OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MAKING PEACE OUR OWN Victims’ Perceptions of Accountability, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda UNITED NATIONS 2007 OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MAKING PEACE OUR OWN Victims’ Perceptions of Accountability, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda UNITED NATIONS 2007 Executive Summary THE PURPOSE of this research study is to explore perceptions among northern Ugandans on themes of accountability, reconciliation and transitional justice. After a more than 20-year conflict between the Ugandan Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), current negotiations in Juba, southern Sudan, represent the best-ever opportunity for a lasting peace. Central to the talks are questions of the most appropriate accountability and reconciliation processes to address crimes committed during the conflict and to help reconstruct the fabric of Ugandan society. This research study is designed to contribute to discussions on these themes in Juba, in Ugandan society and internationally. Underlying the study is a belief that the Ugandan population’s views – and especially those of victims of the conflict – have often been overlooked in debates about accountability, reconciliation and transitional justice. Consequently, many discussions have become disconnected from the needs and perspectives of the people most affected by the conflict, who are also likely to be key actors in any future accountability and reconciliation processes. This study aims to amplify victims’ voices and to interpret the social, cultural and political significance of popular perceptions. Discussions on the northern Ugandan conflict have been dominated by analyses based on artificial dichotomies, including peace versus justice, local versus international responses to atrocities, and the population’s desire for forgiveness and reconciliation versus punishment. The effect of this polarisation has been to cloud debates about the most appropriate ways to address conflict and its aftermath, implying either/or choices when combinations of these elements often better reflect popular perceptions and lead to more effective practical strategies. Furthermore, much of the analysis of the conflict so far has focused on Acholiland, neglecting the situation in other affected regions. This qualitative research study, carried out by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) over six months from January to June 2007, involved the participation of 1725 victims of the conflict in 69 focus groups in Acholiland, Lango and Teso sub-regions, and interviews with 39 key informants to provide a degree of cultural interpretation of responses from the focus groups. The study is based on a sample of the views of those affected by the conflict, organised in ten clusters based on common experiences of harm (further divided by gender and age group), and is not meant to be a poll of all persons in northern Uganda. Employing a narrative-based approach gained the broadest and deepest possible understanding of victims’ views of accountability and reconciliation. The report is built on numerous accounts of memories, oral histories and lessons expressed by the respondents. It analyses these perceptions across regions and clusters, and within the northern Ugandan cultural, social and political context. These narratives are intended to inform wider public consultations on how best to redress past abuses, violations and deep-seated social and economic inequalities by engaging formal and informal processes of justice and reconciliation. The report highlights that focus groups across the three sub-regions under consideration have experienced similar forms of harm, with similar long-term effects on individuals and communities. Overall, they are deeply traumatised and feel neglected and unprotected. Respondents’ views diverge significantly on questions of accountability, reconciliation and transitional justice, in some cases even within focus groups in the same locations. This diversity i Victims’ Perceptions of Accountability, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda of opinion highlights the complexity and highly localised nature of the conflict. It also indicates that victims’ characterisations of their experiences of the conflict and their views on the necessary redress are often unique to particular individuals and groups. There is no universal “northern Ugandan” view of who is accountable for causing harm to civilians nor of what form accountability should take, although certain trends do emerge in perspectives on these themes. Most notably, this research study shows that the population broadly believes that both the LRA and the Government – and specifically their leaders – should be held accountable for the harms they have caused during the conflict. The study also challenges the depictions in current debates that northern Ugandans are inherently forgiving, reconciliatory or willing to give amnesty to those who have caused them harm – an issue that merits further consideration. Sentiments of anger and vengefulness and a desire for prosecution abound in many communities, though there are still some perceived pragmatic advantages to amnesty, particularly to facilitate the return home of low-level LRA perpetrators (including former abductees), whom many respondents consider “children of the community.” Where respondents expressed a readiness to forgive and/or to reconcile with perpetrators, it was rarely an automatic response but usually one informed by a range of personal and communal pragmatic considerations. The respondents in this study expressed an overwhelming desire for reconciliation, particularly at the family, community and inter-regional levels. However, there was widespread scepticism about the potential for current transitional justice mechanisms – especially state institutions – to facilitate reconciliation. Respondents stated consistently that truth-recovery and reparation in the form of compensation are their principal needs in terms of transitional justice responses to the conflict. However, they provided highly variable accounts of which local, national or international mechanisms can best deliver truth and compensation. In particular, perceptions of the virtues of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and traditional practices – the two broad transitional justice approaches that have dominated recent discussions of the northern Ugandan situation – were greatly mixed. Many respondents argued that a multi-faceted transitional justice response, combining several processes and institutions to address different types of harm caused by different levels of perpetrators, is required. The findings bear significantly upon current policy questions, particularly those being debated at the Juba peace talks. They should inform the broader public policy discussions at the time of devising concrete implementation processes and mechanisms. It will be important for decision makers to address the overwhelming need expressed by victims for truth about past harms and to consider the need for a systematic process of historical clarification mandated to explore the long view of the current conflict, even before 1986. Stakeholders will also need to consider reparations as a crucial measure to address past injustice, since many victims describe this as a necessary response to the harm they have suffered and a tangible way to improve their living conditions. Policy makers should consider a strong monitoring and evaluation system to ensure any compensation scheme is transparent and free of corruption. Furthermore, the ICC must increase its outreach efforts to address most respondents’ stated lack of information of its operations. This is important to create awareness about the ICC’s potential contributions to both truth- recovery processes and compensation, particularly through its Trust Fund for Victims. Effective sensitisation may help counteract widespread views of the failure of the ICC’s publicly stated mission to prosecute and apprehend serious perpetrators, and address the lack of trust in its ability to administer an even-handed justice, also a relevant ii Making Peace Our Own consideration for domestic judicial bodies. The research findings concerning the ICC’s role and operations in Uganda have particular bearing on the States Parties, encouraging them to fulfil their responsibility under the Rome Statute to cooperate meaningfully with the Court in indicting serious violators of international law. Finally the research study highlights the widespread view that the international community should play a central role in ensuring that decisions made in Juba regarding accountability and reconciliation cohere with the population’s views and concerns alongside broader considerations of public interest and national and international law. Ultimately, in a more concrete sense, it also highlights that the international community must ensure that victims receive the remedy and reparation they demand in response to the immense and lasting harms they have suffered. iii Victims’ Perceptions of Accountability, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda Acknowledgements THIS REPORT is based on field research conducted in towns, villages and internally displaced persons camps in the Acoli, Lango,and Teso sub-regions in northern Uganda. OHCHR owes special thanks to the many people who participated in the focus groups and interviews