funding (Khadiagala 2001: 4). Five people were originally selected to manage the organization: Anglican Bishops Nelson Onono- Onweng and Macleord Baker Ochola, the Islamic representative, Sheikh Musa Khalil, and Catholic representatives Monsignor Mathew Odong, and Father Carlos Rodriguez of the Comboni Missionary. Membership has fluctuated somewhat over the years, for example, Archbishop John Baptist Odama joined shortly after he was made Archbishop of Gulu Diocese in 1998 and has become a prominent spokesperson for the group. Nonetheless, it has maintained its status as an inter-faith organization and as such the group has been given considerable respect at the local, national and international levels. From the outset, the religious leaders have positioned themselves as impartial mediators seeking to create dialogue between the government and the LRA/M with the best interests of the Acholi people at heart. Most importantly, the religious leaders imagine themselves as the “voice of the voiceless” and have attempted to make public what they perceive to be the most critical issues of the Acholi and the priorities of the people.

While the political, cultural and religious leaders of the Acholi region fulfill very different roles vis-à-vis the local population and in the ways they address local issues, they have shared the fundamental belief that dialogue and negotiations are the only way to bring peace to northern Uganda. The articulation of this position and the strength and solidarity of opinion which backed it was an important turning point in the political struggle of the Acholi. This position was galvanized at a meeting held in London in 1997. The meeting was organized by a group of Acholi living in exile and it brought together important figures from all sides of the conflict. The group of exiles named themselves Kacoke Madit, Luo for ‘the big meeting’ in reference to the first meeting held in London. The group intended to hold subsequent meetings on an annual basis in order to increase the attention directed at the conflict and to sustain pressure on the government

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to end it. While different views of the conflict were aired at the meeting, the local leaders along with the members of Kacoke Madit all agreed that peace could only be achieved by non-violent means. The non-violent agenda was in contrast to the government position which had generally sought military solutions throughout the war. Even during the peace talks held in 1994, Museveni had presented contradictory views that confused observers regarding his intentions and commitment to a peaceful solution. The government position was also made evident following the Parliamentary Inquiry that took place in 1996-7. Responding to political pressure, the government set up a committee charged with investigating the causes of conflict in the north and possible solutions (Gersony 1997: 55). When the Committee was required to determine the best way to end the war, opinions were divided, largely between supporters of the NRM government and their opponents. Supporters of the NRM tended to lobby for a military solution while the opposition proposed negotiation with the LRA/M (Leopold 1999: 231). When the final report was submitted, the Committee recommended improved relations between Uganda and Sudan along with continued military action, but two northern MPs – Norbert Mao and Omara Atubo – attached a Minority Report seeking to bring the war to an end through negotiations (Dolan 2009: 49). Notably, the northern MPs voiced their opposition to a military solution based on the conviction that seeking peace talks reflected the desires of the people of northern Uganda who were consulted during the inquiry process (Dolan 2000a: 6).

Arguably, however, the more significant outcome of the meeting was the formulation of a larger framework within which the peaceful solution to the conflict was embedded. The Acholi leaders placed their agenda within a discourse that ultimately sought to reconfigure the identity of Acholi and their role in the conflict, challenging the negative ethnic stereotypes and presenting the Acholi as victims rather than perpetrators of the conflict. A presentation

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given by one member at the 1997 Kacoke Madit is exemplar of this reinterpretation of Acholi culture:

We, the people of Acholiland have historically been a peaceful people. We made peace with all our neighbours. We conquered no territories. We always allowed neighbouring clans to freely assimilate with our clans. We made allies out of our enemies. We, the people of Acholiland are a proud people, proud of our Ancestry, our Culture, our God-given Land, our Faith, our Heritage. (Odok- Ogwal 1997)

The significance of the counter-discourse that began to emerge in this period is that it challenged the official discourse that had been prevalent both inside and outside Uganda on almost every aspect. It framed the Acholi culture as a culture of peace and not violence; it challenged the idea that the war was a local war by highlighting the international elements; and it made clear that the Acholi population was a victim not only of the LRA/M but also of government policies and abuses which had failed the people. The local leaders’ shared agenda seeking peace through negotiation and not violence was legitimized through an emerging narrative that drew on religious moral values of forgiveness, the authority of tradition and culture, and the principles of national reconciliation. The local leaders also derived moral authority for their position by their claim to be speaking on behalf of the general Acholi population. The traditional leaders claimed representation through the local clan leaders who met with their constituents, while the religious leaders gained insight into the priorities and issues of the population through their congregations and other meetings. The religious leaders commonly referred to their advocacy work as giving voice to the voiceless as their website states: “ARLPI seeks to be accountable to the grassroot population of Uganda and desires to use her position to give a voice to the voiceless in an effort to effect change for the betterment of all” (ARLPI N.d.).

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The narrative around which many Acholi leaders coalesced was reflected in the general character of a report entitled The Bending of Spears: Building Consensus for Peace and Development in Northern Uganda. The report was written by Dennis Pain, a social scientist hired as a consultant by International Alert in partnership with Kacoke Madit. The report highlights the need for consensus among the Acholi leadership and presents the results as a product of that consensus. The report highlights three priorities as key to the end of the conflict: negotiations between the LRA/M and the government towards a peaceful resolution; economic programs for local development; and national and local level reconciliation including compensation (Pain 1997: 1). The priorities set out by the report were an important step forward for setting out a clear agenda, but the report was more important in terms of the underlying narrative that justified and created the foundations for the particular agenda items. First, the need for a peaceful solution, as already noted, was in clear opposition to the overriding position of the central government. Critically, this position was justified through popular demand: “Everywhere one goes in Acholi, there is a yearning for peace and reference to the cry of the people, their suffering, the poverty and the effects of displacement....” The report further suggests that

Since the Parliamentary Commission reported early in 1997, there appears to have been a growing desire from within Uganda for dialogue to end the war in order to get back the abducted children and begin the work of healing the traumatisation of abducted children as well as their peers still in schools and their families. A military solution cannot facilitate such reconciliation and healing and will lead to a potential future embittered generation which will in turn create further national insecurity. (Pain 1997:19-20)

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The desire for a peaceful solution to the conflict is therefore presented not as a political decision, but a popular desire of the people, especially those most affected by the conflict. Furthermore, military solutions are presented as threatening sustainable peace, particularly in view of the nature of the LRA/M forces which are made up of many abducted individuals who are forced to participate in atrocities.

Second, the prioritization of economic development as an important element of peace highlights the underdevelopment of the region as a root cause of the conflict. This places the conflict squarely in the realm of the political, a fact denied by the central government. It also characterizes an economic program in the region as a form of compensation for injustices suffered by the population, thereby placing responsibility for the suffering on the government. In addition, the history of the conflict is linked back to the history of the country since the colonial period, refuting the ahistorical and localized accounts of the conflict. And finally, the means of reconciliation and healing needed for sustainable peace are located within the Acholi culture and community. Traditional mechanisms such as mato oput are considered to be more relevant to processes of reconciliation than Western judicial mechanisms and the traditional leadership in the form of the rwodi moo is considered more effective at promoting individual and community healing. The report notes that, “by restricting such a law to acts of insurgency and victims of insurgency and to crimes of a “political nature”, it is clear that Western law is incapable of addressing the situations of human rights abuses and break-down of social order which have arisen in Uganda over the past 30 years. In particular, it is incapable of coming up with a resolution which has a healing effect on society. It simply is not fitted to carry such a social burden” (1997: 59).

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The need for more broad-based solutions to the conflict including traditional mechanisms of reconciliation is connected to the last agenda item demanding reconciliation at the national level. This point is fixed in the belief that that conflict is rooted in the distant past and involves the entire country. It refutes the notion that the conflict is an Acholi conflict and it seeks long-term solutions. It also recognizes that the country has never fully come to terms with its violent past and that this contributes to the country’s inability to completely end a cycle of violence.

Thus, the narrative that began to emerge from the report and the Kacoke Madit gathering in London in 1997 had significant meaning. It became an important counter-narrative and a means by which the Acholi people could assert their own views. The official discourse at the national and international levels had marginalized the victims of the LRA/M conflict by allowing ahistorical and ethnicized accounts of the conflict to prevail and set the agenda. The alternative discourse did not provide for an immediate sea-change of opinion, nor did it represent the first instances of such counter-narratives, but it did represent the first consolidation of such a position at a time when the official discourses of the country were generally vulnerable. It created a vision for the future of Acholi, but most importantly it gave the Acholi a voice, through their local leaders, that challenged previous characterizations of almost every aspect of the conflict. Since the conflict between the LRA/M and the government had placed the Acholi population squarely in the middle of the conflict, simultaneously derided as supporters of the LRA/M by the government, and traitors by the LRA/M, the Acholi had been rendered powerless to assert their own position. The political lobbying and advocacy work of the local leaders in Acholi began to change this predicament and critically, many international observers were becoming convinced of the veracity of the narrative promulgated by the Acholi leaders,

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putting pressure on the Ugandan government to re-examine their relationship with the northern region.

Arguably, one of the first political achievements of the informal coalition of local leaders in Acholi is the passing of the Amnesty Act. The mobilization of alternate representations of events that emphasized the national and even international character of the war in northern Uganda brought attention to the fact that the Acholi and other residents in northern Uganda were largely victims of the war and not culprits. Furthermore, the large number of abducted persons who made up the LRA/M pointed to the fact that many rebels were themselves victims. Amnesty, therefore, was believed to be the most effective way to bring the war to a peaceful conclusion, since it would attract rebels from the bush and promote a general attitude of reconciliation. Thus, local leaders in Acholi as well as leaders from other parts of the country lobbied for the establishment of the Amnesty Act as an important contribution to eventual peace in Uganda. The report of the Parliamentary Inquiry in 1997 had recommended the establishment of a legal framework to give amnesty to any rebel who accepted to abandon insurgency. As a result of this recommendation, and the continued efforts of northern Ugandan leaders, the Amnesty Act was developed in order to provide amnesty to any rebels or former rebels who had taken up arms against the government since January 26, 1986. Though the Act was supported by many in Parliament and covers a range of insurgencies, it was the conflict in northern Uganda that was considered particularly relevant to the Act and it was hoped that the Act would encourage fighters to return from the bush. The Amnesty Act was established in 2000, but before the Bill was passed through legislation it was debated in Parliament. A speech made by one Acholi Member of Parliament from Kitgum, Honorable Owiny Dollo is particularly insightful regarding the messages that were meant to be attached to the passing of the Bill:

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The Amnesty Bill, as it is now, has come for debate. This Bill could have been debated a year or so ago, but I will own up that I am one of those who caused the delay in the debating and the moving of this Bill in this House. I feared that the Bill would achieve the very opposite, the obtuse purpose for which it is honourably intended. Why do I say this? We are talking about forgiveness, we are talking about pardon, but at that time, we did not know what the feelings or what the position of our children who are in the bush was towards an amnesty or towards a pardon. We did not know what the feelings or what the response or what the position of our people who have suffered the brunt of armed conflict was, in regard to an amnesty being given by the Parliament of Uganda. Since then, we have gone some distance. We now know what the feelings of our people who have suffered the brunt of this several years of madness are towards granting pardon to the perpetrators of this evil. But as we speak now, we do not know whether it is amnesty that rebels want or something else. And I have really been at the fore front of the search for what the rebels have to say in order to bring peace to this country. But as the Parliament of Uganda, we are honourably acting as one with the Executive, to give them an opportunity to come back home and end the haemorrhage that is depleting our society; and this is very important ...I am happy that the people of Uganda who have suffered; those who know what it is to sleep in the bush, whether it be in Northern Uganda or Western Uganda, and those who have had the compassion to be with them in spirit elsewhere in this country, I know they have forgiven, I know they are prepared to embrace our prodigal children who are in the bush, so that we can begin from a clean slate; we can begin afresh. Among the Acholi people, since time immemorial, there has never been a death sentence. One of the most beautiful things in our culture is that you may kill the killer of your brother only in the heat of passion, but not when an old man comes in and says, ‘please stop it, that is

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enough!’ And for us we are building on this great culture to bring sanity to our society (Dollo 1999).

The speech emphasizes that amnesty, which here is conflated with the principle of forgiveness, is overwhelmingly supported by the Acholi people. He makes this point exceptionally explicit in order to first set out the importance of such a point. Fulfilling the demands of the victims of the conflict is established to be of paramount consequence. Once he verifies that amnesty is indeed the will of the people, he then continues to characterize the population, in this case, victims throughout Uganda and those who can sympathize with them, as ready to forgive. The ability of the population to forgive is considered significant, since it fulfills the long-term aim of amnesty which is to arrive at a peaceful end to the conflict. The Amnesty Act provides legal amnesty which is based on the relationship between the government and the rebels, but in order for real reconciliation and peace to arrive in the region, there is a need for the community to embrace the principles of amnesty. This involves the reintegration of the former rebels into their communities which could not occur without reconciliation and forgiveness at the community level. Finally, he locates the means by which reconciliation can be achieved within the Acholi culture. These points are important as they continue to be consistent with the general narrative that emanates from the region, characterizing the Acholi as a forgiving and proud culture, and they reinforce critical principles that make up the narrative.

The Amnesty Act became a pillar to the general approach sought by the Acholi leaders in order to bring about sustainable peace. It was overwhelmingly supported by Acholi religious, traditional and political leaders and has enjoyed overall support of the public in Acholi districts. In meetings and lobbying efforts leading up to the passing of the Bill and in subsequent reports and communications, amnesty has been portrayed as the most appropriate response to the complex and unique context of the LRA/M conflict whereby the line

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between perpetrators and victims is very blurred. Moreover, it is seen as complementary to the cultural system of the Acholi. A Ugandan lawyer, Barney Afako, put it succinctly in his article on justice and reconciliation:

The unacceptably high costs of civil war have caused Ugandans to re-assess approaches to resolving conflict. Among the Acholi of northern Uganda, the bitter experience of unending conflict has generated a remarkable commitment to reconciliation and a peaceful settlement of the conflict rather than calling for retribution against the perpetrators of serious abuses. Through their civic and religious leaders, and in other public fora, they have called for the government to pursue dialogue and to introduce a comprehensive amnesty for combatants as a confidence- building measure. Acholi tradition embodies the principles and practices which have been central to the support for reconciliation and amnesty within that community. Through the mediation of the traditional chiefs (rwodi) many offences, including homicides, have traditionally been resolved by reconciliation. Whenever a homicide takes place the rwodi intervene in the situation to ‘cool down the temperature’ and to offer mediation.... The unique contribution of the rwodi is through their mediation of the reconciliation process, mato oput, which many Acholi believe can bring true healing in a way that a formal justice system cannot (Afako 2002).

As is evident, the study continues to reinforce important themes that make-up the counter-narrative. Once again, these themes include the contention that the majority of Acholi are willing to forgive the rebels for their actions in order to bring peace to the region. Furthermore, the people want the war brought to an end peacefully and not through continued military action. And, finally, the Acholi culture exists harmoniously with such principles of reconciliation and embodies

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certain traditions and institutions that can enable the process of reintegration of the rebels and overall community reconciliation.

The representation of these views as stemming from the population has provided the Acholi leaders with a legitimacy that has been an important factor enabling the leaders to wield influence with the international community and to refute certain depictions of the conflict disseminated by the government. Certainly, the narrative presented by the local leaders resonates with the Acholi and accurately represents the views of a large portion of the population; however, it also tends to overlook to some degree the diversity and complexity of viewpoints that exist. Many informants I spoke with described their willingness to forgive the rebels and accept them back home. Forgiveness is most commonly associated with individuals forcibly recruited into the LRA/M; well illustrated in one man’s statement that “many returnees live around here. They were trained and forced into military activities, it was not their will, so when they return home the government and amnesty forgives them. They are not true rebels” (Interview with author, March 2007). This is echoed in the words of another woman who says, “If the rebels could hear our cries of peace then they would come home because they don’t want to stay here *the camps+ anymore. People would be happy and willing to accept them if they came home for then there would be peace” (Interview with author, March 2007).

But, often the reality is more complex as the stories of some returnees attest. One informant described the situation of a returnee who had been involved in the mutilation of people from his village. He had removed the fingers and lips of some residents and even cut the neck of one man. When the people of the village saw this man they wanted to kill him, and so did members of his own family, so he ran away and now lives in the safety of an urban centre (Interview with author, March 2007). On the other hand, another informant described his

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brother’s situation. His brother had been abducted by the LRA/M in the early years and eventually became a top commander. He returned in 2001 and received amnesty from the government. He said his brother first went to Kampala, but has now returned and stays with the family. He noted, however, that his brother never explained to him why the LRA/M are fighting and said that asking such questions is not good since it reminds the returnees of what they have been through (Interview with author, March 2007). Discussions with other returnees in the camps also suggested more mixed experiences. Though the people I spoke with had generally been accepted into their communities and were living peaceably there, they did at times feel ostracized or stigmatized by their communities.

And, while many people told me they would be willing accept former rebels into their communities, opinions were more divided when speaking of the LRA/M leaders such as Kony and Otti. Even where community members said they would forgive the rebel leaders, there was often some doubt that the leaders themselves would accept to come home or end the war. Such views express the complex nature of the conflict which has seen families and communities torn apart by both the loss of lives as well as the return of individuals forced to become complicit in the taking of those same lives. The past is replete with memories of fear, loss and culpability. But the clear and consistent demand for an end to the war, an end to the camps and a return to their former way of life has to be understood as a desire to reclaim the future and depart from this past. Struggles to control the future contrasted with the very clear feelings of helplessness that characterized the situation of most people in the camps.

Ideas of forgiveness and reconciliation ripple through the Acholi community and many people argue that indeed they are capable of putting the past behind them, especially if it will bring the war to an end. A woman in Palabek illustrated

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this sentiment clearly when she said to me, “we follow the peace talks from the radio. We are not yet seeing good signs, but those are our children [the rebels] so they have to bring them back home. People should stay as one and work well amongst people so they can have lasting peace. And mato oput can help bring peace. We hear of national reconciliation on the radio, but this would have to be from both sides, not only one side” (Interview with author, March 2007). But the means through which peace and reconciliation will occur are more contested than the woman’s comment might suggest. Mato oput (drinking the bitter root or herb) has been one of the more cited processes through which it is argued the region can achieve reconciliation. Mato oput is a process of conflict resolution which has a long history in the Acholi community. Historically, mato oput is a process used to bring peace between clans that are in conflict. In general, the conflict would have come about as the result of an illegitimate killing of a clan member. In order to prevent a cycle of vengeance between the victim and offender clans, the perpetrator of the violence must confess to his actions and compensate the victim’s clan for their loss, usually through the payment of cattle or other goods, but formerly payment could include a young woman from the offending clan. Once reparations to the victim’s clan are made, the concluding ritual of mato oput can occur. The ritual itself varies from place to place, but generally involves the sacrifice of sheep and the drinking of a bitter juice originating from a local plant. The ritual is meant to symbolize the reconnection of the clans and signifies the ending of legitimate grievances between them. Once mato oput has been completed, vengeance by any member of the victim’s clan will be considered a grave offence. Mato oput continues to be used in the Acholi community, though displacement, conflict and the introduction of more formal systems of justice have reduced its effectiveness and the prevalence of its use (see: Baines 2005; Baines 2007; Finnström 2008; Harlacher, et al. 2006). In one community I visited, the local rwot explained to me that while residents had come to him seeking reconciliation, the implementation of mato oput in the

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camp was sometimes difficult. According to the rwot some cases had remained outstanding since the clan of the perpetrator was unable to produce the resources needed to pay compensation. In another case, the family of the perpetrator attempted to take property from the perpetrator in order to contribute to the clan payment, but the individual had resisted and threatened to take the matter to the police, since, he argued, they had no right to remove his private property.

Mato oput is only one of the local processes used in the region to promote reconciliation. Another commonly used ritual is known as “stepping on the egg” (nyouo tong gweno) and is performed by the elder of a household when someone from his family has returned home. The ceremony has been used at the community and individual level in order to symbolically welcome the returnees home and to cleanse them of any lingering malevolence. While these and other traditional processes continue to have some relevance in the Acholi community, their use in wider processes of reconciliation involving other ethnic groups and the government remains questionable. A great deal of modifications would need to be made if such processes were to produce meaningful results in national reconciliation. As the local leaders point out, there is a need for truth- seeking and reconciliation and these ideas are supported by the community, but the link between available processes and needed outcomes remains to be made.

Themes of forgiveness and reconciliation became particularly important in the lead-up to the passing of the Amnesty Act in 2000 and also in its implementation after the fact. The narrative is critical for its reinterpretation of events, but it is also highly strategic in simultaneously attempting to describe the situation in Acholi and produce certain effects. By continuously describing the Acholi as willing to forgive and highlighting the consistencies between seeking peaceful solutions to the conflict and traditional methods of reconciliation those

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reiterating the narrative are also promoting certain principles in order implant them in the mindset of the population. They are, in essence, strategically using discourse to contest opposing interpretations and to gain control of the production of their future as a people. The local leaders were effectively addressing the political vacuum and attempting to address and provide responses to the population’s suffering. The success of the leaders’ efforts is evidenced in the wide support for amnesty in the region and the various ways members of the community work to realize the aspirations of the leaders for a peaceful transition from conflict. Thus, the woman from Palabek quoted above, is not only speaking theoretically about the need for forgiveness, she is actually implementing these ideals since a number of returnees reside in their community, including one former wife of Kony. According to her, the people have been accepted into the community and appear to be faring well. This can also be said of a number of leaders who have themselves lost members of their family to the rebels. Some chiefs have been specifically targeted by the rebels. The rwot of Pabbo, for example, explained to me that he had lost a number of his sisters as well as his children to the rebels, yet he continues to encourage people to forgive the rebels and to accept them home. Bishop Ochola who has been especially outspoken about his desire for a peaceful solution to the conflict also lost his wife several years ago in an explosion involving a land-mine believed to have been planted by the LRA.

Through the examples of many leaders and their visions of the future, communities are finding ways to overcome the multiple forms of violence they have been forced to endure. These strategies simultaneously reflect and implement the basic principles of the counter-narrative. One example of such strategies is the use of idioms of family to describe the relationship of the rebels to the community. Family idioms are common throughout Africa and can be mobilized to different effects based on the context. At its most inclusive, the

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idiom of family can extend to all black people or any individual somehow symbolically connected to Africans through marriage or close friendship. At a more exclusive level, referring to someone as a brother, sister or child reflects membership in the same clan or tribe. The idiom is important, however, since it brings important meanings to bear upon the relations that are mentioned. Being family imposes certain loyalties and connections, thus an act against someone in the family is an act against the entire family just as an act of a family member is an act of the entire family. By claiming ties of family, one is ultimately claiming equivalence, a sameness that means one shares responsibility. So, when one woman said to me that “we need Kony to come home, he is our son. They have already been forgiven. What else can we do? They are our children, we don’t want to think about the past,” she was bringing the notion of family to bear on the rebels in order to bring some order to the situation (Interview with author, April 2007). Kony’s mother also drew upon notions of family when she apparently said to Kony in their historic meeting before she died, “you and Museveni are both my sons” (Interview with Archbishop Odama, March 2007). The meaning she is attempting to instill is that both Kony and Museveni can and should be forgiven. They are both her sons and therefore share equal blame as well as equal opportunity for forgiveness. The image of familial relations to the rebels forces the community to come to terms with the violations they have committed and to accept some degree of responsibility for reconciliation. Such relations make forgiveness and reconciliation much more possible, even necessary.

Another example is the common reference to the acts of the rebels as “mistakes.” The euphemism serves to minimize the negative impact of the actions of the LRA/M and make it possible to overcome sentiments of anger and resentment. For example, a woman in Pabbo camp told me she supports amnesty so that people can come back from the bush. “Even for Kony and Otti,

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because people make mistakes. The government should also know that they made a lot of mistakes and so it should be accepted” (Interview with author, October 2005). At times, such descriptions were used to describe other violent events in the history of Uganda. For example, in a discussion with a fellow passenger on the bus shortly after the death of Obote, the young man suggested that they should bring Obote home for his burial and not repeat the error they made with Amin. He said, “It was wrong not to bring Amin home, even though he committed a few mistakes”. To speak about such horrific acts as mistakes does not ring easy to the ears, but in a country that has experienced years of violence, such euphemisms serve to tame the events and act as coping mechanisms. Finding ways to heal the community once peace is achieved will be critical to maintaining peace at all levels and will enable the population to move beyond years of suffering.

Thus, the consistency of the narrative promulgated by many leaders from the region lent it an important force that has been able not only to challenge official narratives, but also to assist communities in realizing the reintegration of returnees and community healing. A discussion with James Otto, the director of Human Rights Focus, a prominent human rights organization in northern Uganda, also reflects how the counter-narrative both reflected events and simultaneously served to produce particular outcomes. Otto explained to me how reconciliation will be very important in the post-conflict period. He said, “If you kill someone you must be cleansed according to Acholi beliefs. Confession is particularly important, and, in traditional practices, an emissary would be sent to the bereaved family and then compensation would take place based on decisions made by the elders. Murder in Acholi is abhorred,” he explained. “The entire clan takes responsibility and the raising of the fine is also the responsibility of the clan. Finally, reconciliation involves the imparting of lessons and teachings from the elders to the community” (Interview with author, October 2005). Otto’s

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words reinforce the need for reconciliation and promote the strength of traditional processes to address Acholi concerns. The message restores pride in Acholi customs and attempts to provide a solution to the ongoing troubles of the population.

Such messages have been important in the context of a war that had left the Acholi population exceedingly isolated. In the description of one political leader, the people in Acholi had been left without a voice. He said, “In the beginning, when the war began, it was mostly about security and people could understand this since they had begun to fall victim under the army, losing animals, goods and even their lives.” He explained that at that time, “there were no leaders who could speak on behalf of the Acholi, only tribesmen with guns and former soldiers.” “Eventually,” he explained, “the war began to lose its direction and the government saw the chaos it had created so they sought peace with the UPDA. Then, by coincidence or what, the fighters that came out were killed. And the people said ‘who will protect us?’” “And,” he explained, “that is when the evil spirits began to take advantage.” He said, “The people soon realized that the LRA was also against them and then they were pushed into camps by the government. Then the LRA started to say the people were siding with the government, and then Khartoum sided with the LRA.” “This is the time,” he explained, “that the Acholi religious and cultural leaders really saw their people were desperate. The leaders were not accepted at first,” according to him, “it took some time before people would take them seriously. And political leaders had largely been imposed, so people tended to be suspicious” (Interview with author, April 2007). Eventually, however, the leaders have become important voices for their people and have worked to spread their message within and outside of Uganda.

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As James Otto went on to explain, the leaders were able to increase pressure on the government to give amnesty to the rebels beginning in 1997. Prior to this period, he said the conflict had been swept under the carpet. He told of one official of the British government who said that negotiations with the rebels would portray the Ugandan government as weak, thereby providing legitimacy to the government’s preference for a military solution. Once the Amnesty Act was passed, he said that Amnesty International did not support the process, but leaders of the region argued that it represented the desires of the population. He said that punishment was not a part of Acholi culture. However, by the late 1990s, the leaders were able to gain more international support for their positions. In 1999, a group of European Ambassadors visited the region and this began to open up the north, which according to Otto, had previously been consigned to oblivion. It is such interactions between the leaders of Acholi and international community that slowly began to change the dynamics of the region. And, as the leaders gained credibility and legitimacy, this in turn strengthened their efforts with the local community to promote the need for forgiveness, reconciliation and amnesty. This important process, following the implementation of the Amnesty Act, prepared communities for the return of the rebels to ensure the overall success of the agenda for a peaceful solution. By promoting reconciliation and amnesty, the leaders were also able to clarify the ambiguous nature of the conflict whereby many assailants were originally victims themselves, abducted into the ranks of the LRA/M and forced to commit atrocities that have ultimately alienated them from their own people.

The local leaders, often aligned with certain international NGOs or funded by foreign donors, continued to advocate and lobby on behalf of the victims of the conflict promoting peaceful solutions to the war. They worked at the local, national and international levels to spread their message and to forge alliances with different individuals, institutions and governments. For example, ARLPI has

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held annual peace prayers in different parts of the northern region and they have carried their message of peace through talks to the international arena including the US, the UK, the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. At the national level they have attempted to act as interlocutors between the government and the LRA/M and have held several meetings with the rebels. At the local level, the religious leaders preach the value of peace and forgiveness, drawing on religious mores and highlighting the underlying themes of tolerance, charity and mercy that permeate all religions. Traditional leaders also hold community meetings to address conflict that arises within communities and assist where necessary in carrying out traditional ceremonies of cleansing or reconciliation. Meanwhile, the political and civil society leaders continue to bring the issues of northern Uganda to the attention of the national government and the Ugandan population as a whole. Momentum for a resolution to the conflict in northern Uganda was maintained through subsequent meetings of the Kacoke Madit and a conference in northern Uganda organized by ARLPI entitled Bedo Piny that brought together many local, national and international stakeholders. The aim was to find ways to put continuous pressure on the government and the rebels to end the war.

From the late 1990s, therefore, a counter-discourse had begun to emerge that rested upon certain central themes and which challenged the previously prevailing official discourse. While this counter-discourse posed alternative views of the events in northern Uganda and the means by which the conflict could be ended, it did not replace the previous discourse; rather it continued to coexist with the official discourse. It challenged the hegemonic nature of the government’s views and provided important alternate explanations of the inconceivable violence that was taking place in northern Uganda, but it did not displace many simplistic and ethnically derived narratives. An important consequence of this counter-narrative, however, was its resonance with

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international actors, particularly international workers residing in northern Uganda. The horrifying violence committed by the LRA/M in the mid 1990s and the government’s inability to end the conflict led more international organizations and UN agencies to begin work in the region. With international staff residing in Acholi districts and working closely with the Acholi leaders and the general population, the visible suffering of the population and the local interpretations of events began to gain credence with a wider audience. Many organizations began to publish reports that viewed Museveni and the NRM government with greater skepticism. Reports were often highly critical of government policy in the region, particularly the policy of “protected villages” and the internal messages of the reports often mirrored elements of the counter-narrative produced by local leaders, particularly in the desire for peaceful solutions to the war (e.g., ICG Africa 2004; Norwegian Refugee Council and Refugee Law Project 2006). The late 1990s and the early years of 2000 brought increased attention and intervention to the region. USAID invested in a number of local development projects along with the Danish, Belgian, Italian and UK governments. UNICEF and the Norwegian Refugee Council also began programs in the region and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published a number of reports on the conflict.

As international opinion regarding the conflict began to shift, more attention was focused on the conflict, culminating in the visit of Jan Egeland, the UN Under- Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator which ended with his declaration that the conflict was the “world’s worst forgotten humanitarian crisis” (Agence France-Presse 2003). The statement of the Under Secretary General was significant as it officially and very publicly changed the dominant international discourse regarding the conflict. From that point, the conflict could no longer be effectively characterized as a “local war” and it was considered sufficiently significant to deserve the attention, scrutiny

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and intervention of the international community. Furthermore, the international community was identified as a guilty party at least in so far as they had allowed the mass suffering of the population to continue uncontested. The humanitarian disaster was labeled as “forgotten” or “invisible” based on the relatively little international attention it had received to that point.

The announcement by Egeland was received by most in the northern region as a welcome and long overdue recognition of the suffering the population had been experiencing for almost two decades. And it was considered by many local leaders to have resulted from their long and hard work to advocate and lobby on behalf of the victims of the conflict. Finally, the world was acknowledging that the situation of the population in northern Uganda was unacceptable and that something had to be done. A statement by Egeland one year later was also significant in its support for the positions of the local leaders in their efforts to end the war peacefully: “this would take a much bigger international investment – in money, in political engagement, in diplomacy and also more concerted efforts to tell the parties there is no military solution...there is a solution through reconciliation, an end to the killing and the reintegration and demobilization of the child combatants” (United Nations News Centre 2004). For many in northern Uganda, it appeared as though they had finally gained the international support and partnership they would need to effectively counter the government and the LRA/M and fulfill the demands of their people.

The reception of Egeland’s announcement, however, was in stark contrast to the reception of the decision of the ICC Prosecutor to investigate the LRA/M conflict. When the ICC Prosecutor joined with President Museveni to announce the agreement it was not the type of international intervention most local leaders felt was consistent with the needs on the ground. Local leaders were worried that indictments against rebel leaders would put an end to the possibility for

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peaceful solutions to the conflict; some even worried it might spark increased violence against the population in retribution. However, besides the obvious threat to peaceful solutions, the ICC intervention also presented other significant challenges to the positions of the local leaders, particularly in their struggle with government positions.

The announcement by the ICC challenged the solutions the local leaders had promoted as the means to bring about long-term peace and reconciliation. Legal prosecutions conflicted directly with the Amnesty Act that had been championed by local leaders and which had the support of the majority of northern Ugandans. In addition, such prosecutions appeared to create a stumbling block to peace negotiations which were viewed as the best way forward. But along with the perceived threat to the peace agenda of the northern Ugandans, the intervention of the ICC also posed a threat to the counter-discourse that had slowly been gaining ground. Much of the debate surrounding the intervention of the ICC tended to call into question once again the nature of the Acholi people and even who ultimately is responsible and accountable for the suffering of the population. These threats were critical given the importance the counter- discourse represented to the population as an alternative to an ethnicized and ahistorical account of the war that placed most responsibility of the conflict squarely on the backs of the Acholi and characterized them as a war-mongering people. In this context, the scene of the ICC Prosecutor standing side-by-side with Museveni did more than call into question the impartiality of the Court vis- à-vis the two sides of the conflict, it also called into question the basis of the counter-discourse by appearing to absolve the government of any wrong-doing before the investigations had even commenced.32 Once again, at least a portion of the international community appeared to be supporting the official discourse

32 The ICC Prosecutor has made clear that individuals from both sides of the conflict are open to investigation and indictment, but his announcement of the investigation standing beside the President appeared to make such an eventuality unlikely.

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that sympathized with Museveni and portrayed the government as doing everything possible to end the war against a band of marauding criminals. The symbolic impact of the decision to make the announcement in the presence of the President cannot be underestimated and it set the tone for future relations with the leaders of northern Uganda. Instead of standing beside victims of the conflict, from the perspective of many northern Ugandans, the ICC Prosecutor chose to stand beside one of the responsible parties. The thought that this would not affect the perceived impartiality of the Court or impact the type of reception the ICC would receive amongst the Acholi leaders was severely miscalculated.

By apparently absolving Museveni of any wrongdoing at the outset, the ICC appeared to oppose the notion that the Acholi people were victims of both the government and the LRA/M. Instead, siding with the government, the ICC presented the LRA/M as simply criminal individuals with no possible political agenda and no logical reason to be fighting the government. Without understanding the dynamics of Ugandan history and politics, the ICC failed to see the symbolic positioning of their intervention and the degree to which they were undermining the political struggle that was taking place between the local Acholi leadership and the central government. This struggle, as opposed to that of the LRA/M, was a peaceful and political struggle whereby Acholi leaders were fighting for their right to represent the priorities and desires of their constituency, the power to address those desires and priorities as directed by the community, and the ability to contribute to or challenge the narratives of Ugandan history. In essence, the Acholi leadership was resisting political dominance of the government and attempting to set their own agenda within the existing political framework.

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The ICC intervention also posed considerable challenges to the legal and moral viability of the Amnesty Act. In general, international criminal law opposes blanket amnesties and views them as illegal. The indictment of five rebel leaders also made amnesty for those leaders exceedingly difficult to support at both legal and political levels. The discourse of international justice places a great deal of weight on punitive legal measures and views alternative forms of justice with skepticism. In the case of high level individuals thought to have carried out mass atrocities, the idea of alternative justice is often labeled as impunity and as such it is considered morally repugnant. This placed the ICC intervention on a divergent path with the Acholi leaders who had fought hard to bring the Amnesty Act into fruition. In effect, the ICC contradicted the efforts of the local leaders to set the agenda for peace in the region by challenging two fundamental aspects of their struggle; that of peace through negotiations and amnesty for former rebels.

The challenge to the role of amnesty in bringing about peace also brought scrutiny upon claims that such processes were in fact culturally relevant. Support for the ICC brought with it assumptions of the universal desire for justice, and justice in the form of punitive justice. This contrast meant that the values of the Acholi people were in a sense put on trial since the possibility of forgiveness appeared remote to most outside observers. Critically, though, the challenge to the role of amnesty and the nature of the Acholi people appeared to ultimately challenge the authority of the local political, religious and cultural leaders and their ability to make appropriate decisions regarding the way forward for the people of northern Uganda. Given the various levels upon which the ICC intervention appeared to oppose the local leadership and the counter- discourse they presented it appears inevitable that the ICC was met with skepticism.

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Conclusion The announcement of the ICC intervention in northern Uganda should have been an important moment for the Court and the Acholi people. The Court was set up with the victims of atrocities in mind, but in the case of northern Uganda, it is not clear that the Court is fully serving the interests of the victims. The failure of the officials to comprehend the significance of the position of the Acholi leadership meant that it was unlikely it would be supported by the leaders and this has put the credibility of the Court and the peace process in jeopardy. The numerous ways in which the intervention contradicted the agenda of the local leaders undermined their leverage with the government and once again brought into question the acceptable narrative of events in the region. The Court not only presented a possible obstacle to peace, it also challenged many of the elements of the counter-discourse that had become essential to the struggle for power between the government and the Acholi people.

Over several decades, the ethnic groups residing in the northern regions of the country had become stigmatized by southerners as aggressive and violent populations. As the conflict between the government and the LRA/M progressed, this stereotype persisted and enabled the government to dismiss the conflict as a local conflict of little concern to the general population. The lack of attention given to ending the war; the general suffering of the population, especially as they were herded into camps; and the apparent commitment of the government to ending the war militarily; led many local leaders in the Acholi region to become outspoken about the conflict in an effort to transform the popular representation of the conflict and the subjectivity of the Acholi people within it. In effect, the local leaders were attempting to challenge not only popular representations of the conflict, they were also attempting to resist government domination of policy initiatives to end the war and to assume some control over the decisions made which significantly impact the Acholi population.

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While officials of the ICC claim to have considered the positions of the Acholi leaders before making their decision to accept the referral, the degree to which the ICC intervention would counteract the efforts of the local leaders on both practical and symbolic levels was likely not completely understood. Consequently, the actions of the ICC officials were met with animosity by many of the people they were aiming to assist.

The ICC intervention called into question many basic principles of the local leaders’ arguments, especially for amnesty and a negotiated solution, but also by challenging their ability to make decisions and represent their constituents. International Criminal Court officials failed to understand the underlying struggle that existed between the Acholi leaders and the government over the ability to control some aspects of the destiny of the Acholi region and the local population. Furthermore, debates that ensued following the announcement of the ICC intervention challenged many of the assumptions that were central to the arguments of the local leaders, particularly the populations’ ability to forgive and reconcile with former rebels and it tended to impose a very rigid conceptualization of justice. This undermined the legitimacy of leaders who were filling a political vacuum that had existed in the region from the beginning of the war. This is particularly significant since the local leaders were presenting solutions to the conflict which were non-violent, constructive and locally relevant, a positive contribution to a political history which has favored more violent and coercive forms of governance.

Had individuals from the ICC taken more time to work directly with the leaders of the local community to find solutions that could be mutually beneficial, it is likely a more coordinated approach could have prevailed. While it is certain that the ICC cannot be used simply as a kind of leverage, it could work to gain the support of the main victims and their leaders and take more time to fully understand the

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political context it is entering. If it does not, it is likely to end up being used as a political tool nonetheless, and become party to political events that can have very serious consequences.

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5. TRADITIONAL JUSTICE VS THE ICC: THE ORGANIZATION OF A DEBATE

Peace and justice have been two central concepts in the debate over the ICC intervention in Uganda. Many headlines and in-depth studies have begun by highlighting the dilemma that has arisen between these two outcomes. But, “peace” and “justice” as constructs have also played an important role in the struggle to control the conflict resolution agenda. The ability to define what is legitimate peace and legitimate justice is key to controlling the overall agenda. This is true because defining legitimate outcomes serves to limit what can be considered appropriate for achieving those outcomes. In most cases in the public debate, peace and justice have largely been defined by supporters of the ICC intervention, though not without challenges. The public debate over the ICC intervention in Uganda is significant and will contribute to the ongoing dialogue and discussions of the work of the ICC, particularly in cases of ongoing conflict. At this time, momentum behind the ICC has been strong in the international arena, but continued support will depend on the outcomes of current cases and continued public support for the principles and visions laid out by an international justice agenda. The challenges facing the Court in cases of ongoing conflict are significant, and support for such interventions has depended on the belief that the long-term results of intervention will be positive. Public discourse on the ICC intervention in Uganda has generally benefitted supporters of international justice, but challenges to the Court are gaining ground, especially in terms of its role in conflict resolution. By examining closely the nature of the debate, one can evaluate the outcome of certain strategies and discursive constructions on either side of the dilemma, identifying unequal distributions of

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power and the difficulty faced by local groups when attempting to compete with the interests and formulations of a global public.

The peace versus justice paradigm that has dominated discussions has been particularly beneficial for supporters of the ICC largely because it gives the appearance of challenging the intervention, even though few substantive challenges have actually been made. While a peace versus justice framework characterized the superficial level of the debate, a closer look at the competing arguments reveals that there was little discussion about whether or not the ICC intervention actually hindered or enabled the possibility for peace, nor was there much discussion regarding the nature of justice. Instead, most debate and discussion centered on the Acholi people themselves. Specifically, debate tended to feature discussions on whether or not the essential nature of the Acholi people was forgiving and whether or not the Acholi systems of justice and reconciliation were legitimate. To some degree, the centricity of discussions over the nature of the Acholi and the authenticity of their justice mechanisms was a result of the mobilization of a cultural relativist discourse as further justification against ICC intervention. Ultimately, focusing the debate on the Acholi people failed to put serious questions to the aims and purpose of the ICC, tending to take the discourse of international justice at face value, but placing doubt on local solutions. Most critically, the ICC was never fully put to task on whether or not it could actually contribute to the peace process or whether justice for justice’s sake is the ultimate aim. The latter is an important point given that the ICC is now and will likely continue to enter ongoing conflicts. While the ICC argues that you can pursue justice and peace at the same time, there is no empirical evidence that this claim holds true, and if it is not true, then the risks involved with seeking justice before peace has been established need to be emphasized and taken into consideration.

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This chapter seeks to examine how the debate between supporters and detractors of the ICC intervention into northern Uganda unfolded. The analysis of the debate is based on the premise that the events of northern Uganda have become a contested arena. It is a particularly important site of struggle where global discourses and practices have become challenged as they intersect with local discourses and agendas.33 As a struggle, particular modalities of power are at play, some of which can be traced by analyzing the strategic mobilization of certain discourses and the stress placed on certain elements of the debate. There have been a number of analyses that detail the arguments put forward both for and against the ICC intervention and assess the weight of the various arguments. The purpose of this chapter is not to do the same, but to examine more closely how the debate developed within a historical framework. The reference to discourse and discursive space in this instance is to acknowledge the relevance and effective influence that representations of events and subjects can have on relations of power and subsequent events and actions. This is not to say, however, that competing narratives are always strategically and purposefully compiled and portrayed. Rather, it is likely more accurate to suggest that certain ideas, images, commentaries and propaganda are sometimes purposefully and sometimes unconsciously and haphazardly combined to form a body of narratives and arguments that develop a life of their own, sometimes with unintended consequences.

Justice Debate over the Court’s decision to investigate the LRA/M conflict tended to occur at a global public level in the news media, in reports published by interested local, national and international organizations, various fora seeking to

33 There is some danger in the use of such notions as “local” and “global” to describe the debate, first because the division of the actual actors opposing and supporting the ICC intervention does not follow such absolute divisions; and second, because it tends to reinforce dichotomies of local versus global which are overly simplistic. However, given that the main debate was between local Acholi leaders and international organizations and actors it does have some relevance here.

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address the issues of conflict resolution and peace building in Uganda, as well as academic discussions at conferences, in journals and in books.34 In a short period of time, the conflict in northern Uganda became the center of international debate and discussion. Indeed, even in places as far as the US, UK and Canada, the northern Uganda conflict and the dilemma of the ICC has frequently been the subject of opinion editorials in popular newspapers.35 It is not overstated to suggest that the events in northern Uganda suddenly became issues of international interest. For the people of Uganda, and northern Uganda, this fact has had enormous implications on the outcome of events. For the general public, particularly the global public both within greater Uganda as well as other countries around the world, the debate has largely been framed by the news media. And by and large, the media focuses on the apparent dilemma between peace and justice. 36 Both opponents of the ICC intervention and its supporters have tended to argue that the dichotomy is a false dichotomy and that both peace and justice can be achieved, though obviously the envisioned paths to peace would follow different roadmaps. Nonetheless, the framing of the debate as one of peace versus justice has continued and has tended to favor the supporters of the ICC intervention over those who oppose it.

34 A few examples include: Allen, Tim. 2006. Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lord's Resistance Army. London: Zed Books in association with International African Institute; Branch, Adam. 2004. International Justice, Local Injustice: The International Criminal Court in Northern Uganda. Dissent Magazine 51(3):22-26; Hovil, Lucy, and Joanna R. Quinn. 2005. Peace First, Justice Later: Traditional Justice in Northern Uganda. Kampala: Refugee Law Project; Pham, Phuong; Vinck, Patrick; and Eric Stover. 2005. Forgotten Voices: A Population- Based Survey of Attitudes About Peace and Justice in Northern Uganda. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract= 1448371. 35 A few examples include: When Peace and Justice Clash in the New York Times (Welsbord 2005); Rebels Aren’t the Worst of What Uganda Has to Deal With in the Globe and Mail (Glauser 2005); and Justice on Trial in the Guardian (Foley 2006). 36 A few examples include: Justice for War Criminals or Peace for Northern Uganda? (Perkins 2008); Peace Versus Justice in Uganda; Analysis – Uganda Highlights Tension Between Peace and Justice (Thomasson 2008).

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The particular framing of the debate as one of peace versus justice favored the ICC intervention in a number of ways. First, the presentation of the debate as a dilemma between peace and justice gave the appearance of challenging the Court and the possibility it could obstruct peace. However, while officials of the Court were asked to respond to such allegations, their responses, usually simply stating that justice was a necessary component of lasting peace or that the ICC was a primary contributor to the Juba peace talks, were generally accepted at face value and no further scrutiny was undertaken. This allowed the Court to promote its own ideal construct of peace and to present itself as a necessary component of conflict resolution. Second, by leaving unexamined the real threat posed to peace by the ICC intervention, the Court was never made to publicly clarify its own priorities. These priorities likely involve seeking justice even where this may obstruct peace, with the long-term aim of deterring future crime by making examples of a few countries; but, rarely were officials pressed to clarify the position of the ICC. Third, a peace versus justice dichotomy often slipped into a justice versus impunity dichotomy through the characterization of anything but international criminal trials as impunity. This characterization delegitimized many of the arguments against the ICC from the outset and hindered serious consideration of alternatives. It also allowed supporters of the ICC intervention to promote a particular construct of justice as uniquely legitimate. Finally, peace versus justice also translated easily into other dichotomies such as tradition versus modernity or particularism versus universalism, and neither of these presentations provided positive evaluations of the positions opposing the ICC intervention. In combination with an increasing predilection for legal solutions to an array of political and social problems, opponents of the ICC tended to be disadvantaged in public presentations of the debate and general support for the Court’s activities in Uganda were difficult to disrupt except among actors with intimate experience and knowledge of the situation.

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One would assume that by highlighting the dilemma between peace and justice, Court officials would be called to task on the possibility that they could be contributing to prolonging the suffering of people in northern Uganda and pushing the conflict toward intractability. However, in most cases, when officials of the Court have been questioned on this topic their response has consistently been that the intervention of the Court in Uganda has actually assisted and not hindered the peace process. For example, Fatou Bensouda, the ICC Deputy Prosecutor, is quoted as saying to the BBC that the “ICC is not an impediment to peace…. I think the warrants that have been issued by the ICC have contributed tremendously to making the perpetrators of these crimes come to, even negotiate with the government” (Bosire 2007). Or note the comments of the ICC outreach officer in Kampala, Maria Mabinty, who is quoted as saying, “I don’t believe that the ICC has blocked the process in any way, in fact, it’s the presence of the ICC and its activities that have seen this process come this far” (Amutuhaire 2008). A lawyer involved in advising the Ugandan government on the ICC referral also claimed that the ICC investigation was key to initiating peace talks, stating that, “If we hadn’t referred the LRA/M case to the ICC, we wouldn’t be talking about the peace talks and the end of the rebellion” (Kagumire 2007). Such statements, repeated in a number of interviews and analyses, construct the ICC indictments against the rebels as the main catalyst for the Juba peace talks and an expected peace. However, these constructions tend to ignore a number of other factors that likely also played a critical role in establishing the environment for negotiations between the government and the LRA/M.

Disentangling the multiple factors that may have influenced the rebels and opened the way for negotiations is a difficult and somewhat speculative undertaking. Certainly, the indictments against the rebels have had an impact on the LRA/M leadership and influence their decisions. They may even have

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contributed to the decision of the rebels to seek peace talks at this particular point in time. Nonetheless, it would be naïve to believe that the ICC intervention is the only or even necessarily the most important factor which led the LRA/M leaders to make public demands for negotiations with the government. First of all, this is not the first time the rebel leaders have sought negotiations, thus other factors must be considered. And, though the timing of the LRA/M demand for talks followed the announcement of the ICC investigations, it also followed upon a number of significant political developments in the region. The Nairobi Agreement signed in 1999 between the Ugandan and Sudanese governments required both governments to cease support to rebels in their respective countries. Though support to the LRA/M continued even after the Agreement was signed, this event marks the beginning of increased tensions between the Khartoum government and the LRA/M as well as a decrease in financial and material support. The public acknowledgment that the Khartoum government had been supporting the LRA/M also worked to increase international attention and political pressure on the Sudanese to end their relations with the rebels. In 2002, the Sudanese government even gave permission to the UPDF to enter their territory to fight the LRA. By 2005, when the Sudanese government signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the SPLM/A, Sudanese support for the LRA/M is believed to have been almost completely cut off. It also meant that the LRA/M would be vulnerable if they remained in Southern Sudan since they would no longer enjoy the protection of government forces. Certainly, the slow decline in funding and the souring of relations between the Khartoum government and the LRA/M leadership can also be attributed to the unprecedented attention brought to the subject following the ICC intervention; but this also leads one to question why more diplomatic pressure and international attention was not brought to the situation much earlier. Had such financial, technical and diplomatic resources been available to the people of northern Uganda in the years prior to the establishment of the ICC, the war may have been brought to an

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end much earlier. As one civil society actor noted, “the international community has simply done too little, too late” (Interview with author, October 2005).

Moreover, the link between increased international attention and the announcement of the ICC meant that many of the actors now interested in solving the two-decade long conflict came with a predetermined agenda to seek a very particular kind of peace. One article submitted to a Ugandan newspaper by Human Rights Watch in May 2007 provides an example of how the agenda of international justice became paramount in the search for conflict resolution. The article states that,

Last month we spoke with people who were victims of the massive displacement that occurred in the north due to the conflict. Nearly all those we met in displaced camps expressed an intense desire to return to their homes. A number conveyed real concern that prosecution of LRA/M leaders could further delay their departure and therefore saw the ICC as an obstacle. A distinct vocal minority, however, declared a desire to see those most responsible brought to trial, although they questioned how the ICC could arrest those it had charged. (Keppler and Dicker 2007)

The article is interesting in that it first notes that through its own consultations with the population in northern Uganda only a “vocal minority” were interested in justice and even then with certain reservations. Yet, the authors of the article still go on to suggest that, the “those with an interest in seeing a lasting end to the conflict in northern Uganda should insist on an outcome that includes peace and justice. Anything less would be abandonment of the victims, international principle, and won’t last long” (Keppler and Dicker 2007). The statement not only sets out to define what kind of peace is necessary for Ugandans, it also substitutes the priorities stated by “a number” of the victims for those stated by the “vocal minority.” In the same article quoted above, another example

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illustrates a more direct attempt to define legitimate peace when they declare that “simply put, a solution that avoids meaningful justice will undercut prospects for a durable peace” (2007). Such statements from a number of organizations, particularly human rights organizations and INGOs promoting the ICC, became commonplace after the announcement of the investigation, bringing attention to the conflict while simultaneously working to define what a reasonable path to peace should look like. Attempts to place the Ugandan conflict on the agenda of the Security Council made by then Canadian Representative to the Security Council, Allan Rock, also illustrate the degree to which finding a solution to the conflict had become an international priority (Rock 2006). Though the attempt was not completely successful, it did manage to raise the profile of the conflict in international relations and its criticisms of the Ugandan government were used as leverage to pressure the Ugandan government to comply with the Rome Statute, a recommendation made in the report. The attention brought to the conflict following the ICC announcement attest to the influence already embedded in the ICC as numerous international political actors began to weigh in on the conflict in northern Uganda and put their political support behind the objectives of the ICC.

Whether or not the ICC indictments contributed to bringing the different parties to the table, this was the argument made by the supporters of the ICC intervention. And, typically, the claim that the ICC has contributed to the peace process was accepted at face value and the discussion would move on. But this skipped over the fact that while it is possible that the ICC intervention helped to bring the rebels to the negotiation table, the Court still remained the greatest obstacle to its final resolution. It is this particular paradox of the ICC intervention which has remained the most obscure in the public debate. Press releases and statements by ICC officials tended to highlight the necessity of justice for durable peace and stress that without the indictments it is uncertain whether the rebels

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would have been motivated to become involved in a peace process. But by not confronting or admitting that the indictments are potentially the biggest stumbling block to a final peace agreement, the ICC appears to be avoiding any direct inquiries regarding its own agenda and set of priorities. It is within this particular nexus of contradictions and paradoxes that the motivations of the Court actually reveal themselves the most. While officials of the Court downplay the possibility that the indictments may hinder the peace process and repeatedly confirm that the ICC has actually made the peace talks possible, they are attempting to construct the Court as a beneficial participant in peace-building and conflict resolution. But this process involves diverting attention away from the fact that the ICC indictments have proven to be the biggest obstacle to ending the peace talks, making the resolution of the conflict through peaceful means likely impossible. This is not to argue that the peace talks would have necessarily succeeded if not for the ICC indictments, but it is to argue that ignoring the theoretical impossibility of resolving the conflict through peaceful means that is a consequence of the ICC indictments refutes the insinuation often made by ICC officials that the Court can contribute to conflict resolution.

It is not unlikely that the attempt to divert attention away from challenges to peace in northern Uganda, along with other cases currently underway in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR), are part of a utilitarian calculation whereby it is hoped that if the Court can make an example of a few cases, it will deter the possibility of future crimes. In this utilitarian equation, officials of the Court may be gambling that early successes of the Court will result in fewer violations of humanitarian law in the future and will therefore have an overall positive outcome for humanity. However, in such an equation, many lives are put at risk or sacrificed for long- term goals that may never be realized. Indications that this is the actual, if understated, goal of the Court are revealed in statements made by the ICC

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Registrar Sylvana Arbia following the first failed attempt at obtaining Kony’s signature on the peace agreement. Responding to the question of whether the ICC’s refusal to remove the indictment is the reason behind Kony’s decision not to sign the peace agreement, Arbia responds, “though the agreement would bring peace, ICC does not think lasting peace should be brokered this way where impunity is a relevant factor. The intention of the ICC is to deter such acts where people expect to rebel and commit crimes then go free because a peace agreement was signed” (Muyanja 2008). The comments provide rare insight into the philosophy of the Court and the willingness to allow peace to be forfeited in the name of justice.37 At a theoretical level, such as in academic papers, such revelations are more commonly and easily made, such as the comment of legal scholar Ruti Teitel who, in a description of different phases of transitional justice, laments the incorporation of discourses of ethics and religion into transitional justice and comments that “a dynamic discourse that juxtaposed and even sacrificed the aim of justice for the more modest goal of peace emerged in Phase II”(Teitel 2003). The ease with which Teitel is able to make the evaluative judgment that peace is a more modest goal than justice can be somewhat attributed to the fact that his comments are not attached to any particular conflict. For ICC officials answering to the case of northern Uganda, it would be necessary to attach that evaluation directly to the lives lost when peace is forfeited. Therefore, most officials have tended to avoid such statements and instead continue to defer attention away from the crux of the issue. Since the failure of the peace agreement, it is nonetheless surprising that more journalists do not directly confront officials of the Court on the role the indictments may have played in ending the peace talks.38 For their part, however, most officials

37 Another rare example is the comment made by the former ICC President Philippe Kirsch that “the pursuit of justice isn’t necessarily “synonymous with the interests of peace”” (Ottawa Citizen 2008). 38 This is not to argue that Kony would necessarily have signed the agreement if the indictments had been removed, but it is generally the job of journalists to explore these issues.

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continue to defer attention away from the Court, this time casting the blame for the continued conflict on States Parties for not carrying out the arrests. In an important address made by Luis Moreno-Ocampo at an international conference, he argues that,

The tension I see in Uganda or Darfur is not between Peace and Justice. It is not the decisions of the International Criminal Court which undermine the peace processes and conflict resolution initiatives…. It is the lack of enforcement of the Court’s decisions which is the real threat to enduring Peace. Allowed to remain at large, the criminals exposed are continuing to threaten the victims, those who took tremendous risks to tell their stories; allowed to remain at large, the criminals ask immunity under one form or another as a condition to stopping the violence. They threaten to attack more victims. I call this extortion, I call it blackmail. We cannot yield. (Moreno-Ocampo 2007a)

The Prosecutor’s statement, once again, denies the possibility that the Court’s intervention could prevent peace and lays responsibility for the continuation of conflict on the shoulders of various governments and international actors for not capturing the rebels. But this analysis sidesteps the real challenges that continue to exist in implementing these arrests. Without the possibility for a negotiated solution, the only feasible means to end the conflict is by killing or capturing the rebel leaders, an objective that has proven near to impossible to achieve for over twenty years and one which will likely involve the killing and displacement of many more civilians. While such a dilemma may be characterized as blackmail, the risks faced by civilians in the region must be acknowledged and equated into the debate on peace and justice. There must be recognition that a utilitarian calculation that places justice as a priority over peace may cost thousands of human lives in the short-term, all whilst the long-term outcomes are speculative at best. Unfortunately, in most presentations of the debate, “peace” is only

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valorized if it involves international justice, without international justice, “peace” is derided as an empty vessel.

A look at another section of the Prosecutor’s address illustrates the strategic manner in which “peace” and “justice” are presented. Moreno-Ocampo passionately argues that,

As the Prosecutor of the ICC, I was given a clear judicial mandate. My duty is to apply the law without political considerations…. And yet, for each situation in which the ICC is exercising jurisdiction, we can hear voices challenging judicial decisions, their timing, their timeliness, asking the Prosecution to use its discretionary powers to adjust to the situations on the ground, to indict or withdraw indictments according to short term political goals. We also hear officials of States Parties calling for amnesties, granting of immunities and other ways to avoid prosecutions, supposedly in the name of peace; we can hear voices portraying the ICC as an impediment to progressing further with Peace processes. (Moreno-Ocampo 2007a)

In this address, the Prosecutor has equated “peace” with “short term goals”; an equation which reveals the relative value placed on justice over peace. Peace is considered subordinate to justice, unless this peace conforms to the schema of the Court which dictates that “lasting peace requires justice” (Moreno-Ocampo 2007a). But, as noted, the equating of peace with short term goals also disregards the human lives that are involved. In fact, nowhere in the Prosecutor’s address does he confront the real possibility that the Court’s activities could hinder peace and cost lives; as noted above, these suggestions are rebuked with the indication that implementation is the responsibility of States Parties, leaving the Court blameless for any negative outcomes. In this address, the notion of peace is devalued and opposition to the Court’s

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intervention is ridiculed as using peace as an excuse for impunity, effectively denying the legitimacy of the demand for peace over justice in northern Uganda. Such characterizations seek to control the notion of “peace” which is considered positive and legitimate. Peace without justice has quickly become the anathema to international justice advocates as they attempt to impose a particular kind of peace in situations of ongoing conflict. Ultimately, international justice supporters are working to limit the kind of peace that is available to States Parties, using legal and moral imperatives to promote their case. A strong example of the legal imperative put forward by officials of the ICC is Moreno- Ocampo’s statement about the Rome Statute saying, “it is the new law. The issue is no longer about whether we agree or disagree with the pursuit of justice in moral or practical terms, it is the law” (Moreno-Ocampo 2007a). His matter of fact attitude, however, conceals the multiple political considerations, unequal distributions of power, and other challenges that continue to characterize implementation of the Rome Statute. It is through such statements, however, that officials and advocates of the ICC have managed to avoid any direct confrontations about the real threat the ICC may present to peace; instead, they have characterized justice as a necessity for a legitimate peace, despite the fact that the relation between justice and peace is still quite undetermined.

The peace versus justice characterization has also been strategically beneficial to supporters of the Court since “peace” has been easily elided to become “impunity.” The apparent interchangeability of these terms is a result of the evaluation of all possible alternatives to international criminal justice as leading to impunity. Thus, any efforts to prioritize peace become rewritten as strategies for impunity. Once “peace” becomes replaced with “impunity”, the arguments against justice become increasingly hard to make. The ability to render all alternatives to international penal justice as impunity is realized through the countless descriptions of LRA/M commanders escaping justice if they are made

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to submit themselves to local forms of justice and even on many occasions if they are allowed to be tried in front of a national court set up for the purpose of judging war crimes. For example, one Ugandan international law expert, commenting on the Agreement signed between the LRA/M and the Ugandan government that covers accountability, notes that,

Until the charges the Ugandan state intends to bring against the LRA/M leadership are known, the fear must be that they will not address the human rights abuses for which the ICC wants them tried, while the traditional justice offered to lesser perpetrators is not justice at all, but a shield against it – and a violation of the victim’s right to see the perpetrator punished. The whole system of amnesty, he warns, ‘promotes a culture of impunity where violence is the norm’ – the very thing the ICC was intended to overcome. (Perkins 2008)

Though local mechanisms of seeking justice may merit some reservation, the outright disregard for national or local processes should also be questioned. All systems of justice have limitations and require scrutiny, but writing off traditional mechanisms as nothing more than a form of impunity discounts outright the social value and meaning these processes can have within the community and the role they can play in reconciliation. In an example of another statement, the INGO No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), commenting on the suggestion that Uganda should play host to the ICC Review Conference stated that, “hosting the Review Conference in Uganda would strengthen the fight against impunity by supporting those within and outside of Government who oppose amnesties or any other form of impunity for serious crimes under international law and who wish to see a real accountability process realized” (NPWJ 2008). Here the statement refers most directly to and opposes the use of amnesties as an instrument of conflict resolution. It also equates the ICC trials with “a real accountability process”. Though the statement does not directly

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refer to traditional justice processes, it does make reference to “any other form of impunity” which leaves the interpretation open. However, in the context of the debate in Uganda, it would not seem unreasonable to believe the reference may be implying the use of traditional forms of justice, thereby equating such procedures with impunity. On the other hand, the statement is explicit in its desire to use the selection of Uganda as the location of the next Review Conference as a source of leverage and means of support to those “who wish to see a real accountability process realized,” clearly demonstrating subtle forms of influence. In addition, the wholesale opposition to the use of amnesties is quite significant, since the use of amnesties to encourage rebels and former abductees to turn themselves in has been an important strategy in seeking an end to the war. The use of blanket amnesties without any form of confession or truth- telling is criticized both within and outside Uganda; however, most of the population affected by the conflict support some form of amnesty as a means to end the war, with the understanding that many of the former rebels were themselves abducted. Overall, the statement frames the support of the ICC in Uganda as a moral imperative; a key moment in the fight against impunity, ignoring the considerations and viewpoints of many northern Ugandans, but strategically linking their position with those in Uganda who support the intervention. Suggestions that alternative forms of justice lead to impunity also serve to restrict exactly what meaningful justice is in the minds of the public, reaffirming the general penchant for formal legal solutions that is a characteristic of recent decades.

The prevalent suggestion that international justice is unique in its ability to end impunity maligns other forms of justice, even national trials. This places international justice in a hierarchy of justice over which it reigns supreme. This hierarchy is also illustrated in Moreno-Ocampo’s address, where he states that, “the Court, as I emphasized earlier, was created to investigate and prosecute the

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worst perpetrators, responsible for the worst crimes, those bearing the greatest responsibility, the organizers, the planners, the commanders; national proceedings and other accountability mechanisms remain essential for the purpose of achieving comprehensive solutions; they are not alternative but complementary processes…” (Moreno-Ocampo 2007b). This characterization contradicts somewhat the principle of complementarity embedded in the Rome Statute which declares international jurisdiction only where nation-states are unwilling or unable to prosecute crimes. Yet, it demonstrates the degree to which international justice is considered superior to other forms of justice, and therefore irreplaceable. In her analysis of the justice debate in Uganda, anthropologist Kamari Maxine Clarke has pointed to the competing sovereignties of the victims, the state and international institutions. Drawing on Agamben’s notion of the “state of exception”39, she notes that, “the state of exception is also reflected in the power of individuals working through global institutions to manage international justice mechanisms and suspend national-level processes. This is directly relevant to the competition between the ICC and national-level strategies for justice in Uganda, as it relates to the power to decide when and with respect to whom the law does or does not apply” (2007: 153). She goes on to say that, “this path to international justice cloaks an unequal distribution of power for the sake of a new form of governmentality through which violence can be managed internationally or in various spheres of invented tradition” (2007:153). Clarke’s point importantly highlights the different levels of actors competing for sovereignty in the case of northern Uganda. She also highlights the unequal power relations that exist between these actors. And while it may be argued that Museveni knowingly surrendered his sovereignty over jurisdiction

39 Agamben argues that sovereign power lies in the ability of the sovereign to determine the state of exception. In a state of exception, law is suspended, but not violated. A state of exception allows for the extension of power by the sovereign power. In this case, international organizations are imposing their sovereign power over nation states on the basis of a state of exception according to Clarke.

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of the LRA/M conflict when he referred the case to the ICC, this still leaves open the question of whether the sovereignty of the victims was respected. In other words, is Museveni the appropriate person to make such decisions when he is considered by many in northern Uganda as a contributor to the violence and conflict they have suffered? Questions of sub-national sovereignty should be significant when making decisions about prosecutions if the interests of the victims are to be respected.

The assumption that only criminal law, and in a number of arguments only international criminal law, is capable of rendering justice is an indication of how quickly international justice discourse has become normalized in the imagination of the global public. Equating other forms of justice with impunity and presenting international justice as the only means to ending impunity raises the status of the ICC in relation to national governments and other judicial or quasi- judicial processes. This relative status imparts the ICC with important influence and legitimacy in international relations and with the general public, allowing the interests of international justice to take precedence over other interests. The ability to define legitimate forms of peace and justice are representative of an important means by which supporters of international justice have managed to control the agenda. While for many, the claim that the ICC is uniquely capable of imparting justice may ring true, this assumes a universally accepted notion of justice. And in northern Uganda, such an assumption would be very misplaced.

When I asked individuals in northern Uganda what they believed justice to be, I received a variety of answers. Some said people being allowed to return to their homes would be justice; others said that justice would entail the return of the rebels so that everyone could live in harmony; still another said justice would come from a reconciliation that takes all history into account. One man said that justice is when those who are knowledgeable make someone who doesn’t know

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anything understand what he did wrong – it is making someone who doesn’t understand, understand. He also noted that justice should come from the side of government, since most of the rebels did not go willingly into the conflict. On the other hand, a common theme was that justice cannot be achieved; lives lost cannot be repaid. As one man said, “neither the government nor Kony can pay for all that they have done” (Interview with author, March 2007). Jacques Derrida, among others, has argued that law can never completely arrive at justice. This is the case because “law is organized around the demand for universality” and therefore must provide strict and replicable guidelines; whereas justice must answer to the “absolutely singular” and is therefore infinite in possibilities (Haslam 2007:59). Based on the definitions of justice imparted to me, it would certainly seem true that law is unlikely to provide justice in the case of northern Uganda. Justice for most people I spoke to entailed the restoration of their former lives and at least some recognition and reparation for the lives that have been indelibly lost. In spite of this, supporters of the ICC have easily been able to equate justice uniquely with the outcome of criminal trials, providing a powerful testament to the normative effect of law.

As the supporters of ICC struggle to control the meaning and content of “justice”, the shape of Uganda’s future as well as the future of the ICC are being charted. For those who believe that criminal trials and the associated stigmatization and punishment are the only meaningful form of justice, it is critical to simultaneously elevate the status of justice and limit its meaning to the outcome of criminal trials. Another way to reveal how the field of international criminal justice is being shaped is to look at how legal discourses, an important component of international justice, also shape what is accepted as injustice. Bourdieu has noted that:

The conversion of an unperceived harm into one that is perceived, named, and specifically attributed presupposes a

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labour of construction of social reality which falls largely to professionals. The discovery of injustice as such depends upon the feeling that one has rights (“entitlement”). Hence the specific power of legal professionals consists in revealing rights – and revealing injustices by the same process – or, on the contrary, in vetoing feelings of injustice based on a sense of fairness alone and, thereby, in discouraging the legal defense of subjective rights. In short, the power of the professionals is to manipulate legal aspirations – to create them in certain cases, to amplify them or discourage them in others. (Bourdieu 1986:834-835)

While Bourdieu stresses the work of the professionals, and certainly it is the legal professionals who have largely been responsible for delineating what can be considered as an injustice, this categorization does not go unchallenged by non- professionals. While the ICC defines indiscriminate killing of civilians, rape, torture and other violence as injustices, the people of northern Uganda have equally argued that the loss of their way of life, the forced displacement into camps, and the lack of basic needs, especially food, are also among the injustices they have suffered. Yet, these injustices have not been recognized by the ICC as sufficient to require legal intervention.

The elision of “peace” in “peace versus justice” to become “justice versus impunity” is therefore a significant means by which the discussion on international justice is being controlled. As long as alternatives to the ICC are repeatedly equated with impunity, the procedures of the Court are legitimized and all other procedures are placed in doubt. The ability of supporters of the ICC to equate alternatives to the Court with impunity have in turn relied on a subsequent dichotomy, that of tradition versus modernity. This dichotomy is meant to represent the contradiction between the local forms of justice that have been promoted by local leaders and the ICC. Mato oput, a traditional mechanism of reconciliation, has been discussed as a possible means by which

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former rebels could be made to account for their crimes and reintegrate into the community. Mato oput relies on a series of processes that include confession, reparation and reconciliation. It is not a punitive system of justice; its goals are social rehabilitation and reconstruction. This dichotomy in the judiciary is often referred to as distinctions between restorative and retributive justice. Restorative justice is often associated with indigenous populations such as First Nations in Canada, Aboriginals in Australia or the Maori in New Zealand. While this association has a certain romantic appeal to Western audiences, it more often denotes a kind of nostalgia for things past. Thus restorative systems of justice are quaint reminders of a bygone era; while retributive justice is a modern, efficient and more relevant form of justice for our times. Such a dichotomy allows for a superficial level of appreciation for traditional justice systems in northern Uganda, but also easily results in its condemnation as an archaic institute of little contemporary relevance. One article attempting a nuanced description of the dilemma in Uganda, noted that “support for Mato Oput as a solution is widespread among the Acholi, who long for peace after more than two decades of warfare” but then quickly observed that, “apart from the question of whether LRA/M commanders would effectively be granted with impunity for serious crimes simply by submitting to healing ceremonies, there are other issues that will make it far from easy to institutionalise this kind of local practice” (Ocen 2007). The challenges to using mato oput for the types of crimes committed in northern Uganda are real; however, the tendency in analyses of the subject to quickly question whether the outcome of traditional systems of justice result in impunity rely again on a very narrow conception of justice. Moreover, the description of traditional justice in this case, as in many others, incorrectly refers to mato oput as a “healing ceremony”, which does not accurately denote the character and purpose of mato oput. The use of particular language to describe traditional justice systems, (including my own) as “traditional” or “alternative” is in itself a means by which such systems are given

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secondary status to formal legal systems. A very obvious attempt to overcome this linguistic stratification was made by Olara Otunnu in his Open Letter to the LRA/M where he discusses “Lwo jurisprudence,” instead of the usual ‘local’ or ‘traditional’ justice (Otunnu 2007). This type of language is rare; however, demonstrating the degree to which criminal justice has become the archetype of justice in the minds of most observers. The reduction of the contesting systems to a simple dichotomy of tradition and modernity serves to reinforce the preeminence of the criminal legal system. This is because the underlying message in a tradition versus modernity dichotomy is that a “modern” – read educated and rational – person would not oppose formal penal justice for the sake of traditional ceremony.

It is in this way that a peace versus justice dichotomy has benefitted the supporters of the ICC. In most cases, the obstacles to peace presented by the ICC intervention have never been fully investigated; instead, it is the positions of those opposing the ICC which are put under scrutiny. The general assumption underlying the debate, therefore, is that the ICC is the correct and natural solution and that opposition to it must be explained. This has given the advantage to those supporting legal solutions and made it difficult for local leaders to make decisions about the future of the people and the conflict. In general, supporters of international justice have been allowed to assert that peace without justice is not really peace at all. Underlying this assertion is the idea that peace is meaningless and unsustainable if justice is not pursued. However, there are many examples in the history books of countries which have realized sustainable peace without seeking justice, South Africa being one of the more famous and recent examples.40 Moreover, there is no concrete evidence that justice is necessary for sustainable peace, in fact, in the few cases where the

40 There were a few exceptional cases where criminal justice was pursued; however, seeking criminal justice was not central to the general policy of transition from Apartheid.

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relations of justice and peace have been examined, the evidence is ambivalent at best (see e.g., Fletcher, et al. 2009; International Center for Transitional Justice 2007). Nonetheless, the claim that peace must include justice has prevailed in international circles, with the exception perhaps of the Middle East and Afghanistan cases, where it is unlikely peace would be sacrificed for the sake of justice. The peace versus justice framework has been particularly beneficial to the supporters of the ICC, since it allowed the perception that the ICC was being challenged, though in fact it was only superficially brought to task regarding the likelihood it would render a negotiated solution impossible. It also allowed ICC advocates to define what is considered legitimate peace and justice, ultimately making local alternatives appear irrational. Over time, opposition to the ICC intervention has diminished, particularly opposition by international actors, as such opposition is increasingly characterized as irrational and existing on the fringe of society.

Peace On the other side of the debate, opponents of the ICC intervention in Uganda tended to form their arguments around two collections of principles. The first set of arguments focused on the pragmatic concerns that the ICC investigation posed to those who had been struggling for peace in the region. This approach was widely supported by all who opposed the Court’s involvement including many officials from UN agencies and international organizations who had been invested in bringing peace to the region and who had become familiar with the historical and political situation. The second set of arguments incorporated fundamental points of the first arguments, but took opposition to the ICC a step further and argued against its intervention based on cultural and religious principles. This approach was taken largely by local leaders, though some international actors provided support for more limited aspects of the arguments. The mobilization of discourses of cultural relativism and national reconciliation

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followed a historical trajectory which had seen local leaders resisting government domination of both the representation of events and the nature of the conflict as well as decision-making on what policy to adopt to end the war. However, from a strategic perspective, the mobilization of such discourses, particularly a cultural relativist discourse, in a more international struggle against the imposition of the International Court tended to divert attention away from the challenges the Court presented to peace and towards questions of cultural authenticity. Arguments against the ICC based on the pragmatic concern of peace tended to be more successful at the international level than relativist arguments which moved the discussion from a peace versus justice debate to one of tradition versus modernity or justice versus impunity. This is not to suggest that a cultural relativist argument does not have its own merits, but, at least at this moment in time, and examining the situation entirely from a strategic perspective, it tended to diminish rather than strengthen the struggle against ICC intervention.

Following the announcement of the ICC decision to investigate the conflict, reaction from the Acholi region of northern Uganda was swift. Many leaders publicly challenged the timing of the ICC intervention and argued that the ICC could prove to be an impediment to peace; and peace, according to the local leaders was the priority for northern Ugandans. Then vice-president of ARLPI, Right Reverend Macleord Ochola, was quoted as saying, “this kind of approach is going to destroy all efforts for peace. People want this war to stop. If we follow the ICC in branding the LRA/M criminals, it won’t stop.” He went on to say, “we’re not saying impunity should be encouraged, we’re saying this is poor timing. Let us not forget that UPDF *Uganda People’s Defence Forces+ have also committed atrocities which will at some stage need to be investigated” (IRIN News 2004). The words of the religious leader highlight key points opponents of the ICC investigation emphasize throughout their campaign against ICC

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intervention. First, they do not argue that justice is unnecessary, only that it does not take precedence over peace; second, opponents made clear they felt that both sides of the conflict should be held accountable.

But it was not only the local leaders who opposed the Court’s intrusion into events. A coalition of local NGOs and international NGOs known as CSOPNU that includes well-known organizations such as Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, and CARE International also publicly opposed the move. In a letter written to Chief Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo, the coalition of Civil Society Organizations voice five areas of concerns over the decision of the ICC to intervene in the conflict: the timing of the investigation; issues of complementarity; the scope of the investigations; security and protection; as well as public relations. Their opposition to the timing of the investigation highlights the concerns noted in Ochola’s statements above, that justice should follow peace initiatives. The authors of the letter note that, “civil society actors believe that the investigation at this stage in time does not serve the interest of justice, in particular the interests of the victims. An investigation by the ICC in itself will not bring an end to the conflict, which is the main desire of the population of northern Uganda” (CSOPNU 2004). The second concern, regarding “complementarity,” questions the rationale of the Court to accept the referral given that Uganda has a functioning judicial system and also makes note of the reconciliation processes under way in northern Uganda which they argue provide restorative justice. They state that,

The role played by the Cultural and Religious Leaders is paramount in this respect. The ICC has indicated that it is willing to consider traditional justice mechanisms as well as the national ones. This should be further looked into and encouraged. While the temporal limitation of the Court is understood, other mechanisms could be more suitable to

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address all aspects of the war which has waged since 1986, not only the last two years. (2004)

This last consideration was linked to the third concern regarding the scope of the investigations whereby they note that atrocities have been committed by both sides of the conflict: “CSOs in northern Uganda believe that, while condemning the atrocities committed by the LRA/M, all armed groups have committed crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC. It is therefore recommended that the investigations, if they go ahead at this stage, look at all aspects of the 18-year war in northern Uganda, and not only at one of the parties.” The fourth concern takes into consideration the security and protection that will be offered in view of the pending investigation and demands that the Court provide adequate security to witnesses noting especially the vulnerability of children. And, the final concern on public relations relates to the decision of the Prosecutor to announce the investigation standing beside President Museveni and encourages the Court to reverse the negative perception of the Court as a biased institution through effective media campaigns.

In all, the communication to the Prosecutor demonstrates a strong coalition of local and international actors, all of whom are situated in northern Uganda and intimately familiar with the historical and political context. The arguments against the ICC intervention are largely pragmatic in nature, that is, they do not question the value of the ICC or of international justice, but lay out practical reasons why the Court may not be the best instrument to achieve justice, not only because it threatens peace but also because it does not have jurisdiction over all elements of the conflict and thereby cannot provide complete justice. This particular framing of arguments against the ICC was particularly prevalent in the period following the announcement and was articulated through reports and more formal types of communication such as policy briefs or press releases. Another example can be seen in a report from the Refugee Law Project, a

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Ugandan research and advocacy organization dealing with issues related to forced migration. Similar to the letter above, the report highlights the need for peace before justice can be achieved and argues that traditional mechanisms, with some alterations, may provide more appropriate forms of justice. The aim of the report was to clarify the concepts of peace and justice and understand the opinions of northern Ugandans regarding these processes. In the conclusion the authors note that,

Of paramount importance is the fact that, while there is much diversity of opinion within the conflict zone on many issues, findings indicate widespread consensus over the fact that peace needs to come before justice. Put another way, there can be no meaningful justice while civilians continue to be caught in the middle of a vicious battle between the LRA/M and government forces.... Indeed, it could be argued that what people are demanding through their desire to end the war and then determine appropriate mechanisms for dealing with crimes committed, is not less justice but more – and justice that is more appropriate and better able to deal with the level of mass atrocity that has taken place (Hovil and Quinn 2005: 50).

The shared convictions of the local leaders and many international actors regarding the potential negative consequences of the ICC intervention led to increased interest in possible local alternatives to the Court especially traditional forms of justice and reconciliation. Research initiatives aimed at understanding traditional institutions and practices and people’s attitudes towards them were subsequently undertaken. In 2005, the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Gulu District NGO Forum released a report entitled Roco Wat I Acoli (Restoring Relations in Acholi): Traditional Approaches to Reintegration and Justice (Baines 2005) that investigated the use of traditional practices in camps of the internally displaced. The report sought to understand how traditional practices of

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reconciliation were being used and what impact they were having in the community in order to recommend ways in which such practices could be increasingly adapted to address the reintegration of formerly abducted persons and to reconcile the communities as a whole. A Catholic organization, Caritas, under the Gulu Archdiocese, also undertook research and published a report entitled Traditional Ways of Coping in Acholi: Cultural Provisions for Reconciliation and Healing from War (Harlacher, et al. 2006).41 Although the second report emphasized psycho-social elements, both reports provided important analyses of the cultural systems of reconciliation practiced in Acholi and their impact. They both highlighted the devastating impact the war has had on cultural institutions and practices and the changes that have taken place as a result of colonialism, the spread of religion, particularly Christianity, and the political transformations arising from nation-building. However, they both conclude that cultural institutions and practices that could contribute to reconciliation continue to have a place in Acholi life and adaptation to the current crisis is a possibility given certain provisions.

Thus, there was some consensus between local leaders and a section of the international community – mainly officials of humanitarian organizations – that traditional forms of justice and reconciliation had some role to play in the processes of peace building and community reconciliation. Even religious leaders have supported the possibility of utilizing traditional methods to promote healing and reconcile relations between different groups and individuals. In a newsletter from the Archdiocese of Gulu in April, 2005, Father Carlos Rodriguez contributed an article in which he described his experience

41 Strictly speaking, the decision to carry out research into traditional mechanisms under Caritas began in 2003 based on the population’s apparent interest in strengthening these practices. However, the research was undertaken during the years following the ICC announcement and based on discussions with one of the authors it is clear that the need to understand more fully traditional institutions took on greater urgency following the ICC intervention.

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witnessing a mato oput ritual some years earlier. He also described how, two years after witnessing the ritual, some former rebels had requested cleansing ceremonies as part of a process of return from the bush. The priest concludes by saying:

I understood that day that cultural practices are crucial in a peace process and that a mere system of punitive justice alone is, by itself, inappropriate to address the huge need for real peace in the north. The Acholi mato oput peace process can be an effective way of healing the wounds of bitterness and conflict that have affected much of Northern Uganda since 1986. For a number of years, cultural cleansing ceremonies, particularly “stepping on the egg” (nyong tong gweno) have been carried out to welcome back in the community rebels who have come out of the bush. Many see this ceremony of the egg as a first step towards the realisation of the full mato oput ceremony. This has been practiced hand in hand with the Amnesty process, which has been a crucial factor in pacifying the region in recent years (Rodriguez 2005).

However, despite the shared objectives of some international and local actors in their bid to resist ICC involvement and to support local institutions, there were some subtle shifts in the general message of arguments emanating largely from local religious, traditional and some political leaders. In fact it was not so much a shift in the position of the leaders, it was more accurately an argument that was simultaneously made with pragmatic arguments, but over time, it took attention away from certain elements of the pragmatic arguments.

Religion and Culture Many of the local religious, political and cultural leaders of the Acholi, and a few international actors, drew on cultural relativist and national reconciliation (with a particular emphasis on the theological tenants of reconciliation) discourses in an

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attempt to strengthen and justify their opposition to international criminal trials. Arguments against the ICC based on cultural relativism or national reconciliation were not dramatic departures from pragmatic arguments. Many pragmatic concerns were highlighted alongside relativist arguments. The main departure between the two sets of arguments can be noted in the subtle shift that occurs when the use of traditional justice is supported because it better serves ‘culture’ or ‘religion’, rather than because it better serves ‘justice’. This subtle difference can be seen in the comments made by the Paramount Chief, Rwot Acana II in an interview with a Ugandan reporter. Acana notes that, “the best way to resolve the 18-year old war in our region is through poro lok ki mato oput (peace talks and reconciliation) as it’s in the Acholi culture” (Odongo 2004).

It is not to say that there was necessarily a conscious and calculated decision on the part of each or all of the leaders to mobilize such discourses, rather it was more a natural continuation of discursive constructions that were already in use and a reaction to powerful pressures of global conformity. The instrumentalization of “culture” and “religion” as arguments against ICC intervention has to be understood in the wider historical context. Discourses of cultural relativism and national reconciliation had been utilized by local leaders as they resisted what they perceived as government oppression and domination during the war as well as negative stereotypes of the Acholi people. Acholi leaders had struggled to gain control of decisions and events that were impacting the lives of Acholi people, but this struggle had involved countering dominant narratives of the conflict and negative perceptions of the Acholi people as violent and uncivilized. In order to counter these dominant representations and resist government control, Acholi leaders had fought to rewrite the foundations of Acholi identity and narratives of the conflict. This process draws upon the experiences of many Native American societies and African Americans in the 1960s and 70s who were “revalorizing ethnic or racial

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markers of a despised distinctiveness” (Cowan, et al. 2001b:2). It was part of a social project to re-instill pride and a positive sense of ethnic (or tribal) identity in a context of breakdown.

Thus, arguments against the ICC intervention generally followed a logic that emphasized discourses of cultural relativism, religious appropriateness and popular demand. Peace was presented as the absolute priority of the people in the Acholi districts. And peace could best be obtained by offering amnesty to the rebels in order to lure them from the bush and through peace negotiations at the higher levels. Forgiveness was considered appropriate both in cultural and religious terms, since Acholi systems of justice were said to promote reconciliation and not retribution and this was also consistent with religious frameworks that highlight forgiveness and mercy. For example, one INGO official stated, “it’s the tension between retributive and restorative justice. The people of the North would prefer restorative justice. That is rooted in their culture and they would argue that the ICC have no grounding with what is going on in the region if it thinks the answer is to pull out a whole lot of rebels” (Volqvartz 2005). Traditional systems of justice were promoted as better suited than Western legal systems at bringing about reconciliation on a number of bases including the fact that they can aim at attaining the truth about events and promote the reparation of relationships between individuals and groups. Furthermore, they should include some form of compensation to victims which is an important component of justice communicated by many victims.

The ICC brought with it a great deal of legitimacy and authority within the international community and as such it presented a formidable challenge. The legitimacy of the Court is largely built on discourses of human rights and international justice that have gained power by being naturalized in many areas of global relations and philosophy. The responses to the ICC, therefore, also

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drew on influential discourses, but ones which were already familiar in order to upset the more hegemonic nature of the global discourse of international justice. In a continuation of arguments made in support of a peaceful solution through amnesty and peace talks, arguments against the ICC drew on discourses of cultural relativism, romanticized ideals of culture and tradition, religious principles of mercy, and political discourses on national reconciliation such as that which followed Apartheid in South Africa. They also continued to emphasize the fact that their views represented the general population, the victims of the conflict. Another report published by Refugee Law Project seeking to understand the impact of the Amnesty Act provides an example of how a relativist argument was used to explain the appropriateness of local solutions. It argues that amnesty is more in keeping with the cultural framework of the Acholi:

The findings suggest that, despite a number of challenges in its implementation, the Amnesty Law is perceived as a vital tool for conflict resolution, and for longer-term reconciliation and peace within the specific context in which it is operating. Furthermore, numerous respondents emphasised the fact that it resonates with specific cultural understandings of justice: amnesty is taking place within societies in which the possibility of legal and social pardon is seen to better address the requirements for long-term reconciliation than more tangible forms of punishment meted out within the legal structures. However, the findings also indicate that lack of formal mechanisms for the process of truth-telling, or the admittance of guilt on the part of former combatants, is currently hindering the process of reconciliation. In addition, the report reveals two significant factors that are currently undermining the amnesty process: ambiguous government support for the Amnesty, and the recent announcement by the International Criminal Court that it intends to indict senior commanders in the Lord’s Resistance Army. (Hovil and Lomo 2004: 1)

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Arguments against the ICC from a relativist perspective were also common in discussions held with individuals from the region. For example, during my fieldwork I visited a local NGO to learn more about some of the programs they were running. During our conversation, we began to discuss the situation of the Court’s investigation in Uganda. The man explained to me that “Western legal systems are not restorative. For the Acholi, murder and other crimes are not individual acts, they involve the whole clan. So, restoration must involve the whole clan.” I was also told that, “people prefer peace over justice,” and “justice is a long process” (Gulu, September 2005). In Kampala, I also had a discussion with Zachary Lomo, the co-author of a number of reports on northern Uganda and then director of Refugee Law Project. When I asked him about his view of the ICC intervention he described to me his experiences speaking with people in the Acholi region about justice. He explained that most people he spoke to longed for peace and were willing to forego justice, at least in the short-term, in order to attain peace and to return to their normal lives. He described to me an interaction with one woman in a camp for the displaced. She said to him, “let there be peace, let the Konys and the Ottis have amnesty.” He then asked, “but what about all that they have done?” And she replied, “Do you think I love evil? But I am here with my last child and no means of giving him a proper life. Let there be peace and then we will deal with those who have committed evil ... in our own way.” Zachary then asked, “What if it is forgotten?” To which she quickly replied, “Forgotten! It cannot be forgotten!” (Interview with author, November 2005). The desire to deal with the conflict “in our own way” then, was emphasized as a counter-argument to the powerful lobbies for criminal justice. Forgiveness, amnesty and reconciliation were key concepts that were all related back upon the cultural dynamics of the Acholi.

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In my discussions with Archbishop Odama, however, he placed the process of forgiveness within a religious framework rather than a cultural one, saying that “a person who is shown forgiveness feels an indebtedness that can be healing. A person who does not forgive is continuously wounded. Forgiveness can transform you and that brings joy. It is at the level of the divine.” He also provided an anecdotal story to illustrate his point. He described how two boys were abducted together and taken to the Sudan. One of the boys managed to escape and returned to his family. He was brought to a reception center for rehabilitation and then returned to his home. In the meantime, the friend who had remained with the rebels led a group of LRA/M to his friend’s home, hoping to recapture him. He had felt anger and jealousy upon the escape of his friend and had decided to seek revenge. Word about rebels being in the area had gotten out, however, and the mother of the boy hid him in the bushes before the rebels could find him. When they arrived at the boy’s home, they found only his mother. They told her to bring her son to them, but she replied that she had not seen him since he was taken. The boy threatened her with a machete and said “you see this machete? You will die today.” But still the mother persisted. The boy then killed his friend’s mother and unbeknown to him his act had been witnessed by his friend hiding in the bush.

When the LRA/M rebels left, they were ambushed by government soldiers. Since they were children, the soldiers captured them and took them to their barracks where they stayed for some days. Later they were taken to a reception center. As it so happened, the boy who had lost his mother had also returned to the very same reception center since he had felt insecure after seeing his mother killed by his friend. When he sees the other boy, the one who killed his mother, arrive at the center, he runs to him, looks him in the eyes and says, “I forgive you. I don’t want two lives to be lost.” The boy, unbelieving, collapsed in his friend’s arms and sobbed. And from that moment the two remained inseparable. The

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Archbishop went on to explain that both the perpetrator and the victim are wounded and healing is effected when the two become doctors. First there should be confession, then forgiveness. The religious framework draws upon the high value placed on mercy and forgiveness and even of confession. Archbishop Odama also draws explicitly from the ideas of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, paralleling his work with that of the Anglican Archbishop when he promoted forgiveness in the wake of Apartheid. During our discussion Odama quoted Tutu saying that, “there is no future without forgiveness” (Interview with author, March 2007).

This is not to argue that cultural relativism or national reconciliation discourses are inherently wrong, or that the leaders were making claims about Acholi beliefs or practices that were not true. However, by highlighting religious and relativist arguments, the focus of the debate drifted away from important issues surrounding the Court and became increasingly focused on Acholi culture and practices. Religious foundations of forgiveness often rung hollow when juxtaposed with the list of atrocities committed by the rebels, while cultural relativist arguments tended to be reduced to romantic revisionism. In a discussion of the relations between “culture” and “rights”, Cowan, Dembour and Wilson point out that “’culturalist’ claims” – claims which invoke notions of culture, tradition, language, religion, ethnicity, locality, tribe or race – have become a familiar rhetorical element in contemporary rights processes. More and more, though not without exception, they are likely to carry weight in contexts of adjudication” (2001b:9). Though the authors note that culturalist claims have political weight, they also note that they can be a double-edged sword. The authors go on to say that culturalist claims can “represent what has been called ‘strategic-essentialism’. Activists from, or working on behalf of, communities making claims are often well aware that they are essentializing something which is in fact, much more fluid and contradictory, but they do so in

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order that their claims be heard” (2001b:10). The need to oversimplify and essentialize culture in relativist arguments can ultimately make those arguments vulnerable. This certainly appeared to be the case in northern Uganda, as it diverted attention away from crucial gaps in ICC policy and practice and toward questions of cultural authenticity and the nature of Acholi society.

An in-depth article discussing the multiple dilemmas of peace and justice in Uganda provides a good example of this process. The article begins by outlining the history of the conflict and then goes on to describe the dilemma of justice that has ensued. It provides a description of mato oput as “one of a repertoire of Acholi rituals designed to heal social divisions through a staged process: the acceptance of wrongdoing by the perpetrator of a crime; payment of compensation; and, finally, the drinking of a cup of sheep’s blood mixed with the bitter juice from the root of an oput tree. This ‘drinking of the bitter juice’ is said to exorcise the bitterness caused by conflict” (McConnell 2006). It goes on to provide an argument for this process as an alternative to criminal justice by the head of the government peace delegation, Ruhakana Rugunda saying, “the concern is impunity – but we have mato oput, a clear alternative system of justice which has worked for centuries in our country in the area of conflict resolution and reconciliation.” However, once the arguments for traditional justice have been presented they are quickly followed by remarks that question the “real” use of such processes and whether they are actually appropriate:

At the same time, mato oput – a system comparable to the gacaca process introduced in Rwanda eight years after the 1994 genocide – has not been performed since the 1980s and never in relation to murder on such a large scale. Its routine application has been in cases where an individual perpetrator and victim are identified; but in a war where tens of thousands are killed, often by unknown assailants, it

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is unclear how successfully the ritual can be adapted. (McConnell 2006)

Though the article spends some time delineating the complexities of the need for peace in the region and the possibility of using local forms of justice, it spends little time questioning the ICC on how exactly peace will be achieved and whether the Court is an appropriate approach to conflict resolution. Instead, its skepticism is largely reserved for the process of mato oput. It claims, incorrectly, that mato oput has not been performed since the 1980s, and ends by referring to the process as simply a “ritual”, rather than a process of justice. This minimizes the value of the process and puts little weight behind claims that such local forms of justice could be meaningful. The concern that mato oput has not been used in cases of mass atrocity is relevant, but even in the cited case of gacaca which was used in Rwanda, adaptation was necessary. The general point here, however, is to note that the use of a cultural relativist argument that highlighted the cultural relevance of local justice as opposed to international justice made the position of opponents to the ICC vulnerable to multiple types of critique since such arguments were forced into an essentialist corner that is easily refuted.

While some international organizations continued to show support for the views of the local leaders, the strength of discourses of cultural relativism and reconciliation tended to fall flat when they were translated through the international media. International news reports tended to present the case as a straightforward dichotomy between modernity and tradition. Even in articles intended to display the subtleties of the arguments on both sides, the position of the Acholi often came off as an incredibly archaic alternative to a well- established and respected legal system. For example, in the International section of the New York Times, a fairly detailed article attempting to clarify the logic behind the opposition to the ICC indictments of LRA/M members still

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managed to present the traditional systems in an overly simplified manner that ultimately ridiculed them. Generally a result of the journalistic style that is meant more to captivate than inform, the report lost the opportunity to more sensitively present its subject. The opening paragraph of the article sets the general tone: “The International Criminal Court at The Hague represents one way of holding those who commit atrocities responsible for their crimes. The raw eggs, twigs and livestock that the Acholi people of northern Uganda use in their traditional reconciliation ceremonies represent another” (Lacey 2005). The reduction of traditional systems in northern Uganda to component parts serves to shock the audience and sensationalize the supposed gap between the Western and the African systems. The description is more of a caricature than an explanation that would open the minds of the readers. The article continues in this theme with a description of the LRA/M and the conflict:

The fighting features rebels who call themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army and who speak earnestly of the import of the Ten Commandments, but who routinely hack up civilians who get in their way. To add to their numbers, the rebels abduct children in the night, brainwash them in the bush, indoctrinate them by forcing them to kill, and then turn them – 20,000 over the last two decades – into the next wave of ferocious fighters seeking to topple the government. Girls as young as 12 are assigned as rebel commanders’ wives. Anyone who does not toe the line is brutally killed (2005).

Such a description, juxtaposed against a ritual involving raw eggs and twigs and relying heavily on the forgiveness of the community could hardly be expected to raise the sympathies of most audiences in the West for whom the article is intended. Not surprisingly, therefore, most outside observers are in absolute disbelief when they are told of the general resistance to the ICC in northern Uganda. More importantly, the idea of letting people like Joseph Kony “off the

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hook” for the kind of atrocities he has committed is considered by many observers as utterly appalling and is translated as a clear example of Africans not able to know what is in their own best interest. Articles such as these raised considerable doubt about the presentation of Acholi culture as forgiving and the possibility for traditional practices to bring reconciliation. In this way, attention was diverted from more significant questions about the relationship of peace and justice to questions of cultural incommensurability. In effect, Acholi culture, rather than the practices of the ICC, became the major points of dispute.

Even informal discussions often hovered over questions of whether or not the Acholi were actually as forgiving as proclaimed by local leaders or whether rituals such as mato oput were really useful. My discussions with one international worker in Gulu were often centered on whether the Acholi are really so different from most people and truly willing to forgive and bring the rebels home. And challenging the presentation of the population as forgiving and opposed to the ICC has also been the subject of a number of reports and books (Allen 2006; Pham, et al. 2007; Pham, et al. 2005). These questions are important and worthy of investigation, but they are also evidence of the pitfalls of instrumentalizing culture in struggles of power. Once the leaders made claims that forgiveness and reconciliation are central to Acholi culture and traditional mechanisms more aligned with the Acholi worldview, they opened themselves up to close critiques of these statements. The essentializing nature of culturalist claims force the presenters of this position to speak about Acholi culture as a fixed and closed system and not as a dynamic, interconnected, and continually evolving set of practices and beliefs that encapsulate contradictory and paradoxical relations as much as consistent and harmonious ones. This situation produces false presentations of absolutes that are easy to challenge. In order to scrutinize whether Acholi are forgiving, one need only find some individuals who harbor

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different views; one is not necessarily required to prove that all or even most Acholi are not willing to forgive.

Proving whether or not the Acholi are actually willing to forgive and whether forgiveness and reconciliation is a fundamental aspect of Acholi culture is not the objective of this paper. My own research suggests that while a number of people were uncertain whether they would be able to forgive or live alongside the rebel leaders or some rebels whose abuses are known to them, the vast majority expressed a willingness to put aside their anger and live with the rebels if this would bring them peace. There is also evidence that the Acholi, like many other tribes in the region, have effectively used mechanisms such as mato oput to resolve conflict and bring reconciliation. This is not, however, to argue that the Acholi embrace a culture of forgiveness or that they are inherently more peaceful or categorically different from other populations. It is to argue, that societies can draw on certain elements, flawed or otherwise, of their culture, history or beliefs, in order to strategize certain future outcomes or organizations of their society. All societies innovate, reinvent, and transform. It is not because a direct and undisrupted historical trajectory cannot be drawn between current strategies and an ancient past that these strategies must be considered illegitimate. Unfortunately, however, it is just this type of criticism which is a consequence of emphasizing cultural relativism as an argument against the utilization of supposedly Western or “foreign” institutions or practices. The use of a cultural relativist argument, however, has to be understood in the historical context of the conflict. Local leaders of the Acholi were struggling to represent the voice and priorities of the population in a situation where the population was feeling irrevocably trapped between a rebel group that mercilessly attacked them and a government that pushed them into camps without adequate services and protection and prioritized military solutions to the conflict. In this scenario, the strategy used by local leaders to reinvigorate Acholi culture and instill a

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sense of ethnic pride should be considered a natural response to the political vacuum and sense of isolation the population was experiencing. “Forgiveness” in this case, can be considered both a reflection of aspects of Acholi culture and a strategy to end the conflict and promote reconciliation.

Ultimately, a cultural relativist position tended to diminish rather than strengthen the position of the opponents of the ICC intervention. A relativist position also worked to alienate some international actors who were otherwise supportive of resistance to the ICC intervention. This particularly became the case as the lobbying and advocacy efforts of the ICC and proponents of transitional justice brought their particular frameworks to bear on the debate. Proponents of transitional justice in particular managed to capture and transform the arguments of international actors against the ICC from one which had advocated the use of traditional mechanisms as an alternative to the Court to one that argued for traditional mechanisms to be complementary to criminal trials. As advocates of criminal trials engaged in the debate, “justice” became ever more limited to the processes of prosecution and punishment. Over time, it became increasingly difficult for international actors to support traditional mechanisms as alternatives to justice, especially since the efficacy of traditional mechanisms had been called into doubt and the arguments for traditional justice as an alternative to criminal justice had been characterized as romanticized versions of an imaginary past.

Conclusion As a site of negotiation between local and global priorities, the debate in northern Uganda has far-reaching consequences. The ability to control the debate in the general public therefore can have practical implications as opinions of key power-holders are influenced in different directions. Shortly after the announcement of the ICC to investigate crimes committed during the Uganda

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conflict was made, local leaders and most international actors working in northern Uganda opposed the intervention. Together, local leaders and international humanitarian workers had been struggling to bring peace to the region, to reconcile and heal communities torn apart from war and displacement, and to invest in economic and social development to bring more opportunity to the people. Up to that point, there had largely been consensus that a negotiated end to the conflict, amnesty42, community forms of healing and justice, and eventually investment in development and more equitable representation and policies, were the means of achieving these goals. The introduction of the International Court changed this scenario, making justice a required component of sustainable peace and limiting what could be considered as legitimate justice to the outcome of criminal trials, and apparently only international criminal trials. Limiting the types of peace which can be negotiated during ongoing conflicts will likely make negotiated solutions very difficult, and in many cases, impossible to obtain. If such limitations are to be imposed, then the relation between peace and justice has to be evaluated with this in mind. Paradoxically, placing such limitations on the type of peace that can legitimately be negotiated, that is requiring the inclusion of criminal justice, might make the resolution of conflict a necessity before justice can be pursued, since few of the key actors may choose to submit themselves to such processes voluntarily. This makes the question of the suitability of pursuing justice during ongoing conflicts relevant once again, since in the long-run seeking justice in ongoing conflicts may just force a military solution if negotiated solutions have been rendered impossible.

42 The Amnesty Act is not uncontroversial mostly because it provides “blanket” amnesty rather than requiring some form of apology or confession. Organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been consistent in communicating concerns with the use of blanket amnesty and have promoted more formal ways of seeking justice throughout the conflict.

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Once Uganda referred the conflict to the ICC and indictments were issued, the crimes committed in northern Uganda became crimes of international interest. As Daniel Nsereko, a Ugandan judge at the ICC, was quoted as saying in a Ugandan newspaper, “crimes against humanity are not committed against Ugandans alone but against the entire international community” (Maseruka 2009). But this simply demonstrates once again the power invested in legal discourse to define what is justice and injustice, who is a criminal and not a criminal. While the indictments against the top rebel leaders by the ICC rendered them illegitimate subjects to participate in peace talks, the Court’s decision not to indict any government figure also meant that the NRM leaders continued to be legitimate representatives for negotiations on the government’s behalf, despite the fact that many victims feel that certain members of the government and the army have committed crimes against them. The description of these crimes as crimes of international interest wrests control away from local and national authorities since these crimes are now considered to fall within international jurisdiction. Thus, Desmond Tutu’s words that, “ultimately it is Ugandans who have to decide what is best for them. Whatever they choose, it should not hinder reconciliation and healing and yet it should not encourage impunity and hurt the victims yet again,” (Volqvartz 2005) may be well intended, but they make the assumption that Ugandans will be left alone to decide their future. Once the ICC intervened, the conflict in Uganda became an object of interest for the international community, but it is unfortunate that it was the actions of the ICC that finally awoke the indignation of the world regarding the conflict in order to bring sufficient resources and influence to attempt a solution.

Though many local leaders in Uganda and some international actors opposed the ICC intervention, the use of relativist arguments that tended to essentialize Acholi culture had the effect of bringing greater debate and attention to the Acholi themselves. Attention was diverted to questions of cultural authenticity

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such as whether the Acholi are really forgiving, whether mato oput is a functioning and meaningful institution, or whether Acholi people continue to recognize their traditional leaders. These are valid questions, but they should not have been asked almost to the exclusion of such questions of the ICC. Rarely was the ICC challenged by such fundamental questions and media representations tended to favor the imposition of the Court since the dichotomy of peace versus justice was quickly transformed into other dichotomies such as justice versus impunity and tradition versus modernity. The challenges to the presentations of Acholi culture and practices and the characterization of such presentations as romantic and idealized made it more difficult for international actors to maintain support for the positions of the local leaders. This was combined with pressure from advocates of more legal forms of justice, especially proponents of transitional justice who tended to have a strong predilection for criminal justice. Ultimately, the Court was never fully challenged on its self- representation as a peace building institution or whether it prioritized peace or justice. And certainly, some in northern Uganda would ask: if the ICC cannot bring peace, can it really promise justice?

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6. TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AT WORK: STRUGGLES OF AUTHORITY IN NORTHERN UGANDA

The victims of this war are so desperate to put the nightmarish days behind them that they want to forgive, just as much as they want to forget….’In our culture, we don’t like to punish people,’ said Collins Opoka, an Acholi chief. ‘It doesn’t really get you anywhere.’ Jeffrey Gettleman Uganda Peace Hinges on Amnesty for Brutality New York Times Feature Article September 15, 2006

Your article [responding to the article above] does a disservice to the people of northern Uganda by suggesting most would prefer to forgive and forget if that would stop the fighting. Jonathon F. Fanton Opinion editorial New York Times Sept. 22, 2006

The debate that has developed over the ICC intervention in Uganda has attracted the attention of multiple actors who have had significant influence impacting events, particularly regarding the Juba peace talks and policy directives for peace building and reconciliation. While there have been international actors present in northern Uganda for some time, especially in the last decade, the introduction of the ICC attracted the attention of particular international actors who brought with them very specific frameworks and agendas toward conflict resolution that

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subsequently reworked the parameters of discussion on peace in the region. The announcement of the ICC investigation did more than bring the possibility of prosecutions to the table; it also attracted the interest of international actors such as legal academics and practitioners as well as international advocacy groups such as the Coalition for the ICC (CICC) and No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ). Each of these individuals and organizations brought new frames of analysis and interpretation to bear on the northern Ugandan conflict, and in most cases, strong support and even lobbying campaigns designed to promote the ICC intervention. But one of the most significant new frameworks brought to bear on the peace building efforts was the framework of transitional justice.

Transitional justice can be understood as a discourse and collection of practices that seek to peacefully transform countries from situations of conflict, violence and/or dictatorship to more peaceful, democratic societies through processes of accountability and reconciliation. The concept of transitional justice developed largely out of the transitions that were occurring in several Latin American countries in the last quarter of the twentieth century, where in most cases, military dictatorships were replaced by more democratic governments seeking to establish law and order and to redress human rights violations, while maintaining political stability. Though transitional justice originally referred to transitions made by governments following periods of conflict and oppression, it has now become a popular paradigm for conflict resolution and transformation, thereby rendering itself relevant in situations of ongoing conflict. Transitional justice is promoted by a loose affiliation of organizations, scholars, activists and government officials. Though advocates of transitional justice have varying opinions and positions regarding the implementation and outcomes of a transitional justice framework, most agree that peace building must include criminal justice and other forms of reconciliation.

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The preference for criminal justice as a response to human rights violations has meant that advocates of transitional justice have been natural supporters of the establishment of the ICC and have proven to be important advocates of international justice. Following the announcement of the ICC that it would investigate war crimes in Uganda, therefore, it is not surprising that transitional justice advocates supported the intervention. Thus, transitional justice discourse, as it was deployed in the case of northern Uganda, upheld support for the ICC, particularly in the initial period following the announcement of the investigation and the indictments of LRA/M rebel leaders. However, over time, the challenge presented by the local leaders and many victims of the LRA/M had an impact on the positions of transitional justice advocates and eventually a transitional justice framework provided a kind of middle-way in the peace versus justice debate. On the one hand, many advocates of transitional justice who had initially been firm in their support for the ICC indictments began to soften their position and lend support to the perspectives of the local leaders, recognizing that the victims generally prioritized peace over justice. The basic principles of transitional justice support holistic solutions to conflict transformation, which meant that local solutions to conflict transformation are respected and cannot simply be disregarded. However, the current allegiance to legal forms of accountability meant that while some advocates of transitional justice began to sympathize with the views of the victims of the conflict and the Acholi leaders, they would not support local forms of justice as alternatives to international justice, only as complementary. Many would, however, support the effort to move the jurisdiction of the ICC indictments to national courts if this could satisfy the desired outcome of both peace and justice. On the other hand, a transitional justice discourse also provided an outlet for opponents of the ICC intervention since it provided greater support for traditional justice and reconciliation and gave some support to the idea of moving the indictments from the ICC to Ugandan jurisdiction. This empowered local leaders to have more say in the

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peace building agenda, ultimately providing greater legitimacy to their authority and representations.

The shift of support from international criminal justice to national criminal justice that occurred in the case of Uganda can be viewed as an outcome of the competing discourses of peace and justice. Though advocates of transitional justice support accountability and have been strong advocates for the ICC, the historical trajectory of a transitional justice framework allows for a more flexible approach to conflict transformation. The objectives of transitional justice are first and foremost to achieve a peaceful transition; and, while this transition is currently considered to require justice, there is no particular requirement that this justice must involve international courts. Nonetheless, this shift in position took time to occur, and, initially, transitional justice advocates were vocal in their support for the ICC intervention in Uganda. A close examination of a report carried out by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and Human Rights Center (HRC) of the University of California in Berkeley, is particularly insightful. The manner in which the results of the report were interpreted and communicated demonstrated biases for solutions to conflict which include justice. Moreover, organizations linked to the study used the results to enter and influence the public debate on peace and justice in Uganda in a particular way. The case study illustrates how international actors can have important impacts on local and regional matters, steering debate and representations of events and local viewpoints. The particular interpretation of the research results tended to challenge the opinions expressed by the local leaders in the Acholi region, thereby undermining their authority as spokespersons for the victims and leaders of the people. However, a second report published by the same institutions two years later shows some shifting of opinion, and, greater understanding and support for local perceptions became apparent. This shift also becomes more apparent in the growing support for national trials in Uganda

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rather than international trials by some transitional justice advocates, and, at the international level in a growing tension between the position of some transitional justice advocates and officials of the ICC.

This chapter examines how a transitional justice framework, in becoming the dominant paradigm, influenced the debate about justice and peace in Uganda. A transitional justice framework proved particularly successful given that it simultaneously bolsters the principles of an international justice discourse and agenda, but also lends support to traditional forms of justice and reconciliation. However, while a transitional justice framework served as a kind of middle- ground between local and global initiatives, ultimately, its current commitment to legal forms of justice and the establishment of the ICC resulted in a rather rigid set of priorities and a hierarchization of mechanisms for peace building. The ICC intervention and a transitional justice approach have had dramatic impacts on the standards set for achieving sustainable peace in northern Uganda. The ability to influence policy decisions in Uganda is a result of more direct forms of control, such as political pressure on the government to follow through on processes the government itself initiated with the ICC, but also results from the ability to control the debate, to frame the essential components of discussion and to embed ideas with assumptions that are difficult to refute. Advocates of a transitional justice approach disseminate particular concepts of peace and justice, arguing that sustainable peace can only be achieved when accompanied by accountability and accountability must include legal mechanisms, especially trials. Through the promotion of particular formulations of peace and justice, as well as the manner in which advocates of transitional justice engaged in public debate in the news media and elsewhere worked to shape accepted ideas about how the peace process in Uganda should necessarily proceed and what elements were required to achieve desired outcomes.

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The Making of Transitional Justice Though the concept of “transitional justice” evolved from political transformations that took place in the 1980s and early 1990s, especially in Latin America, but also later in South Africa and parts of Eastern Europe, the concept has eventually come to encompass, at least to some experts in the field, all efforts to address historical abuses through some form of accountability. In this wider context, the roots of transitional justice are said to be found in the post World War II period, but the concept and principles of “transitional justice” per se only began to be articulated in the last quarter of the twentieth-century (Shelton 2005: 1046). Greece and a number of Latin American and Eastern European nations were facing critical periods of transition from dictatorial regimes to fledgling democracies and were seeking ways to deal with the human rights abuses of the previous governments without destabilizing the political environment. Ruti Teitel, a professor of comparative law, describes this period as one of “accelerated democratization and political fragmentation” (2003:71). It is a period associated with the decline of communism, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. New governments, particularly in Latin America, sought to distance themselves from the brutalities committed by former regimes and to gain political legitimacy. As a result, governments sought out more liberal democrat policies and found ways of working with human rights groups to address the grievances of victims and their families.

Teitel (2003) describes transitional justice as evolving through three phases characterized by different political contexts and associated strategies for addressing past violence. The first phase, beginning at the end of World War II, is characterized by a clear objective for accountability and the use of international criminal law to achieve it. This was significant since it shifted accountability from the state to the individual. The decision to apply international criminal law was largely a result of circumstances following World

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War I, since sanctions against the German state had been selected over criminal justice and in hindsight were considered to have contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War. In this context, international criminal justice provided the means to address the crimes committed by Germany and Japan and it also served to justify the Allied Forces’ entry into the war and their subsequent actions. Following the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials, the use of international criminal law was constrained by the divisive politics of the Cold War which made cooperation at the international level almost impossible. The second phase of transitional justice, thus, begins near the end of the Cold War as the Soviet Union begins to retract and a period of political instability and liberalization is ushered in.

According to Teitel, the tense and unstable political contexts that existed in many emerging democracies of the time created difficult dilemmas for governments seeking to address human rights issues. As each government navigated its way through these dilemmas, different formulas were developed, usually involving some form of national criminal justice and/or truth commissions. The period exemplified a move away from international criminal justice, although international instruments were used as standards or ideals by which to measure the outcomes of national processes. The central aim of this second period is the preservation of peace, though rule of law frameworks guided the principles of truth commissions and sought to deter future crimes. Teitel notes that, “however limited, transitional justice in its second phase enabled a form of preservative justice. The Phase II response allowed for the creation of a historical record while also leaving open the possibility of future judicial resolution”. However, the Phase II period is also linked to a “normative discourse from outside the law, specifically from ethics, medicine, and theology” (2003:81-82). And it is the addition of this discourse which extended the limits of transitional justice and incorporated principles seeking more than retribution or

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individual accountability. Instead, transitional justice also began to seek societal rehabilitation and healing. Another important development of this phase is the increased control of private citizens, civil society and transnational organizations in the decision-making processes of transitional justice. As a result, decisions of transitional justice are no longer solely the prerogative of the state.

According to Teitel, the final phase of transitional justice is characterized first by its normalization in global politics and second by the establishment of the International Criminal Court and the expansion of the laws of war. Transitional justice has become the normative framework for dealing with serious violations committed by the state or oppositional forces, though its use in contexts of ongoing conflict is relatively new. The establishment of an international court exemplifies a turning-back to the first phase of transitional justice where universal applications of rule of law and accountability are prioritized; however, they are now embedded within a web of processes seeking more holistic outcomes. While not all accounts of transitional justice can be classified into three phases of evolution, most accounts agree that transitional justice has passed through periods of tension, whereby policies of forgiveness and punishment have been depicted as contradictory and supported by rival advocates, but has emerged in the last decade as a framework employing multiple forms of redress, both judiciary and non-judiciary (Hazan 2006).

While individuals applying or theorizing transitional justice might emphasize either judicial or non-judicial methods of transitional justice – sometimes based on their own disciplinary framework – in general, a transitional justice approach is largely viewed as committed to legal or quasi-legal solutions in the form of trials or truth commissions. This is particularly evidenced in further descriptions of transitional justice from the Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, which states that “transitional justice has certain defining

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characteristics. First, it includes the concept of justice. Although the field depends on international legal principles that require the prosecution of perpetrators, this context also includes broader forms of justice”(Shelton 2005:1045). Other means of dealing with grievances have emerged and form the repertoire of transitional justice applications such as reparation programs, lustration laws, public apologies, gender justice, security system reform, or memorialisation (Hazan 2006:23; International Center for Transitional Justice 2008).43

Transitional Justice Meets Northern Uganda In northern Uganda, claims to speak on behalf of the Acholi population have played an important role in the historical and social context of the conflict. Through claims of representation, Acholi traditional, religious and political leaders have struggled to gain control of processes impacting the population. Local leaders have played an increasingly active role in the politics of the region and in the struggle for peace and long-term reconciliation. Part of this struggle has involved the promotion of a peaceful solution to the conflict including amnesty for former rebels and negotiations between the government and the LRA/M. In their struggle with the government over the right to determine the way forward for northern Uganda, the local leaders have stressed the widespread support for their policies amongst the Acholi people. Indeed, they argue that it is the will of the people they are representing. The emphasis on their role as spokespersons for the Acholi people has played an important part in establishing the legitimacy of their positions and their authority as leaders. The ability to claim grass roots opinion has provided the Acholi leaders an avenue through which they can contest dominant narratives of the conflict and steer policy direction. The advocacy efforts of the local leaders also successfully

43 Interestingly, neither the ICTJ website, nor the publication on measuring the impact of transitional justice mentions traditional or local forms of justice.

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influenced individuals from international organizations, UN agencies and foreign governments. Increasingly, reports on the conflict, particularly in the latter half of the 1990s and early years of the new Millennium, mirrored the narratives presented by the Acholi leaders and most supported their struggle for a peaceful solution to the conflict. The support of the international community was significant since they had long remained silent about the war which had given implicit legitimacy and credibility to presentations of the war propagated by government officials, often highly antagonistic and demeaning to the local population.

Once the investigation of the ICC was announced, however, relations between local leaders and international organizations were altered. The Acholi leaders announced their opposition to the intervention of the ICC and continued to draw on their established authority to speak on behalf of the Acholi people who, they argued, prioritized peace. International relief organizations and officials who had been present for some years in Uganda tended to support the local Acholi leaders in their opposition to the ICC intervention; however, international human rights organizations44 and a range of other international organizations and institutions relatively new to the scene of northern Uganda put their weight behind the ICC. The widespread support for the ICC intervention which existed in most international circles meant that the public debate tended to be controlled by advocates of international justice. Over time, this worked to undermine the views of the local leaders and made it increasingly difficult for international actors to continue to oppose the use of criminal justice in Uganda since this position was becoming discursively associated with cultural relativism or impunity through the public discourse on the conflict.

44 Note however that both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International publicly demanded the Court to look into both sides of the conflict, demonstrating some parallels with the positions of the Acholi leaders.

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Initially, transitional justice advocates provided an important component of the network of support for the ICC intervention in Uganda, as the press release of ICTJ following the announcement of the indictments of LRA/M leaders indicates: “The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) welcomes the indictments against key members of a brutal Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA/M)” (ICTJ 2005). The value of a transitional justice discourse in the peace versus justice debate was that it promoted international justice within a wider framework of national reconciliation which assisted in the process of rendering international justice as an invaluable component of conflict resolution. In this way, transitional justice and international justice appeared aligned in their objectives, though as the following analysis will illustrate, this alliance has shown increasing tension as international justice advocates appear ready to sacrifice peace for justice; a position not as easily reconciled with transitional justice objectives which seek more balance between peace and justice.

A commonly held truism in the transitional justice literature is that the victims of abuse and the general population need to be involved in all stages of decision- making, planning and implementation of transitional justice practices. Drawing on a lineage of theory that emphasizes community participation and empowerment, it is held that conflict transformation and transitional justice processes are unlikely to be successful without the input and support of the local population (Stover and Weinstein 2004:19). Whatever outcomes are hoped to be achieved through the implementation of processes such as criminal trials, truth-commissions, or more traditional forms of justice, without community participation and even national-level support, little is likely to be accomplished. Laurie Nathan, a scholar of conflict resolution argues that,

Peacemaking and peace building are not sustainable unless their form and content are shaped by local actors. While

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individuals and groups locked in conflict are obviously concerned about physical and economic security, they also crave respect, acknowledgement, and affirmation. They want to be involved in decisions which affect their lives, and they resent being treated as the object of some other body’s plans. (Stover and Weinstein 2004: 19)

It is not surprising, therefore, given the importance of determining the views of local actors that proponents of transitional justice immediately set out to understand the views of northern Ugandans through a population-based assessment. The ensuing report, entitled Forgotten Voices: A Population Based Study on Attitudes Towards Peace and Justice in Northern Uganda (Pham, et al. 2005) sought to clarify the views of the general population affected by the conflict. Though the report had the apparently laudable aim of bringing clarity to a number of contentious issues by seeking a more accurate representation of what the general population really thought about peace and justice, in the particular context of northern Uganda its results had the rather negative effect of appearing to directly challenge the leadership of northern Uganda and their efforts to bring peace to the region. In the presentation of their results, the authors highlighted the apparent contradiction of their findings with the opinions and positions voiced by the local leaders, particularly regarding people’s attitudes towards forgiveness and accountability. This assertion was significant since it not only challenged the generally accepted representations of the “actual” views of the average person in northern Uganda; it also challenged the overall credibility and legitimacy of the local leaders to speak on behalf of the people since they had apparently misrepresented their views. The announcement of the release of the report was also remarkable because it entered the ongoing debate on peace and justice in northern Uganda in a very divisive manner, clearly staking its own position and alienating the advocates of alternative views. The outcome of the ICTJ and HRC report, therefore, raises important questions about the politics of representation, particularly in highly

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sensitive cases of conflict and division. While it may be considered a noble task to collect the views of the population and to ensure their participation in decision-making, it raises questions about who should be entitled to collect, interpret and represent these views. Data from both quantitative and qualitative research can be open to multiple interpretations, so in a politically charged atmosphere, the right to interpret and represent data, particularly data which is said to express the views of a so-called vulnerable population is significant.

The Study The study was carried out in four districts in northern Uganda: Gulu, Kitgum, Lira and Soroti. Two of the four districts are in the Acholi sub-region; the other two are districts in the Langi and Teso sub-regions which have also been affected by the conflict, especially in recent years. The stated aim of the report was to add to the literature on northern Uganda by providing population-based data, specifically data that could enlighten the peace and justice debate. The quantitative methods used by the study were meant to give the results an authority supposedly lacking in more qualitative or consultative approaches used to inform other reports and processes (e.g., Hovil and Quinn 2005). Quantitative methods were also meant to provide a more accurate account of people’s views which bestows important legitimacy and authority upon the authors to speak on behalf of the population regarding a number of issues. While a population-based study is not inherently negative, quite the contrary, it can provide important snapshots of a population, given the tremendous value placed on the ability to speak for the population and the authority associated with it in the historical context of the conflict, any claim to usurp this authority was naturally very sensitive. In this scenario, the emphasis placed on the legitimacy of quantitative methods to provide accurate evaluations of complex issues undermined the credibility of other sources of information and appeared to give ultimate authority to the results presented in this study. In its opposition to many locally

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held assumptions, the apparent legitimacy written into the results was significant since it seemed to leave no room for negotiation, disqualifying outright alternative representations.

A closer examination of the results, however, calls into question some of the conclusions that were drawn from the data. Though the results of the survey are presented in a direct format in the report, providing a broad base of interesting data, the interpretation of the results in some cases and the overall conclusions drawn appear to demonstrate some bias. This is particularly true in the summary of conclusions presented at the beginning of the report. For example, the report states that 76 percent of the respondents “said that those responsible for abuses should be held accountable for their actions”. It then goes on to report that “When respondents were asked whether they would accept amnesty if it were the only road to peace, 29 percent said no” (Pham, et al. 2005: 4). In this presentation, the high number of respondents seeking accountability is emphasized, but instead of reporting that an almost equal number (71 percent) would forego justice if it threatened peace, the authors choose to highlight what they consider to be a more significant fact, that as much as 29 percent would not forego justice. The stress placed on the minority of people who would still wish for justice is therefore considered more important in this interpretation than the fact that most of the population would not. Thus, in the opening summary of conclusions, the general premises of the report can be detected. Instead of highlighting the inconsistencies in the responses they received, the authors arrange the results in a way that is meant to highlight the population’s desire for justice.

The decision to exclude certain statistics in the overall summary can also illustrate how the results were generally interpreted. For example, it is not mentioned that only slightly more than half (53 percent) of the respondents said

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that they would select peace with justice and trials over peace with amnesty and reconciliation. This result is somewhat surprising since the question was meant to assume that peace is a given. Thus, if peace is assumed, it is surprising that almost half of the respondents would still accept amnesty and reconciliation. As the authors noted, however, respondents from the non-Acholi regions were twice-as-likely to select peace with justice than those from the Acholi regions. This may provide some explanation as the Acholi respondents may be taking into consideration the members of their family or community who were abducted by the LRA/M and, therefore, support amnesty and reconciliation for the sake of those individuals. Also significant is the fact that in the summary of conclusions, it is mentioned that food and peace are the number one priorities of the population, 34 and 31 percent respectively, but it does not mention that less than one percent of the population considers justice to be a priority. Furthermore, later in the report when it breaks down the responses to this question, the authors advise that, while “less than 1 percent mentioned justice as their most immediate concern...this does not reflect their overall importance attached to it”(2005: 25). It is interesting that while most responses are accepted at face value, this particular set of responses is not. Moreover, no explanation as to why this “does not reflect their overall importance attached to it” is provided.

A close analysis of the report also illustrates the difficulties that can arise when using quantitative methods to understand very complex issues and processes. This is demonstrated by the apparently contradictory results that while 76 percent of the population would like accountability (2005:26), 65 percent of the survey population supports amnesty (2005:28). Another apparent contradiction is the fact that while approximately 80 percent45 of the respondents think those who have committed abuses should be put before a judiciary (2005:30), as many

45 This is a simple average of the results of the four districts.

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as 79 percent said they would be willing to allow the LRA/M rank and file to return to their communities and live with them if they were amnestied. Though these processes would generally be considered to be mutually exclusive, the support for both simultaneously illustrates the challenges of understanding the nuances of people’s perceptions and desires using questionnaires. Though important steps were taken to get at such nuances, such as the inclusion of questions that required the respondents to imagine certain scenarios like the possibility of amnesty as the only route to peace, still the contradictory responses remain unexplained. One issue with quantitative approaches is that it is difficult to get at the linkages or mutual exclusivity of different processes through a series of pre-established questions. In addition, questions enquiring whether the respondent supports or desires a particular outcome can have a grab-bag effect where the respondent appears to want all possible positive outcomes without consideration of how having one outcome may affect the possibility of having another outcome. Furthermore, when respondents are asked whether or not they support certain processes, they are not asked to define the context of their responses. Therefore, it is not inconceivable for an individual to support or oppose processes that are mutually exclusive since it may depend entirely on the circumstances under which they are imagining themselves when they make these choices. Responses to such questions require more contextual information to understand the provisions under which one approach might be selected over another.

Qualitative research can provide some insight into the linkages and contingencies of different responses as my own research can attest. During my fieldwork in 2005 and 2007, I conducted more than one hundred interviews with individuals and small groups of people. The interviews were carried out in a number of camps for displaced people in Gulu, Amuru, Kitgum and Pader. The interviews covered a range of issues, but also included a series of questions

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regarding their views on amnesty and justice as well as more open two-way discussions. I generally began the series of questions by asking if the respondent supported the amnesty process. Unlike the responses to other questions, the response to this question was almost unequivocally positive. This is in contrast to the results of Forgotten Voices which showed more mixed results even if the results from the Acholi districts are isolated. In my research, however, the question was met with almost unanimous agreement in support of amnesty.46 I would then follow with the clarification of whether they would support amnesty for all of the LRA/M including Joseph Kony and other commanders. At this point, opinions would become more divided, but, still, the majority continued to say they would support amnesty of the top leaders. Various explanations for this support were given: some claimed it was only fair to give amnesty to all LRA/M members, some said it was necessary in order to bring the commanders home, some based their support on Christian values of mercy. Following a discussion about amnesty, I would then enquire whether or not they had heard of the ICC. Most respondents had not heard of the ICC, but for those who did claim to have some knowledge, I would ask whether or not they supported the intervention of the ICC. Once again, there was some division of opinion, but, for the most part, respondents who had prior knowledge of the institution tended not to support it. On the other hand, for those respondents (the majority) who did not have any information about the ICC, we would give them a very basic description of the institution as an international court that was planning to indict top commanders of the LRA/M and bring them to trial at The Hague. In this case, based on our simple explanation, most respondents would declare their support for such an intervention. While the difference between the massive support for amnesty, even for the commanders, and the support for the ICC appear to be very contradictory, it was generally based on a very simple calculation. Upon

46 I do not wish to make any claims to representation as my study is qualitative in nature and did not rely on any statistical methods of selection or standardized questionnaires. My point is only to shed some light on how the apparent contradictions in the results may be explained.

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further discussion, most people explained how their priority was simply to bring the war to an end and if the ICC could do such a thing, they would definitely support it. My sequencing of questions on amnesty and international justice was purposeful, as I had noted in the early stages of my research the frequent contradictions in people’s attitudes towards approaches to ending the war, and, therefore, chose this sequencing in order to stimulate a discussion about these issues after the series of questions. What is also interesting, however, is the degree to which those who had heard of the ICC tended to critique it. This appeared to be a result of the fact that information about the ICC had largely filtered out to the general population through local leaders or radio programs that often framed its intervention as a threat to peace. Faced with such a possibility, most respondents at this point felt apprehensive about the outcome of the Court’s activities.

Returning to an analysis of the report, it is also worth considering the degree to which concepts of peace and justice are highly complex for any audience and when posed to a population that has a low average level of education in the highly structured and hierarchical context of a survey interview it is ambitious to expect respondents to provide well thought out and reflective responses. The complexity of the issues is made apparent in the responses to the question requesting the respondent to define justice. Nineteen percent or almost one- fifth of respondents simply replied that they did not know how to define justice. The remaining respondents identified justice as anything from trials (31%) to reconciliation (18%) (2005:23). The variety of responses demonstrates that concepts such as justice are very personal and complex and thus will impact on how people respond to other questions.

This is significant, since the linkages between peace and justice in the context of northern Uganda are particularly important given that it is an ongoing conflict.

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The contradictory responses highlight the fact that while people may want specific outcomes in an ideal situation; they also recognize that they may not be able to have their ideal outcome since it is dependent on other factors. In the case of northern Uganda, determining whether seeking justice before peace is secured will either hinder or support a peace process is a highly analytical and highly speculative calculation. Therefore, while victims of the conflict may well want peace and justice, the sequencing of these events could very well be critical for obtaining either. And, while the report states that they are seeking to overcome the peace versus justice debate by emphasizing that both can be realized, the authors arguably do not emphasize enough the priority given to peace and various forms of socio-economic development over justice. This is important, because it demonstrates how preconceived ideas about the value of justice shaped the interpretation of results. In fact, in two instances, the population makes clear that justice is not a priority, at least not before other factors are secured. As mentioned above, 31 percent of the population selected peace and 33 percent selected food as their first priority compared to less than one percent who selected justice. In addition, when the survey population was asked what would be their priority once peace was secured, justice remained a non-existent priority. In this case, 63 percent prioritized returning to the village, 29 percent prioritized reconstructing the village, 22 percent compensating victims, and so on (2005:24-25). These are the only open-ended questions which allowed respondents to identify their priorities and yet these results were given less emphasis than other responses related to accountability. Given the value placed on the perceptions and demands of the local population in the literature of transitional justice, the presentation of the results did not live up to this ideal.

What is more, despite the report’s aim to overcome acrimony, the manner in which the results were presented tended to heighten the debate more than defuse it for a number of reasons. The results were presented as though they

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contradicted the generally accepted truths regarding the views of the population. By contradicting these assumptions, the authors were, in a sense, directly challenging the local leaders who had largely been the agents promoting these positions. In fact, in most cases, the results of the report corroborate the views of the local leaders. However, by presenting the results as though they finally set the record straight by demonstrating the support for formal justice in northern Uganda, they managed to undermine the authority of the local political, religious and cultural leaders.

The press statement announcing the release of the publication is an indication of how the relevant institutions chose to shape the overall message of the report as they entered into the ongoing dialogue on peace and justice in the region. First, the headline of the press release stated, “New Study Finds Ugandans Favor Peace with Justice: Victims’ views key to resolving conflict.” The headline highlights the particular statistic that demonstrates the respondents’ preference for peace with justice over peace with amnesty when requested to choose between the two. However, it does not mention that the respondents selected peace with justice by a slim margin – only 53 percent, nor does it mention anywhere in the press release that 65 percent of respondents support amnesty or that 65 percent of respondents would accept the LRA/M leaders into their communities if they were given amnesty. Instead, the press release portrays the results of the study as a very straight forward account of a population united in their desire for justice. The press release included only those statistics which showed support for transitional justice processes including formal trials. It did not include those statistics which would cast doubt on the overriding message of the press release. Thus, anyone who does not take the time to read the actual report would not understand the more complex and contradictory nature of the results and would simply adopt the basic message of the press release as a clear interpretation of results. A closer look at the quotes at the beginning of this

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chapter is a good indication of how the report can be misinterpreted. The second quote is part of an opinion editorial published in the New York Times that responded to a previous article written about northern Uganda suggesting that the population supported amnesty and forgiveness in order to bring peace. The author of the opinion editorial, Jonathon F. Fanton, is the president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In his reaction to the previous article he states that:

Over the past 20 years, the erratic Joseph Kony and his top lieutenants have participated in off-again, on-again peace talks, but have always found a pretext for suspending them. Today the excuse is amnesty. Your article does a disservice to the people of northern Uganda by suggesting most would prefer to forgive and forget if that would stop the fighting. In a survey of Ugandan victims conducted last year by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, more than 75 percent said those responsible for abuses should be held accountable. We should not forget that this new phase of the peace talks has happened as a result of the International Criminal Court’s indictments, not in spite of them. The warrants have put pressure on an already weakened L.R.A. If we are learning anything in northern Uganda, it is that the path of peace runs through the path of justice, reconciliation and rehabilitation. (Fanton 2006)

Once again, the editorial suggests that the views of the northern Ugandans are uncomplicated, failing to note that, while it is true that 76 percent of the survey population would like to see accountability, it is also true that 71 percent would accept amnesty if it was the only path to peace and that 65 percent of respondents would accept even the LRA/M leaders into their communities if they were given amnesty. Notably both of these statistics run in complete contradiction with the author’s allegation that people in northern Uganda are

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not ready to forgive. Moreover, the language used by the author equating the idea of a population ready to forgive with the idea that such a statement is “a disservice to the people of northern Uganda” is meant to render such ideas as preposterous and insulting, outside of normal behavior.

As an organization, the International Center for Transitional Justice chose to enter the dialogue on peace and justice in northern Uganda in an oppositional position to the local leaders and other individuals or organizations who had been promoting peace talks with amnesty as the best way to end the war and who had opposed the intervention of the ICC. This is clear in both the report and the press release which state as part of their recommendations that “local leaders should develop mechanisms to better integrate the views of their constituents into peace and justice policies.” This recommendation not so subtly suggests that the local leaders have not adequately consulted their constituents and, more critically, that their positions do not align with the desires of the population on whose behalf they are supposedly speaking. These views are then given authority through the emphasis that the results of the study present the “actual” views of the population since they are based on scientific methodologies that are more accurate than other consultative or qualitative methods. Thus, the positions put forward by the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Human Rights Center regarding the way forward are given a legitimacy derived from the fact that they are supposedly speaking for the people, even if the data presented in the report does not afford any unambiguous interpretation of what exactly the people are saying.

The authority placed on the results based on their statistical representativeness and the fact that the apparent conclusions stand in opposition to the positions put forward by the local leaders appeared to usurp the authority of the local leaders to speak for their constituents. The press release had also stressed the

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fact that the victims’ views hold the key to resolving the conflict. This statement, once again, drives legitimacy from the ability to speak for the victim population, a legitimacy previously claimed by the local Acholi leaders – at least on behalf of the Acholi victims. But beyond the challenge to the authority of the Acholi leaders, the manner in which the general conclusions of the report are presented and entered into the ongoing debate also appear to challenge the portrayal of the nature of the Acholi people. The emphasis on the fact that the population desires justice relayed in the press release has to be understood within the context of the ongoing debate. The local leaders in northern Uganda had repeatedly stressed that the Acholi people were ready to forgive the rebels and bring them home in order to end the war. They further justified this position by describing the Acholi culture as inherently reconciliatory. However, the weight placed on the depiction of the Acholi people as forgiving was also part of a broader struggle over the representation of the Acholi people and the right to control this representation. The Acholi people as well as other northerners, have been stigmatized in Uganda as backward and violent populations, thus the stress placed on the depiction of the Acholi people as forgiving was also meant to counter such negative stereotypes and reshape the self-image of Acholi and the views of other Ugandans. Thus the challenge to the positions of the local leaders had greater meaning than the authors of the report and the press release likely understood.

Furthermore, if one looks more closely at the results of the study and the overriding narrative of the local leaders, the two have a great deal in common; the differences lie more in the emphasis put on certain results over others. While the local leaders did not have the benefits of a population-based study, their arguments against the ICC intervention parallel certain results of the study; namely that the majority of the population would accept amnesty if it was the only path to peace and that the majority of the population would be able to

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accept the abusers into their communities and forgive them. They also place peace as the priority of the people which is more consistent with the results of the survey than the conclusions made by the authors who stress the population’s desire for justice. In contrast, the authors of the report highlighted the fact that the respondents selected peace with justice over peace with amnesty, suggesting that this contradicts the representations of the population advocated by the local leaders. In fact, with few exceptions, most of the individuals and organizations representing the Acholi population never suggested that the Acholi people had no desire for justice, only that their priority was peace and, in some cases, that justice didn’t necessarily have to include criminal trials.

Controversy around the ICC intervention, therefore, tended to become arguments over the actual views of the victims of the conflict, especially the Acholi, and whether they were willing to forgive. The gist of this struggle over the rights of representation was critical as it seemed to bestow legitimacy on whichever approach was being advocated. Even Chief Prosecutor Moreno- Ocampo felt comfortable during an interview suggesting that the idea that the ICC indictments might undermine the peace process was not a position of the people, but a suggestion put forward by Kony. When the interviewer asked, “Some people are saying that you are a stumbling block to the peace process.” Moreno-Ocampo replied, “Is that what Kony is saying? I think that’s what Kony wants people to believe” (Osike 2007b). But Moreno-Ocampo was well aware of the fact that most of the local leaders in the Acholi region were worried about the impact the LRA/M indictments were going to have on the peace talks that had begun in 2006. By pretending that only someone such as Kony could be suggesting that the ICC actions could block peace Moreno-Ocampo is attempting to manipulate his audience and delegitimize this argument, despite the fact that local leaders had prioritized a peaceful solution to the conflict long before the ICC was involved. But the possibility that the rebels would refuse to sign the

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peace deal without removal of the indictments was real, a fact recognized early on by the local leaders. The Prosecutor’s suggestion that only Kony could be behind such a proposition is clearly an attempt to deflect attention away from the eventual probability that peace talks would fail if the indictments of the ICC remained outstanding. If the officials of the Court were to recognize this point, they would be opening themselves up to suggestions that they value the justice of a few individuals over the safety and security of hundreds-of-thousands of citizens. A suggestion few would want to publicly concede.

Questions of authority, therefore, are significant. While statements championing the need to include the views of the public have come to represent the official position of most development, humanitarian, or peace building institutions, the fact remains that implementation of such principles is not always as straight- forward as one might hope. Important questions regarding how local opinions should be determined or who has the right to interpret and represent these opinions remain unanswered. Yet, as in the case of northern Uganda, the answers to these questions can have critical political consequences. They involve considerations of authority and legitimacy that can have significant impacts on how decisions of conflict transformation are steered and on how different actors are empowered. The ability to claim to speak on behalf of a vulnerable or downtrodden population, in particular, has a tendency to bestow legitimacy on the arguments presented if the positions presented are based on an ideological struggle to empower the powerless. So who should be given the privilege of speaking for the population and how should leaders of communities, either elected leaders, those who derive leadership based on a moral authority or those analysts or researchers with knowledge of local opinion, be incorporated into the process? How should their views count? For that matter, how should the target population itself be assessed? In the case discussed here, the population was considered based on its members’ status as victims of the

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conflict. But are all victims equal? Should the opinions of some victims be given more weight than others? If so, how should this weighting be evaluated? Should it be based on their direct experience of violence or loss, for example, or should it be based on their membership in a particularly victimized group, such as women, children or an ethnic group. Even if decisions such as these are determined, there remain others. For example, what method of assessing public opinion should be given credibility? Can more consultative and informal approaches to assessing opinion be accepted, or is a quantitative survey the only recognized method? Moreover, it has to be acknowledged that populations are rarely homogenous and views between individuals will vary considerably. How should such inconsistencies in public opinions be interpreted and relayed to the public? While all of these questions are difficult, they must be answered and likely each situation will require different answers based on the historical, political and cultural context as well as more logistical considerations of resources, time and security. In every case, however, the likely outcome of making a claim to authority should be considered carefully.

As demonstrated in this case, authority does matter because it can influence the impact different parties will have in their ability to direct discussions and make decisions about the future. Arguably, the challenge to the authority of the local leaders did little to strengthen their efforts to promote reconciliation and healing in their communities. Calculations regarding how many people were willing to forgive and how many desired retribution also disregarded and even worked to undermine important processes through which reconciliation at the community level was already taking place. Processes of reconciliation between the community and formerly abducted persons, former rebels and even between different ethnic groups has to take place if sustainable peace is to take root, regardless of whether a handful of rebels go on trial at the Hague or not. Forgiveness will be necessary and the local leaders have been working to

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strengthen the community’s ability to reintegrate estranged members back into the community and to heal the wounds between people. Many in the community had absorbed the message of peace and forgiveness promoted by local leaders and were finding ways of adapting it to their own personal philosophies. During my research, people described the need to forgive former rebels based on religious, cultural, or pragmatic ideals. Individuals traumatized by the conflict are also seeking ways to overcome their tragedies and to re-enter society (Baines 2007).

Unfortunately, the presentation of the debate between the leaders of northern Uganda and the ICC did little to support important efforts on the ground aimed at preparing the communities for long-term reconciliation. Instead, most presentations tended to portray the possibility of forgiveness as quaint though unbelievable and traditional systems as backward and archaic. Moreover, the opportunity to shed light on the complex perspectives of the population through the research results were undermined by biases that tended to shift the interpretation of results away from a straightforward representation and more towards political instrumentalization. The results were used to challenge the presentation of the desires of the population and ultimately served to undermine the credibility of their leaders. Given the political climate of northern Uganda and the important role the leaders played in bringing dignity and control back to the population of the Acholi, this challenge was significant.

While a transitional justice framework is meant to be open to a variety of responses to abuse, legal responses have generally been considered “the primary measure by which progress toward rebuilding societies torn apart by communal violence should be judged” (Fletcher, et al. 2009: 166). Thus, as a transitional justice discourse began to penetrate the dialogue on peace building in northern Uganda, the debate was “reframed” to advance the norms of justice

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and truth upon which transitional justice is based. A transitional justice framework took for granted the need for trials, though space was left open for other forms of justice and reconciliation such as a truth commission and reparations. The advance of a transitional justice discourse in discussions on the way forward for Uganda increasingly included legal solutions to the problems in northern Uganda. This was a departure from discussions which had taken place before the ICC intervention, though certainly some transitional justice measures such as truth commissions had been proposed. The continued pressure on Uganda to respect its commitment to the ICC, especially following the commencement of peace talks in 2006, was making it increasingly clear that the international community was unlikely to support the removal of the case from ICC jurisdiction through the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, advocates of transitional justice also continued to support trials for those who committed the most serious crimes.

In a second study conducted by ICTJ, HCR and a new affiliate, the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University, the researchers sought, once again, to assess the views of the population regarding justice and peace. This study, entitled When the War Ends, was carried out in more communities than the first study and it also hoped to examine any significant changes in attitudes. Though many of the views were similar to those of the first study, there was a shift towards greater support of peace with amnesty (80%) compared to peace with justice. There was also greater support for options such as forgiveness, reconciliation and reintegration (54%) over trials (41%) (Pham, et al. 2007:4). Surprisingly, a press release by HCR based on preliminary findings of the report once again highlights the population’s desire for justice as the headline “victims continue to demand justice” suggests (HRC, et al. 2007). The press release goes on, once again, to highlight statistics which show support of legal mechanisms and minimizes results which compromise this position – for example, it does not

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mention the first statistic above stating that 80% choose peace with amnesty. Interestingly though, the report itself, which was published five months after the initial press release, demonstrates a much more straight-forward account of the results and directly acknowledges the presence of contradictory responses. Moreover, a news article published in the University of California, Berkeley, newspaper which announced the publication of the report headlined: “Ugandans want peace more than revenge against warlords”, a significant change from the official headline five months earlier. While it is not clear if the authors of the report endorsed the headline, two of the authors were quoted in the article encouraging the Ugandan government and the international community to heed the demands of the affected population.

A comparison of the recommendations made in each of the reports also illustrates growing appreciation for local perspectives in the second report and greater flexibility regarding the mechanisms of justice that are considered necessary for adequate accountability. Along with the recognition that “many northern Ugandans are prepared to compromise justice for the sake of peace”, the authors support the possibility that national courts could conduct trials for those most responsible provided the courts maintain independence and uphold international standards (Pham, et al. 2007:7). While the latter concession is also likely a result of the outcomes of the Juba peace talks, which promote national courts as an alternative to ICC, it nonetheless demonstrates growing recognition and support for local priorities. In addition, the ICTJ Director of Prosecutions program, Marieka Wierda, also argued during one interview that if the Ugandan government can provide a national alternative to the ICC which meets international standards it could make its argument for the ICC to remove itself based on the principle of complementarity, illustrating the increasing support for national justice over international justice in the case of Uganda (Irwin 2008). At the same time, many of those who had been opposing the ICC also began to

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soften their tone and in some cases began to adopt the language of transitional justice. A transitional justice framework likely gained in usage and popularity over time in part because of the strong lobbying by many influential international actors, but also because there existed some advantages to a transitional justice discourse as it appeared to provide a middle-way solution between the ICC and more local solutions that appeared to have the potential to satisfy all parties.

The Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation which forms agenda item three of the peace talks is an important indication of the influence the international community has had on the peace process. In this document, the government and the LRA/M agreed to subject individuals alleged to have committed the most serious crimes to formal courts in Uganda.47 The agreement also promotes other forms of transitional justice and in general agrees to more rigorous standards than were initially considered possible in the peace talks. Other evidence that a transitional justice paradigm began to dominate efforts at peace building in Uganda are found in a document by Uganda’s Justice, Law and Order Sector. The document, entitled Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda, Eastern Uganda and some parts of West Nile, goes to great lengths to provide a transitional justice framework to the process of peace building in northern Uganda and promotes the establishment of a commission that could, amongst other things, work to establish the truth of events leading up to and during the conflict. In addition to policy outcomes, a number of local leaders have begun to resign themselves more to the prospect of national trials and have come out in more open support of such possibilities.

47 It has been argued that article 6.4 of the agreement, which allows for alternative penalties and sanctions, will be used as a loophole to allow LRA/M members to avoid jail time (Southwick 2008).

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As transitional justice became the dominant paradigm of the peace efforts in Uganda, it was able to absorb both supporters and opponents of the ICC. For advocates of transitional justice, the acceptance of national courts as opposed to the ICC did not represent a departure from the principles of transitional justice which supports accountability, particularly through criminal trials, since transitional justice does not necessarily require international justice. Though most transitional justice advocates had at first put their full support behind the ICC intervention, over time, many came to support the idea of a compromise, provided Uganda agreed to robust criminal trials. Given that the LRA/M commanders had indicated that they would accept to be tried in national courts, signing the section on accountability which outlined the various mechanisms for justice and reconciliation, such a compromise appeared to provide the possibility to achieve both justice and peace. However, at the time when Kony was meant to sign the final peace agreement, the ICC had not removed the case from its jurisdiction and provided a formal and legal response for the transfer of jurisdiction to the Ugandan government in March 2009 when they stated that the government had not taken adequate legal steps to secure jurisdiction over the cases.

Though there may be valid legal and technical reasons for the Court to maintain jurisdiction at this time, some officials of the Court went beyond legal arguments against Uganda’s request and employed prescriptive language against any further requests for Ugandan jurisdiction. In a statement made by the Deputy Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, during the Fifteenth Diplomatic Briefing of the International Criminal Court she notes that on March 10, 2009, the Pre-Trial Chamber II ruled that the Uganda case continued to be admissible, and therefore remains within the jurisdiction of the ICC. However, she then goes on to advise that, “it is important that the three indictees, as soon as they are arrested, are transferred to the Hague. I insist once more that work in Uganda to build up

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accountability mechanisms must focus on the other LRA/M combatants, who are not sought by the Court. I strongly discourage States Parties to encourage Court shopping for the three indicted LRA/M leaders” (2009:6). Bensouda’s statement takes no consideration of the context within which many in Uganda have been struggling to remove the case from ICC jurisdiction. The statement makes no recognition of the fact that the Ugandan case is occurring during an ongoing conflict and that the request for national jurisdiction is more about the perceived opportunity to secure peace than frivolous attempts at “court shopping”. In such a circumstance, it may have been more appropriate for Court officials to make clear the requirements that would be necessary in order for the Court to consider the removal of jurisdiction.

While advocates of transitional justice support the ICC in principle, there are some growing tensions between agendas of the ICC and transitional justice. These tensions appear specifically in the role of international justice and peace building. In a speech made by Juan Méndez, the former President of the ICTJ, he points out that expectations of international justice may be unrealistic:

Perhaps we should consider whether the disappointments that we feel, and the threat of backtracking we perceive, stem from having unwittingly set the bar too high for what international justice can deliver. We may well be making claims about the worth of international justice efforts that are hard to demonstrate empirically. I want to refer particularly to two areas in which this may be the case: justice as state craft in peace-making and justice as prevention. (Méndez 2008)

Méndez, though an avid supporter of international justice, is not convinced that the Court should play an essential role in conflict resolution and argues that a delicate balance must be struck if both peace and justice are to be achieved.

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Later in his speech, he concludes: “For these reasons, I think the ICC and other international justice mechanisms must first and foremost be considered as instruments of justice, and only secondarily as instruments of peace or instruments of prevention” (2008). Méndez’s comments are particularly critical of the suggestion that the ICC should be considered a tool of conflict resolution. Though he firmly advocates that peace should entail accountability, he also concedes that,

In some cases and at certain times, though certainly not always nor everywhere – there is a real dilemma between the interests of peace and the interests of justice. Recognizing that dilemma does not lead automatically to the assumption that peace trumps justice, but we in the human rights movement should not let ourselves be painted into the corner of the spoilers who are never happy with a peace agreement unless we see full and complete justice achieved. (Méndez 2008)

This concession goes far beyond the assertions of ICC officials and supporters who are much more committed to the ideals of international justice, believing accountability will ultimately deter and prevent future war crimes. Thus, international justice continues to be constructed as a necessary component of peace and positive contributor to conflict resolution. In a response to Méndez’s remarks, Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC Prosecutor, attempts to reaffirm the mutually beneficial roles of international justice and transitional justice, making clear his opinion that the Court can contribute to conflict management. Instead of recognizing possible challenges to peace that could result from unmitigated quests for international justice, he places the duty on conflict negotiators to ensure justice is not sacrificed to peace. As he states,

I believe we can, and we should reconcile two visions: the Rome treaty as global justice system and as a tool for

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conflict management. My mandate is to apply the law. The Rome Statute sets limits not just for criminals, but to all national and international actors. This new legal framework is showing concrete results: armies around the world are adjusting their regulations in accordance with the Rome Statute. But those involved in international conflict management also have to adjust and to uphold the law; they have to achieve short term results without compromising respect for judicial decisions. (Moreno-Ocampo 2008)

Moreno-Ocampo also provides justification for the Court’s intervention into situations of ongoing conflict through legal imperatives, noting that,

My Office is part of a new system dealing with a new and complex problem: international transitional justice during ongoing conflicts. 10 years ago, countries from all the continents approved the Rome Statute, moving from a world based on power and relations with allies or enemies to a world based on law. They drew a new limit in international relations: no impunity for massive crimes. (Moreno-Ocampo 2008)

However, both the ICC and a transitional justice framework are adapting to the demands of conflict resolution as both have their histories based in situations following conflict. Working in situations of ongoing conflict is going to require new approaches and understanding. Not all advocates of transitional justice promote the framework as a solution to conflict; indeed it is currently a highly debated topic. Nonetheless, viewed from the ground in northern Uganda, the international consensus for justice, mainly in the form of trials, as a solution for conflict appears almost incontrovertible and this has a significant impact on events. Using transitional justice approaches to obtain peace is not an established practice, yet the confidence with which some advocates of both international justice and transitional justice affirm its ability to bring peace

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illustrates how the mobilization of certain discourses work to change normative practices. Since there is no foundation for advocating transitional mechanisms to end conflict, it is important that all parties tread cautiously and evaluate all possibilities honestly with a clear understanding of what is at stake. As Harvey Weinstein and Laurel Fletcher write in an article comparing the impact of transitional justice in a number of countries:

In undertaking this project, we are responding to an approach among transitional justice advocates that appears to emphasize a standardized “tool kit” of interventions that can be applied in different contexts, such as trials, truth commissions, etc. The basic assumption is that the “tool kit” of interventions is appropriate and productive, if one can only determine which intervention to deploy. Our concern is that this approach relies on the assumption that immediate intervention is necessary – it is assumed that something will work – the trick is to find out what. We suggest that the appropriate sequencing is to first gain a comprehensive understanding of the local context and then to ask what, whether, and when transitional justice interventions should be initiated. (2009:170)

In the case of northern Uganda, many missteps have been taken as a result of interventions that have been implemented without taking into account the very complex and critical historical and contextual situation. Each new wave of international actors brought with them different motives, norms and solutions, and local actors were encouraged to move towards those same goals. However, in many cases, taking seriously the views and priorities of the population and their local leaders could have resulted in better outcomes from the outset. If international actors had formed a consensus with local leaders in northern Uganda early on, it would perhaps have been possible to bring the conflict to a final end. Despite the fact that the population of northern Uganda can be described as enjoying a degree of peace and stability since the LRA/M is no

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longer present on Ugandan territory, neither peace nor justice can be thought to have been achieved as long as the LRA/M rebels remain at large, abducting and killing civilians in the region.

Conclusion Transitional justice has proven to be an important framework in the search for peace and reconciliation in Uganda. A transitional justice discourse has provided a means by which both opponents and supporters of the ICC intervention could find some common ground. This enabled local and international actors to create a credible peace agreement that might have been able to bring the conflict to an end and create the conditions for a sustainable peace. Arguably, the adoption of transitional justice as a framework for peace kept pressure on the negotiators to seek more rigorous standards of accountability, while still providing a platform for compromise. While these developments can be interpreted as positive for Uganda, the ultimate failure of the Juba peace talks to end the LRA/M rebellion belies ongoing questions about the relations of peace and justice.

It would seem, in the vein of the quote mentioned above, that much time was wasted by international actors working too hard to impose a particular framework and set of standards for conflict resolution and peace building, rather than first seeking to fully understand the context and history of the conflict. While a transitional justice framework is meant to provide a great deal of flexibility in transitions from conflict to peace, the commitment to penal forms of justice, and, at least initially in the Ugandan case, specifically international justice, served to generate antagonism at a time when cooperation was most needed. Before the intervention of the ICC, international organizations and UN agencies had been supportive of local leaders and their particular agenda for seeking an end to the conflict. However, once the ICC announced its intention to investigate, the conflict became a matter of interest for organizations more

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committed to international justice than understanding and resolving the issues of northern Ugandans. This meant that more effort was invested in controlling the processes of conflict resolution and attempting to limit the forms of peace and justice that would be considered legitimate.

The close examination of the reports published under the auspices of important transitional justice and human rights institutions demonstrates how such institutions and individuals can attempt to influence debates and their outcomes by controlling discursive constructions and interpretations of information and events. The direct challenge to the representation of the population as prioritizing peace was particularly destructive, since it worked to undermine the authority of local leaders. The local political, cultural and religious leaders had been actively promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict for many years based on their conviction that the population prized peace and a return to their former way of life before any other outcome. Had international actors supporting transitional justice come with a more open agenda from the outset, more collaborative efforts to arrive at consensus between local and international actors and institutions may have been possible. This would have strengthened efforts at negotiation, since a more comprehensive and consistent vision of the way forward could have been communicated by local leaders with the political support and material resources needed to achieve the objectives from a more united international community.

And still, despite the many positive outcomes that could be attributed to a transitional justice framework as a middle-way solution to the debate of peace and justice in Uganda, the current predilection for legal solutions may have placed excessive restrictions on the potential negotiated outcomes. Both human rights and transitional justice discourse and practices have been mainly presented within a legal framework and this has impacted the approach taken to

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resolve issues. There is a decided preference for legal solutions, but sometimes personal and social healing as well as economic justice may actually prove to be more important to victims and long-term peace than limited forms of penal justice. And, since both human rights and transitional justice advocates promote victim-centered solutions, these considerations need to be more thoroughly investigated on a case-by-case basis. There is an assumption that legal solutions will automatically be in the interest of victims and serve the long-term goals of sustainable peace, but as many authors have pointed out, there is little empirical evidence to back these claims (Fletcher, et al. 2009; Stover and Weinstein 2004).

The tensions arising between transitional justice and international justice point to the need for a greater understanding of the impact of pursuing justice while conflict is ongoing. Most likely, such calculations will have to be made on a case by case basis. But, most importantly, the need for a comprehensive historical, cultural and political understanding of each conflict is clear, as is the need for more consistent and robust international support for ending conflict and reconstructing societies based on their own priorities and visions of the future.

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7. CONCLUSION: UNRESOLVED ISSUES OF PEACE AND JUSTICE

A kind of peace has returned to northern Uganda. Most of the population is working to rebuild their homes and prepare their land for farming so they can slowly gain some capital and invest in their future. It will not be easy. Most families lack even the most basic tools and are dependent on whatever the government or the aid agencies can provide in order to establish themselves. There are also some issues over land. After so many years, borders are no longer demarcated and disputes can occur. Many elders who would have resolved such disputes based on their knowledge of land-holding have long-since been killed or passed away. Water sources have to be developed and other services such as education and health posts need to be distributed across the region. For the youth, learning the habits of a new way of life may be challenging. After many years of living inside the camps, some youth have little recollection of life in the village. It will take time to adjust to the new rhythm and the physical demands of village life. Women too will face particular challenges. Many women have children from relationships that have never been formally established through traditional mechanisms of marriage, particularly the provision of bride price. This leaves many women vulnerable as they have little recourse for material assistance if the father of their children does not accept responsibility for his family. In such cases, the woman and children may be forced to return to the woman’s family home where they may be perceived as a burden, especially since they do not customarily have rights to land. On a more positive note, the government and the international community are attempting to implement the resolutions that came out of the Juba talks, even if the peace agreement was not signed by the LRA/M. Compensation to victims of the LRA/M is just beginning to

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be distributed and attempts are being made to address the issues of families returning to their land.

However, despite a certain level of optimism and relief present in northern Uganda, there remains a degree of fear. As long as the LRA/M still exists, most people will never feel entirely at ease and this can ultimately impact how much people will invest in their future. What will happen to the rebels remaining in the bush, some of them originating from the Acholi region, is still a question that remains unanswered. Messages from the government are not always clear. On the one hand, the government has maintained an information campaign encouraging rebels to turn themselves in. Leaflets are distributed in areas where the LRA/M are active stating that “full amnesty is available to all combatants except those indicted by the International Criminal Court” (International Crisis Group 2010fn 38). On the other hand, officials associated with the Special Division of the High Court that is being created to deal with the crimes committed by LRA/M members have stated that up to twenty people may be tried in the Court. To confuse issues more, there is currently one former rebel awaiting trial, making it considerably uncertain which top members of the LRA/M are eligible for full amnesty and which are marked for criminal trials (International Crisis Group 2010: fn180-181). Moreover, the fears of the population that the rebels may return do not appear completely unfounded. After air strikes were launched against the LRA/M in the Garamba region of DRC in late 2008, Kony reportedly planned to return to northern Uganda but was prevented by the Ugandan army (International Crisis Group 2010: 5). Though the Ugandan government has provided much better protection to the people of northern Uganda in the last few years, as long as leaders of the LRA/M remain at large, there will always be a risk of violence in northern Uganda. The political instability of many countries in the region means that a recommencement of external funding to the LRA/M cannot be eliminated as a possibility in the future,

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either by the Khartoum government as the 2011 referendum on secession of Southern Sudan approaches, or by any other political actor in the region.

It also cannot be ignored that devastation by the rebels continues. Though the conflict has been moved outside of Uganda, more than one thousand people have been killed by the rebels since the collapse of the peace talks in 2008, hundreds have been abducted, and hundreds of thousands are displaced in DRC, CAR and South Sudan. The UPDF continues to pursue the rebels, mainly in DRC and CAR, but have not succeeded in capturing or crushing the main rebel leaders. Former rebels from the LRA/M have been incorporated into Ugandan military units, hunting down the LRA/M in DRC and CAR, their expertise on Kony’s military tactics and their extensive knowledge of how to survive in the harsh and remote jungle conditions are considered exceedingly valuable. Shortly after Kony’s refusal to sign the peace agreement in November 2008, the military offensive known as Operation Lightning Thunder was launched. The offensive has been considered controversial, but it had the tacit support of the international community and countries in the region. The operation received support from AFRICOM – the US army’s African Command – that was set up in 2007 and was meant to be a joint initiative between Uganda’s UPDF and the government forces of Southern Sudan and DRC. Unfortunately, the operation was mostly a UPDF initiative and was poorly coordinated with other countries (Schomerus and Ogwaro 2010). On the other hand, the operation was considered successful by the Ugandan government upon its completion in March 2009. According to news reports, 150 LRA/M combatants had been killed, five commanders were captured, and 300 abductees were rescued. The government went on to claim that the remaining forces were scattered and disorganized (Among 2009). However, the main LRA/M commanders are still at large and, as noted, are still adequately organized and strong enough to inflict extreme violence on communities in the region. Moreover, many of the killings and

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abductions that were committed were done so as an apparent retaliation against the operation, a typical response of the LRA/M to military offensives which was not adequately considered by the operation commanders since little protection was provided to the civilian populations. Therefore the success of the operation is very much in doubt with killings and abductions continuing to date. Uganda continues to have what they call small intelligence units in neighboring countries but the rebels are able to move rapidly across difficult terrain in small groups that are large enough to inflict violence but too small to easily track and capture (Spiegel and Atama 2009). 48

The most recent development in the conflict, which has now become increasingly regional in nature, is the signing of the LRA/M Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act into law in the US in May 2010. The legislation will put pressure on the US government to invest greater resources and efforts into bringing the LRA/M conflict to a final conclusion and to rebuild the communities impacted by the fighting. What approach the US government will take to end the conflict is yet to be seen, but debate on the best way forward continues. The US government has already put considerable resources behind operations against the LRA/M in the region and has pressured relevant governments to cooperate to remove the LRA/M threat indefinitely. In fact, the military technology and training provided by the US is credited with cutting off LRA/M communications and improving capacity of the Ugandan army in intelligence operations and in relations with the population which have all contributed to the increasing success of the army against the LRA/M in recent months (International Crisis Group 2010). However, the continued use of

48 The government of Uganda has played down the continuing military operation in the neighbouring countries and prefers to emphasize the success of Operation Lightning Thunder, characterizing the current operations as clean-up efforts. Reports on the actual troop numbers dedicated to the operation against the LRA/M are difficult to come by, but the International Crisis Group has suggested in one report that the numbers could be between 5000 and 7000 (International Crisis Group 2010).

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military initiatives is criticized based on the heavy toll paid by civilian populations every time an operation against the LRA/M has been undertaken. In every case, hundreds or even thousands of civilians have been killed, abducted or injured, tens of thousands are displaced, homes are destroyed and livelihoods are lost. The civilian losses as well as the failure of these initiatives to achieve their objectives have made them controversial, especially to the populations most impacted during the attacks. Many of the local leaders in northern Uganda continue to demand peaceful negotiations to end the war, but to date no serious attempts to recommence peace talks have been initiated by either the Ugandan government or the rebels and given the failure of the Juba talks, real confidence in the sincerity of such a project will be difficult to achieve.

Certainly, the dilemma between peace and justice has not been answered. Though the situation of northern Uganda has presented itself as an important case for the understanding of relations between peace and justice, more needs to be done to fully acknowledge the risks of seeking justice before peace has been achieved. For the moment, the received wisdom that justice is a necessary component of enduring peace has proven to be a difficult “truth” to overcome. The investigation of the LRA/M conflict by the ICC happened at an important juncture of international justice when the International Court was attempting to establish itself as a relevant institution. Since most abuses that fall under the jurisdiction of the Court will likely be committed by governments that are currently in power or by non-state actors who are violently engaging the state, the ability of the Court to intervene as crimes are committed and not years after the fact is critical to its credibility as a relevant and influential international organ. The Court has been instituted in the minds of its creators as an institution that will address pressing concerns of the international community. It is believed that by bringing perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to account for their abuses, future violations will be deterred and law

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and order will be buttressed at both national and international levels. In the long term, it is thought that the end result will be a reduction in conflict, and, in particular, a reduction in gross violence perpetrated against civilians. However, whether this outcome will be realized remains to be seen and in the short-term there are many challenges to overcome.

The ICC is fraught with limitations largely resulting from the necessity of political compromises in the multi-lateral negotiations that led up to the establishment of the Court. It cannot act in a similar fashion to a District or Crown Attorney at the international level, impartially prosecuting criminals wherever they are found. Instead, it is limited to prosecuting crimes only where countries have voluntarily ratified the Rome Statute and only when the country is unwilling or unable to prosecute the criminals itself. Moreover, without a police force to track down and arrest criminals or the ability to investigate crimes and collect evidence without the cooperation of relevant governments, the circumstances under which the Court can prosecute cases freely and effectively without being used as a political tool of governments are quite few. Acting under such limitations puts a strain on the Court to prove itself an impartial and effectual institution.

It is understandable in such a scenario, then, that the cases of the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Uganda may have presented themselves as perfect opportunities to prove the value of the Court without excessive controversies. In both cases, the violations against civilian populations are exceedingly grave and incite repulsion in any observer. Also in both cases, the governments are considered legitimate by the international community and appear, at least on a superficial level, to be engaging the forces which are victimizing the populations in order to end the violence. It was likely the hope of the Court that if it was able to successfully carry out a few cases then it would gain sufficient legitimacy to pressure more governments to ratify the Rome

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Statute and eventually to extend and strengthen the mandate and jurisdiction of the Court. Furthermore, if evidence appeared that the presence of the Court and its activities were contributing to the prevention of future crimes through such developments as military reforms, changes in government policy or a reduction in overall violations, the achievements of the Court would be considered to outweigh its limitations. While the use of such strategies are understandable, they reveal the political context within which the Court must function, and as has transpired, neither case has proved to be as uncontroversial as likely speculated.

Instead, particularly in the case of northern Uganda, the Court’s objectives as well as its claims to impartiality and prioritization of victims’ rights have been challenged. Such challenges have marked the case of northern Uganda as a site of negotiation whereby the principles of justice as expounded by the Court are being brought under scrutiny as are the relations of justice to peace. As a site of negotiation, the debate about the ICC in Uganda reveals the intricate workings of power. Power in this sense is not understood as a monolithic and strictly coercive force; rather power is subtle, dynamic and even contradictory in its nature. Laura Nader describes one form of power through the notion of “controlling processes” – “the mechanisms by which ideas take hold and become institutional in relation to power” (1997:711). In the case of northern Uganda, the construction of “international justice” as a necessary and moral institution in the current globalized world as well as the construction of “peace” as only possible or meaningful if it is obtained through the application of penal forms of justice are two of the most potent ideas that have set the parameters of negotiation throughout the debate. These ideas have been directly challenged by those opposing the Court’s intervention in Uganda, especially the local political, traditional, religious and civil society leaders, and this has put the Court on the defensive; however, to date, the particular notions of international justice

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and peace noted above have tended to prevail, giving the ICC the upper hand in the specific negotiation in Uganda, but there are signs that shifts may be occurring in a more general scope.

The International Criminal Court was established as a key component of the emerging agenda of international justice which seeks to extend and strengthen the influence of law and order. Through human rights and human security discourses, in particular, the ICC has been constructed as a necessary institution that is unequalled in its ability to address contemporary issues, particularly the perceived threat of increased violence and conflict that is a result of a more globalized world. Specifically, the ICC was constructed as an institution that would transform international relations by ending impunity and preventing future violations of humanitarian law. Its association with a “human rights culture” (Butt 2002) that itself is based on a concept of a universal moral order instills the ICC with a moral legitimacy that is sometimes understood as furthering the progress of human kind. The construction of international justice as a kind of ideology promising a future without the horrific scenes of violence currently dominating our television screens has produced the Court as a highly influential institution that garners at least moral support from most political circles. This fact has made the Court’s intervention in Uganda, particularly at the request of the President of Uganda himself, appear as a logical and even noble endeavor, endowing the Court with a great deal of influence. Though the ICC and international criminal law in general have only very recently become significant to global politics, they are already instilled with a legitimacy that can only be borne from our hopes, rather than a track record of past performance. Certainly, part of this leap of faith is a result of extrapolation. The fundamental belief in legal systems generally has been transplanted to the less established systems of international criminal law. But this extrapolation is not necessarily based on any relevant comparisons since international criminal law functions

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within a very different and complex environment traversing sovereign governments and legal systems. Nonetheless, the discursive production of the Court as a valuable institution appears well established, its legitimacy based on the “truth-effect” of its efficacy. As Foucault asserts, “’truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it” (1980:133). The truth- effect of the Court’s ability to deter crime and violence, whether proven or not, therefore has served to extend the power of the institution. In the specific case of northern Uganda, supporters of the Court’s intervention have been able to assume the positive outcomes of the tribunal without basing these assumptions on historical records.

However, the perceived challenge that the Court presents to the possibility for peace in northern Uganda has put pressure on officials of the institution to construct the Court, not only as an institution able to deter future violence, but also as capable of ending current violence. The idea that the Court could act as a mechanism for resolving conflict was not greatly circulated during its establishment; however it is an idea that has quickly taken root as dilemmas between peace and justice become more prevalent. While the case of northern Uganda is not the first instance in which justice has been sought before fighting has ceased – the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone present other examples – it is a particularly potent situation since the local leaders in the region where most of the violence has been inflicted oppose the intervention of the ICC. This has created a situation whereby it would seem that the intervention of the Court is opposed by the victim population it is meant to serve. This has created a significant challenge to the Court and officials have been forced to defend the Court’s decision. In general, the response to the challenge has been to repeat the claim that the Court has assisted the peace process by motivating the rebels to agree to negotiations. However, in order to defend in a more general way the

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principle of Court interference in ongoing conflicts, another level of argument has been to construct “peace” as only valid and sustainable if it is accompanied by accountability. This construction seeks to constitute the Court as a critical component of peace building or conflict resolution and simultaneously produces a particular notion of “peace”.

Supporters of the ICC have argued that peace without accountability is unsustainable. By making this argument, a particular kind of peace is imposed on the people of northern Uganda, since achieving peace without accountability is conceived as illegitimate peace. Accountability is also predetermined since it should include penal forms of justice, and hierarchically, international justice is considered superior to national judicial systems (Clarke 2007). In this way, “peace” is produced in a very specific form and then advocated by influential institutions and individuals. As Richmond has noted:

The question of what peace might be expected to look like from the inside (from within the conflict environment) is given less credence than the way the West and its organizations and actors desire to see it from the outside, and moderates searching for peace from within the conflict environment almost universally endeavour to expropriate western models of governance and economy, added to the social and cultural dynamics of the conflict environment, in their search for a solution. (Richmond 2004:139)

By legitimizing only a particular form of peace, the arguments by opponents of the ICC intervention in northern Uganda are weakened since their desire to achieve peace through negotiations is considered as supporting peace with impunity and such a peace is considered invalid.

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The construction of the Court as a contributor to conflict resolution has been assisted by the framework of transitional justice which has become a formidable approach to peace building in recent years. Though it originates as a process of transition whereby former dictatorial regimes were replaced by emerging democracies which sought to address the violations committed in the past, transitional justice has come to refer to a process of post-conflict transformation, and more recently, conflict resolution. As one author on the subject writes, “...the combination of peace agreement practice and legal developments have given rise to a ‘new law’ of transitional justice” (Bell 2007:1). While the field of transitional justice encompasses a wide range of views on conflict transformation, there is a predilection for legal forms of justice and wide support for the establishment of the ICC. Advocates of transitional justice extol the virtues of accountability as a pillar of sustainable peace and democratic reform which has provided the ICC with an important ally in its own self-production as an institute of conflict resolution. By arguing that accountability is a necessary component of peace, and that penal judicial systems are the best form of accountability, a transitional justice discourse has become an important means of legitimizing the ICC intervention in Uganda.

The establishment of the ICC as a moral and effective institution along with the powerful advocacy of international organizations and individuals supporting the ICC and transitional justice approaches to peace building has proven to be formidable challenges to the voices of opposition calling for the removal of ICC indictments against members of the LRA/M. Cries for peace are quieted with assurances that peace without accountability is meaningless and unsustainable or that the ICC intervention has contributed to the peace process. Despite the fact that there is no solid evidence that justice can effectively be pursued simultaneously with peace, for the moment at least, it remains sufficiently believable to imbue arguments for the Court with considerable weight and

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influence (Fletcher, et al. 2009; International Center for Transitional Justice 2007).

Against the imposition of particular notions of peace and justice, the local leaders of northern Uganda have struggled to maintain a voice in decisions made about the future of people within their constituency. From the outset, the Acholi political, religious, traditional and civil society leaders have opposed the intervention of the ICC. This opposition has been based on the concern of the Acholi leaders that indictments against rebel leaders could threaten the possibility for successful peaceful negotiations which are considered the key priority of the population. Through formal consultations as well as more informal forms of communication, the leaders had determined that the key priority of the population was peace. The population had suffered many years of violence, displacement and basic subjugation and deprivation. This deprivation was felt at almost every level. The people were pushed into crowded camps with insufficient services and frequent food shortages that resulted in high levels of mortality, violence and social dysfunction. They were subject to random attacks by the LRA/M which created a sense of constant dread and given the specific nature of the LRA/M conflict they were forced to absorb the psychological trauma of former abductees and other direct victims of violence which weigh heavily on the social collective. Given the extensive and profound anguish experienced by the population it is no surprise that the possibility to end this suffering is considered foremost in the minds of the people.

But the opposition to the ICC intervention can also be considered as having continuities with a wider struggle which the Acholi leaders have undertaken with the Ugandan government. The ICC intervention in Uganda tended to contradict many elements of an important counter-narrative of the conflict that had been promoted by Acholi leaders. The counter-narrative served to oppose many

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depictions of the conflict presented by the government, particularly the representation of the Acholi people as violent and the suggestion that the Acholi people were implicated in the conflict, and, therefore, were not your typical victims. The Acholi people perceived themselves as marginalized by the current government and the leaders had been struggling to reframe the general conception of the population and to take control of decisions made on the population’s behalf. Perhaps unwittingly, the ICC entered this scenario in such a way that they appeared to be taking sides with the government and undermining the authority of the local leaders. This apparent opposition was based on a number of principles, including the fact that the ICC presented a challenge to peaceful negotiations which the local leaders advocated; the ICC also opposes amnesties, which the local leaders had fought to obtain for former LRA/M rebels; and there was also the announcement of the investigation made by the Chief Prosecutor standing side-by-side with the President of Uganda whom many Acholi consider to be responsible for at least part of their suffering. The alienation of the local leaders and the priorities which they advocated tended to reaffirm the unequal relations between the government of Uganda and the Acholi people and reinforced the right of the President and the central government to make decisions on behalf of the population to the exclusion of the local leaders.

Nonetheless, Acholi leaders have continued to voice their opposition to the ICC and to promote local solutions to conflict resolution and reconciliation. And they have done so with support from some sections of the international community. Many of the international organizations working in the region have sympathized with the population and their desire for peace. They have supported the local leaders in their arguments against the ICC indictments of LRA/M commanders and have called for a more moderate approach to accountability. As the debate progressed, however, a transitional justice framework has arguably become the

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most influential framework. Since a transitional justice approach to conflict transformation supports holistic approaches that include both legal and non- legal forms of justice and reconciliation it reaffirmed the legitimacy of the traditional forms of reconciliation even while it limited their role to complementary forms of community reconciliation rather than serving as the central mechanisms of transformation. Transitional justice advocates promote the centricity of penal justice for peace building and therefore argued for the inclusion of formal trials for LRA/M commanders. This provided an important position of compromise for the debate and worked to influence the final version of the peace agreement which advocated the formation of a special High Court to deal with the rebel commanders.

These tensions can also be seen in the results of the Juba Peace Talks, whereby advocates of transitional justice supported the government’s move to establish special courts to hear the cases against the worst perpetrators of violence with the aim of removing the ICC jurisdiction through the Rome Statute principle of “complementarity” which allows governments to prosecute such crimes under national laws. However, despite their efforts, the ICC has not ruled in favor of such a request and appears to be discouraging further efforts in this direction.

There is a growing desire by both local and global subjects for international interventions and solutions to situations of conflict and crisis. However, too often, global solutions involve the imposition of ideas and agendas that are predetermined. There is the need for greater appreciation of specific historical, political and cultural situations. The Ugandan case is an illustration of how opposing agendas between local and global actors and institutions can become contests of power with each side attempting to control processes and events in part through the control of ideas and concepts. This tends to result in debates that become further removed from the needs and demands of events on the

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ground. If we are to understand and find more productive solutions to the sometimes competing demands of peace and justice, we must do so in a more honest manner, recognizing the real risks posed by any proposed solution. This will require the deconstruction of certain discourses such as “international justice” in order to reveal the various assumptions and understandings that are imbedded in such discourses and which are used more to assert power than to reveal realities. The International Criminal Court promises important contributions to international relations, but it has to be understood in terms of the exceedingly complex context within which it functions, including the current unequal distribution of global power and the potential loss of human life that seeking justice may entail. Each unique situation of ongoing conflict needs to be analyzed before solutions are proposed.

The case of northern Uganda exemplifies struggles between local and international actors in the implementation and interpretation of international norms and judicial mechanisms. But, it demonstrates that such struggles are rarely straight-forward divisions between categories of people such as “local” and “global”; rather, they are often much more complex and involve shifting alliances and divisions across various categories. Agendas between different actors may at times converge, but at other times they can diverge and bring parties into conflicting positions. The debate over the ICC intervention in Uganda also illustrates the various ways power is invested in certain actors and institutions, but also in ideas and discourses that are constantly renegotiated throughout the struggle. The attempt to construct the ICC as a mechanism of conflict resolution and a deterrent of future violence is particularly relevant here since it has allowed the Court to defuse allegations against it that it is obstructing peace and as a result, contributing to ongoing suffering. The ability of the Court to avoid tough questions about the priority of peace or justice or the relation between the two is critical, as the case in northern Uganda illustrates. The ICC is

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likely going to face critical challenges establishing its role in international governance and politics, and as such it needs to directly confront the dilemmas that are posed and as an institution its priorities and policies in situations of conflict should be made explicit. It cannot continue to pretend to providing solutions or outcomes that are not backed up by substantiation.

While the people of northern Uganda may currently be experiencing a kind of peace, the LRA/M continues to inflict devastating violence on neighbor populations and there is no certainty that such violence will not return to Uganda. In the meantime, the manner in which the ICC intervened in northern Uganda managed to threaten the authority of the local leaders and undermine their efforts to peacefully bring an end to the conflict. While it is certain the local leaders were in need of international assistance, the ICC collaborated more with the government than with the afflicted population which meant that the institution enjoyed little support from the Acholi leaders, and arguably mixed support from the affected population. By ignoring the context of the conflict and the important position of the Acholi leaders as mediators between the government and the Acholi population, the ICC effectively marginalized the most suitable actors for long-term reconciliation and sustainable peace. The Acholi leaders were applying themselves as positive agents of political struggle against the government, representing the perceived sense of marginalization felt by the population, but doing so through peaceful rather than violent means. The population of Acholi had long been the victims of the LRA/M, but also of government policy and lack of political will to end the war. Crushed by both sides, the population was left without legitimate means to express their political determinations. The local leaders had provided a legitimate and peaceful avenue through which the will of the population could be voiced, but the actions of the ICC responding to the demands of the President and not necessarily the actual victims or their representatives meant that this avenue was being

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constricted. And indeed, the right to represent the population and to interpret their priorities became a highly contested area during the debates and the peace talks in northern Uganda.

The ICC can play an important role in international governance, but it must first come to terms with its own limitations. When deciding on cases, considerations of victims’ views and priorities may be important indicators of whether or not to proceed. While the Court may argue that such concerns are of a political and not legal nature, the Court itself is deeply embedded in political relations that already politicize its functions, such as its inability to prosecute cases in countries which have not ratified the Rome Statute. Moreover, even in domestic legal systems, the decision to bring a case against a defendant can sometimes depend upon the desire of the victim to pursue the charges. It is unlikely that any hard and fast policies regarding intervention in conflicts will be possible; instead, each case should be closely examined and understood within historical, political and cultural contexts. Writing about a human rights paradigm, Abdullahi An-Na’im and Jeffrey Hammond note its “paradoxical yet imperative nature in setting universal standards which are unlikely to prevail without due regard for local cultural legitimacy and contextual understanding of these rights” (2002:14). Just as the human rights paradigm has undergone and continues to undergo challenges and renegotiation at political and cultural levels, so will international justice. As a part of the international justice paradigm, the Court cannot ignore the challenges that are presented, it must actively respond to these challenges if its relevance is to be established for the long-term.

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