Reconciliation, corruption... and truth?
The NGO I work for hosted a private conference this past weekend on national reconciliation: “Building Consensus on a Sustainable Peace for Uganda.” We invited a couple dozen parliamentary MPs to attend a workshop on transitional justice, to get them thinking about moving past Uganda’s legacy of conflict.
There was some fascinating discussion. It looks like Uganda may be moving towards a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If it does, I may be able to say I was in the room when it was first discussed.
Although, believe it or not, there was a lot of discussion about whether to include the word “truth.” Like Jack Nicholson, they fear many won’t be able to handle it, particularly with regards to the government’s abuses in the North. Internationally, the war with the Lord’s Resistance Army is seen only through the lens of the atrocities of mad, mad Joseph Kony with his 40 wives, thousands of kidnapped and brainwashed children and his quest to install a government guided only by the Ten Commandments. But in fact the Ugandan army is also guilty of atrocities, as Human Rights Watch has recently pointed out. One friend told me that at one point the sodomizing of civilians by government soldiers became so widespread that a whole subgroup of male Acholi society received a nickname meaning “Those who find it hard to bend at the knees.”
So, the LRA is sometimes explained (though not justified) as somewhat of a response to government brutality and a North-South imbalance in political power. In turn, Museveni is seen to have used the LRA’s horrors as a pretext to maintain militarized political power, holding an entire population at ransom. Some believe that President Museveni has deliberately kept the LRA alive and kicking – indeed it is a bit puzzling that the army has been unable to subdue a few thousand rag-tag rebels.
All of this is why many eyebrows were raised when the ICC indicted LRA commanders and the Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, appeared at a triumphant press conference hand-in-hand with a smiling President Museveni. One-sided justice, to be sure. The ICC also comes under fire for interfering in a peace process that may have lured Kony out of the bush. Now he certainly has no incentive, with an international arrest warrant hanging over his head. And so the war continues.
As for me, I’m still trying to figure out what I think of the ICC’s involvement, but the local consensus is hard to ignore: the ICC is widely seen as a huge impediment to peace. They say it doesn’t fully grasp the willingness of Ugandans to forgive, reconcile and move on. Indeed, one wonders where South Africa would be today if, just as Mandela was negotiating reconciliation, the ICC swooped in and indicted F.W. De Klerk. It’s all a bit of a shock to a Western law student bombarded with talk of the moral righteousness of the ICC.
But perhaps one of the most telling lessons of the weekend had nothing to do with reconciliation, and more to do with the reason nothing ever seems to get done by African governments. First, the conference had to be moved from a more modest location to the glitzy Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel after the MPs threatened not to show up. Then they demanded “motivation” in order to attend, amounting to a $75 “travel allowance.” Of the 30 or so invited, at least 5 simply didn’t bother to show up (and a couple left early). And when we were there, they complained about all manner of petty things, particularly the fact that at coffee break they were forced to pour their own tea. At the workshop itself, they seemed more interested in hearing their own voices than on having any genuine discussion. I even saw one MP browsing the local movie reviews as the RLP presenters discussed mundane issues like war crimes and how to achieve sustainable peace. I also got an interesting souvenir that pretty much sums it all up – an MP’s business card with standard government info/look on the front, and on the back an advertisement asking me to invest in his “Rise & Shine Projects & Investments”
There was some fascinating discussion. It looks like Uganda may be moving towards a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If it does, I may be able to say I was in the room when it was first discussed.
Although, believe it or not, there was a lot of discussion about whether to include the word “truth.” Like Jack Nicholson, they fear many won’t be able to handle it, particularly with regards to the government’s abuses in the North. Internationally, the war with the Lord’s Resistance Army is seen only through the lens of the atrocities of mad, mad Joseph Kony with his 40 wives, thousands of kidnapped and brainwashed children and his quest to install a government guided only by the Ten Commandments. But in fact the Ugandan army is also guilty of atrocities, as Human Rights Watch has recently pointed out. One friend told me that at one point the sodomizing of civilians by government soldiers became so widespread that a whole subgroup of male Acholi society received a nickname meaning “Those who find it hard to bend at the knees.”
So, the LRA is sometimes explained (though not justified) as somewhat of a response to government brutality and a North-South imbalance in political power. In turn, Museveni is seen to have used the LRA’s horrors as a pretext to maintain militarized political power, holding an entire population at ransom. Some believe that President Museveni has deliberately kept the LRA alive and kicking – indeed it is a bit puzzling that the army has been unable to subdue a few thousand rag-tag rebels.
All of this is why many eyebrows were raised when the ICC indicted LRA commanders and the Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, appeared at a triumphant press conference hand-in-hand with a smiling President Museveni. One-sided justice, to be sure. The ICC also comes under fire for interfering in a peace process that may have lured Kony out of the bush. Now he certainly has no incentive, with an international arrest warrant hanging over his head. And so the war continues.
As for me, I’m still trying to figure out what I think of the ICC’s involvement, but the local consensus is hard to ignore: the ICC is widely seen as a huge impediment to peace. They say it doesn’t fully grasp the willingness of Ugandans to forgive, reconcile and move on. Indeed, one wonders where South Africa would be today if, just as Mandela was negotiating reconciliation, the ICC swooped in and indicted F.W. De Klerk. It’s all a bit of a shock to a Western law student bombarded with talk of the moral righteousness of the ICC.
But perhaps one of the most telling lessons of the weekend had nothing to do with reconciliation, and more to do with the reason nothing ever seems to get done by African governments. First, the conference had to be moved from a more modest location to the glitzy Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel after the MPs threatened not to show up. Then they demanded “motivation” in order to attend, amounting to a $75 “travel allowance.” Of the 30 or so invited, at least 5 simply didn’t bother to show up (and a couple left early). And when we were there, they complained about all manner of petty things, particularly the fact that at coffee break they were forced to pour their own tea. At the workshop itself, they seemed more interested in hearing their own voices than on having any genuine discussion. I even saw one MP browsing the local movie reviews as the RLP presenters discussed mundane issues like war crimes and how to achieve sustainable peace. I also got an interesting souvenir that pretty much sums it all up – an MP’s business card with standard government info/look on the front, and on the back an advertisement asking me to invest in his “Rise & Shine Projects & Investments”
posted by Sam at 5:23 PM
2 Comments:
Oh dear. My MPs continue to 'inspire' me with their 'concern'.
Hi Sam, i agree with most of your observation. You know all our MPs are potatoe growers. Despite our young "multi-party democracy", Uganda is still suffering from the fever of the Movement system and state patronage. To our president Museveni, he only needs MPs who sleep when in parliament but wake up to vote for the Government. Very few MPs are articulate imtellectuals as evidenced from that training. You must have missed my clash with Hon. Abdu Katuntu on "the ICC and transitional Justice"-and you know why he was furious, he is not used to being challenged, and when i did it, he could not stomach it. Lastly, i just want to correct you on the thing about UPDF atrocities in northern Uganda. Its true they sodomised a number of men and they used to say "bend down or gug" and use your buttock, thus the phrase "tek-gugu" meaning once you bend down----
Otherwise Gulu is fine.
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