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Politics of Transitional Justice Examining Arrests of Former Wartime Leaders As an Electoral Manipulation Strategy in Post-Conflict Countries

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Politics of Transitional Justice Examining Arrests of Former Wartime Leaders As an Electoral Manipulation Strategy in Post-Conflict Countries Politics of Transitional Justice Examining Arrests of Former Wartime Leaders as An Electoral Manipulation Strategy in Post-Conflict Countries Triveni Chand Master's Thesis Spring 2020 Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University Supervisor: Anders Themnér ABSTRACT The systematic variation in arrests of former wartime leaders (including political/military leaders and those with commanding positions from both sides of conflict among other high-level wartime actors) in post-conflict countries have rarely been recognized and studied. Building on past literature that interlinks transitional justice with domestic politics, this study argues that the variation in arrests of former wartime leaders can be explained by elections and electoral manipulation theory. Amid the costs and opportunities associated with elections in general, I argue that incumbents also opt for arrests of former wartime leaders as an electoral manipulation strategy to eliminate political opponents and consolidate power in the guise of justice and, at the same time, minimize the costs associated with electoral manipulation tools. Hence, I hypothesize the arrest of former wartime leaders likely to be during the election period (the pre-election period, election day, and immediate post-election period). All else equal, the statistical test does not support the hypothesis while the complementary evidence from post-conflict Nepal and Sri Lanka suggest that presence (or absence) of justice in post-conflict countries is largely shaped by domestic politics. Similarly, few arrests in Sri Lanka and Nepal offer mild support to the theoretical expectations while few other arrests in Sri Lanka suggest that some arrests during the hypothesized election period are coincidental. This further questions the explanatory power of the suggested theory and findings. Key Words: Post-conflict Countries, Transitional Justice, Criminal Prosecution, Former Wartime Leaders, Arrests of Former Wartime Leaders, Election Manipulation 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to express my gratitude toward my supervisor Anders Themnér for being a great supervisor and generously providing me with the unpublished dataset for this study. Thank you, Anders, for providing helpful comments and suggestions and addressing my queries on the dataset. I also want to extend my deep graduate to Henrik Persson who took out the time to address my questions concerning the dataset and providing me with additional documents. A great thank you to Lisa Hultman for providing me with the peacekeeping dataset and feedback on quantitative parts. Heartfelt thank you to my family for all the love and support. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations .............................................................................................................. 6 List of Figures, Tables, and Annexes……................................................................................7 1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................8 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK…………………………………………….....…….. 12 2.1 Previous Research ..........................................................................................................12 2.1.1 Issues of Stability vs. Justice............................................................................12 2.1.2 Relative Power of Outgoing and Incoming Elites ...........................................13 2.1.3 International Support and Pressure ..................................................................14 2.1.4 “Politics of Present” .........................................................................................14 2.2. Election and Electoral Manipulation..............................................................................15 2.2.1 Defining Elections............................................................................................15 2.2.2 Election in Post-conflict Countries ..................................................................15 2.2.3 Defining Electoral Manipulation .....................................................................16 2.2.4. Electoral Manipulation: Explaining Behavior and Strategies of Incumbents.17 2.2.5. Electoral Manipulation Timing ..................................................................... 18 2.3 Main Argument of this Study ............................................................................ 19 3. RESEARCH DESIGN ..................................................................................................... 24 3.1 Dependent Variable: Arrests of Former Wartime Leaders ............................................ 24 3.2 Independent Variable: Elections .................................................................................... 26 3.3 Control Variables ........................................................................................................... 27 3.4 Statistical Model………………………………………………………….…..……….. 30 4. ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................................... 31 4.1 Description of Data......................................................................................................... 31 4.2 Findings .......................................................................................................................... 34 4.3 Discussion........................................................................................................................ 40 4.3.1 Discussion on Impunity and Arrests in Post-Conflict Nepal ........................... 41 4.3.2 Discussion on Impunity and Arrests in Post-Conflict Sri Lanka...................... 44 4.3.3 Discussion on Additional Observations ........................................................... 54 4.4. Alternative Explanation .................................................................................................. 57 4.5. Limitations and Potential Bias ........................................................................................ 59 4.5.1 Theoretical Limitation ...................................................................................... 59 4.5.2 Research Design and Statistical Limitation....................................................... 60 4 5. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 62 6. ANNEXES ......................................................................................................................... 65 References ...............................................................................................................................71 5 ABBREVIATIONS CL Civil Liberties CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPN-Maoist Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist DAC Development Assistance Committee EU European Union HRW Human Rights Watch ICC International Criminal Court ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia International IDEA International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance IPU Inter-Parliamentary Union JVP Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/People’s Liberation Front LPM Linear Probability Model LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NELDA National Elections across Democracy and Autocracy NPP National Patriotic Party OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development PL Political Rights RO Regional Organization RRF Rwandan Patriotic Front SLD Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej/Democratic Left Alliance SLFP Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) TRCs Truth and Reconciliation Commissions UCPN-Maoist United Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist UCDP Uppsala Conflict Data Program UN United Nations UNP United National Party UDMF United Democratic Madhesi Front YCL Young Communist League 6 LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, and ANNEXES Figure 1: Distribution of Arrests in Post- Conflict Countries.................................................32 Figure 2: Distribution of Elections in Post- Conflict Countries..............................................33 Figure 3: Chi-squared Test for Tabular Association…………...............................................34 Table 1: Logit Estimates on the Likelihood of Arrests in Post-conflict countries, 1989- 2017…………………………………………………………………………………………..36 Table 2: Logit Estimates on the Likelihood of Arrests in Post-conflict countries after Omitting the Arrests Carried out after the Immediate Post-election period, 1989- 2017........................................................................................................................................ 39 Annex I: Table of Summary Statistics.................................................................................... 65 Annex II: Logit Estimates of the Likelihood of Arrests in Post-conflict Countries without Lagged Variables, 1989-2017.............................................................................................. ...66 Annex II: An overview of the arrests of former wartime leaders coinciding with elections in post-conflict countries, 1989-2017...........................................................................................67 Annex IV: Frequency Distribution of Arrests of Former Wartime Leaders in Post-Conflict Countries, 1989-2017...............................................................................................................70 Annex V: Frequency Distribution of Elections of Former Wartime Leaders in Post-Conflict Countries, 1989-2017...............................................................................................................70
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