UGANDA'S AMNESTY ACT

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
HONOURS RESEARCH PROJECT
Amnesty as Political Justice in Africa: Lessons Learnt from the
Policy Decisions of the Government of Uganda
Simeon Gready (GRDSIMOO1)
October 2014

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Contents Page
I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………...3
II. Framingthe Dialogue:Peacevs.Justice inthe AfricanContext………………….5
ThePeace vs. Justice Debate………………………………………………………………...………..5
PerspectivesonAmnesty……………………………………………………………………………….9
TowardsanAfrican-specificTransitionalJusticeagenda…………………...……..…12
III. Background:TheConflictinNorthernUganda………………………………………...15
Causesof theConflict……………………………………………………………...………….……….15
Natureof the Conflict……………………………………………………...……...…………………..16
IV. Mechanismsto end conflict:TheParadoxofDual Policies inNorthern
Uganda…………………………………………………………………………………………………….20
Pre-2000………………………………………………………………………………….…………………21
TheAmnestyAct of 2000……………………………………………….……………………………22
TheRealities of DualPolicy Implementation………………………………...……………..27
LocalInfluenceson RecentMeasures…………………………………………….…………….35
V. LessonsLearnt: Peacevs. Justice inthe AfricanContext…………………………..37
ThePeace vs. Justice Debate………………………………………………………………..………37
PerspectivesonAmnesty…………………………………………….……………………………….40
TowardsanAfrican-specificTransitionalJusticeAgenda…………….………………42
VI. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………….43
VII. ReferenceList………………………………………………………………………………………….46

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I. Introduction
“Mass violence is more a political than a criminal matter. Unlike
criminal violence, political violence has a constituency and is
driven by issues, not just perpetrators … it is sometimes
preferable to suspend the question of criminal responsibility until
the underlying political problem has been addressed.”1
The post-colonial era of Africa has been littered with inter- and intra-ethnic tensions,
followed somewhat predictably by the outbreak of devastating conflict, some of which is
still ongoing and some of which is in the not too distant past. In fact, “only a small
number of African countries have so far escaped destructive conflicts of one type or
another.”2
The prevalence of mass violence in a country places a certain pressure on the respective
government. Predominantly, how does one stop the violence? Secondly, how does one
ensure that those that initiated and perpetuated the violence are made to be
accountable for their actions? Thirdly, seemingly of less significance, what place do
international perceptions have in the scope of these questions? These issues speak of
specific concepts: peace, justice, and popular global thought.
In the above introductory quote, it is outlined that mass violence is a political matter.
Surely, then, it merits a political response; specifically, because of the politically-defined
root causes of the conflict, the respective government has a politically-defined obligation
to draw up a set of policies that will enable an end to that conflict. In the efforts of
conflict resolution, “there must be a political process where all citizens – yesterday’s
victims, perpetrators and bystanders – may face one another as today’s survivors.”3
The theoretical framework around which the above concepts have developed have
largely been shaped by the evolving field of transitional justice. As such, Chapter II of
this paper will conduct a conceptual study of these principles; initially, the peace vs.
justice debate will be outlined, with an emphasis on the seemingly contradictory nature
1 Thabo Mbeki and Mahmood Mamdani, “Courts can’t end civil wars,” The New York Times,
February 5, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/opinion/courts-cant-end-civil-
wars.html?_r=0 (accessed September 2, 2014).
2 John Akokpari, “’You don’t belong here’: Citizenship, the state and Africa’s conflicts – reflections
on Ivory Coast,” in The Roots of African conflicts: The causes and costs, ed. Alfred Nhema and Paul
Zeleza (Oxford: James Currey, 2008), 88.
3 Mbeki and Mamdani, “Courts can’t end civil wars.”

4
of the concepts exemplified by the ‘justice cascade’ and the subsequent establishment of
the International Criminal Court (ICC). Thereafter, this paper will assess the notion of
amnesty, herein defined as “legal measures adopted by states that have the effect of
prospectively barring criminal prosecution against certain individuals accused of
committing human rights violations.”4 Specifically, amnesty will be discussed within the
scope of transitional justice and as a political mechanism with which to end politically-
driven mass violence. Finally, Chapter II will examine the promise of an African-specific
transitional justice agenda, motivated by the disconnect between the principles of
transitional justice and the principles of local African processes, particularly reflected in
the retributive vs. restorative justice debate. This will allow the author to place the
conceptual notion of amnesty as a form of political justice within the scope of an African-
specific transitional justice where it might not fit into globally accepted perceptions of
the field.
Thereafter, this paper will consider the case of Uganda as a means by which to discover
the realities of conflict resolution methods. The choice for such a case was motivated by
the particulars of the conflict: ethnic tensions resulted in a 20-year long war between
the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group
originating from the North of the country; the conflict was, at least at first, politically
motivated, and was characterised by combatants who were both victims and
perpetrators; finally, the Ugandan government implemented a number of examinable
policies, including an Amnesty Act, in the effort to end the conflict.5 As such, Chapter III
will observe the background of the conflict, differentiating between the root causes and
the nature of the war, before Chapter IV provides an in depth analysis of the
mechanisms by which the government of Uganda attempted to end the conflict.
Specifically, the dual policy approach of the government will be assessed, where both
peaceful and aggressive policies were pursued; it will be argued that these contradictory
approaches created a paradox that disabled the positive effortsof conflictresolution.
Finally, Chapter V will attempt to calculate what lessons one can learn from the case of
Uganda, specifically concerning concepts of peace, justice, amnesty and an African-
specific transitional justice agenda. In summation, it will be asserted that, based on the
4 Francesca Lessa and Leigh A. Payne, introduction to Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights
Accountability: Comparative and International Perspectives, by Francesca Lessa and Leigh A.
Payne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4.
5 Kasaija Phillip Apuuli, “Amnesty and International Law: The case of the Lord’s Resistance Army
insurgents in Northern Uganda,” African Journal on Conflict Resolution 5 (2005): 34-35.

5
fundamental principles of the Ugandan Amnesty Act, albeit with some observed
alterations, amnesty has the potential to be an effective tool for conflict resolution and
subsequent political justice; furthermore, this promise of amnesty is specific to Africa,
the nature of her conflicts and conceptualisations of peace and justice. As such, popular
global perceptions of the same concepts, exemplified and implemented by the likes of
the ICC, must necessarily recognise the context within which they are working so as to
allow the principles of an African-specific transitional justice agenda to develop further.
II. Framing the Dialogue: Peace vs. Justice in the African context
Before an examination of the conflict in Northern Uganda, the mechanisms by which the
Ugandan government attempted to end that conflict and the implications thereof, it is
necessary to frame the dialogue within which these discussions occur. Specifically, this
involves a brief consideration of evolving international norms regarding the concepts at
hand: peace, justice and amnesty in the broader scope of transitional justice.
Furthermore, it is important to consider these concepts within the contexts in which
they occur. As such, this paper will discuss the place of these concepts and,
consequently, the place of a wider African-specific transitional justice agenda in globally
popular conceptions of the field. This consideration is motivated by the contradictions
that exist between the attempted advances of locally established traditional processes
as a method to settle the peace, justice and amnesty debates in Africa as opposed to the
attempted advances of the international community to settle such debates through the
establishment of the likes of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
ThePeace vs. Justice Debate
The framework of ‘peace vs. justice’ firstly necessitates a discussion of the field within
which it resides. Broadly, transitional justice, in itself a fairly new concept in the scope of
Political Science, focuses on the ways in which a society addresses human rights
violations, mass atrocities, and state repression of the past; traditionally, the aim is to
build a more democratic, peaceful, or reconciled present and future.6 Thus, it is directly
concerned with ‘transitions,’ such as the transition from a state of conflict (genocide or
civil war, for example) to a state of peace. Furthermore, it is directly concerned with
6 Louis Bickford, “Transitional Justice,” in Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity,
Volume 3, ed. Dinah Shelton (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004): 1045.

6
justice, involving an attempt to hold certain people accountable for that conflict, while
simultaneously addressing the various needs of the victims.
Hence, the peace vs. justice debate arises. It is ably outlined here:
“There is often a dilemma over whether to give priority to
bringing perpetrators of past human rights violations to justice, as
a means of curtailing the culture of impunity, or to focus attention
more on putting in place measures to secure peace and stability as
prerequisites of longer-term national recovery, reconstruction
and development.”7
It can be argued that, in many ways, the term ‘transitional justice’ is problematic in itself:
for instance, perhaps, it assumes that peace and justice can be pursued simultaneously.
However, while in some cases justice and peace can be complementary in that justice can
deter abuses and enable sustainable peace by addressing grievances non-violently,8 they
have too often proven to be harmful for one another; indeed, it is generally accepted that
“it is disingenuous to suggest that it is always possible to further the interests of peace
and justice simultaneously. The reality of peacemaking … shows that difficult choices
must sometimes be made between peace and justice objectives.”9
In light of this, what argument can be made in the pursuit of peace over justice, or vice
versa? To what extent does one feed into the other? Some consideration must be made
for case-based observation – this is based on the justifiable assertion that peace and
justice means different things to different people.10 It could be argued that this applies
more to justice than to peace; peace is somewhat universally accepted as “freedom from
or the ending of war,”11 which invariably involves an implicit assumption that people
ought to be able to resume their normal lives.12 This raises a differentiation between
7 Brian Kagoro, “The paradox of alien knowledge, narrative and praxis: transitional justice and
the politics of agenda setting in Africa,” in Where Law Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional
Justice, ed. Moses Crispus Okello et al. (Nairobi: Pambazuka Press, 2012), 6.
8 Nick Grono and Adam O’Brien, “Justice in Conflict? The ICC and Peace Processes,” in Courting
Conflict? Justice, Peace and the ICC in Africa, ed. Nicholas Waddell and Phil Clark (London: The
Royal African Society, 2008), 13.
9 Nicholas Waddell and Phil Clark, “Introduction,” in Courting Conflict? Justice, Peace and the ICC
in Africa, ed. Nicholas Waddell and Phil Clark (London: The Royal African Society, 2008), 9.
10 Lucy Hovil and Joanna Quinn, “Peace First, Justice Later: Traditional Justice in Northern
Uganda,” Working Paper No. 17 (Refugee Law Project, 2005)
http://www.refugeelawproject.org/files/working_papers/RLP.WP17.pdf (accessed August 15,
2014).
11 Hovil and Quinn, “Peace First, Justice Later.”
12 Ibid.

7
positive and negative peace, whereby negative peace is simply the absence of war in
which the needs of the victims are not addressed and they are unable to resume their
normal lives.13 Complementary peace and justice processes involve a justice program
that enables positive peace where the needs of the victim (i.e. the need for justice) are
fulfilled, communal harmony is achieved and a commitment to coexistence is built.14
In that respect, justice can encompass very different meanings: one often differentiates
between retributive justice, popularised by the West and based on principles of
accountability, and restorative justice, largely practiced by traditional African cultures
whereby wrongdoings are viewed as “a misbehaviour which requires teaching or an
illness which requires healing.”15 This involves an overarching process whereby justice is
achieved on a community level through rehabilitation, reconciliation, compensation and
restoration.16
The particularly Western-driven rise of the retributive justice is reflected by the recent
focus on the so-called ‘age of accountability.’ It is argued that, from 1990-2010,
individual criminal accountability gained momentum such that the justice norm became
nested in a larger movement for accountability for human rights violations, otherwise
known as the ‘justice cascade.’17 Thus, in the global consciousness, justice has been
intimately linked with prosecutions whereby human rights atrocities are addressed on
an individual level so that individual punishment may be handed out.
The culminating point of the justice cascade was the signing of the Rome Statute and the
consequent creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC).18 On July 17, 1998, 120
countries signed the Stature into existence, cementing global commitment to a form of
retributive justice driven by popular Western thought.19 The ICC was formed with
13 Robert Senath Esuruku, “The Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda,” in
Where Law Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, ed. Moses Crispus Okello et al.
(Nairobi: Pambazuka Press, 2012), 163.
14 Tim Murithi, “Towards African Models of Transitional Justice,” in Where Law Meets Reality:
Forging African Transitional Justice, ed. Moses Crispus Okello et al. (Nairobi: Pambazuka Press,
2012), 213.
16 Ibid.
17 Kathryn Sikkink, “The Age of Accountability: The Global Rise of Individual Criminal
Accountability,” in Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and
International Perspectives, eds. Francesca Lessa and Leigh A. Payne (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012), 19.
18 Ibid., 22.
19 Katherine Southwick, “Investigating War in Northern Uganda: Dilemmas for the International
Criminal Court,” Yale Journal of International Affairs 1 (2005): 105.

8
intentions of interventions in cases of human rights atrocities, particularly where the
state in question is unable or unwilling to hold individuals accountable for these
atrocities; for instance, Article 14 of the Rome Statute20 outlines the process for state
referrals to the ICC, namely that where a state refers a case to the ICC, it is actively
allowing the ICC to make decisions on its behalf concerning which individuals ought to
punished for certain acts, thereby removing the power of the state to deal with the
situation itself.21
The reality of conflict, however, raises specific problems for the justice cascade. It is
argued that “in civil wars no one is wholly innocent and no one wholly guilty … victims
and perpetrators often trade places, and each side has a narrative of violence.”22 This
blurred line between perpetrators and victims can often place the likes of the ICC in
somewhat of an awkward position: how does one deal with victims of certain acts that
were perpetrators in other acts? The reality of conflict is such that more than one party
involved is likely to have committed human rights atrocities.23 This is directly applicable
to the case of Uganda, whichwill be discussed later on in this paper.
What affect does this increased focus on accountability and the justice cascade have on
the peace vs. justice debate? It is seemingly implied that justice is the priority where
atrocities have been committed. The pursuit of this kind of justice, however, can have
adverse effects: a form of victor’s justice, whereby one side is prosecuted while the other
is portrayed as the victim, risks the continuation of civil war and ignores the blurred
perpetrator/victim line that so often characterises conflict.24 The blind promotion of this
justice cascade and the consequently relentless pursuit of justice risks the lives of more
civilians and can result in more atrocities.
What of peace, then, where justice is not in the best interest of the state in question?
While Juan E. Méndez notes that war is the “ultimate violation of human dignity.”25 Thus,
20 “Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” International Criminal Court, accessed
August 10, 2014, http://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-
0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf.
21 David Hine, “Dueling Ideals: Bridging the Gap between Peace and Justice,” Boston College
International and Comparative Law Review 32 (2009): 135.
22 Mbeki and Mamdani. “Courts can’t end civil wars.”
23 Grono and O’Brien, “Justice in Conflict?,” 13.
24 Mbeki and Mamdani, “Courts can’t end civil wars.”
25 Juan E. Méndez, foreward to Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative
and International Perspectives by Francesca Lessa and Leigh A. Payne (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012), xvii.

9
the priority should be placed on ending the war, by whatever means most effective, such
that the emphasis should be on finding the balance in the peace vs. justice debate that is
mutually reinforcing and holds the best hope of conflict resolution. What is clear is that,
in finding this balance, the innocent victims of the conflict must have a say in the process
so as to avoid an unjust and negative peace.26
Given this aim, “mediators have frequently used amnesties as an incentive [to end
war].”27 This next sub-section will discuss how amnesty fits into the peace vs. justice
debate from an international perspective.
Perspectives onAmnesty
As discussed in the introduction, this paper uses the term amnesty to refer to legal
measures enacted by states that bar criminal prosecution of individuals accused of
committing gross human rights violations.28 Implicit in this working definition is the
assumption that these individuals are given a pardon and an exemption, benefitting from
a measure of forgiveness.29
What place, then, does amnesty have in the peace vs. justice debate? Its implementation
is often a mechanism for peace, in that they have “undeniably proven themselves
important components of negotiations that have resolved protracted conflicts.”30 Thus,
where peace and justice are seen to be unachievable at the same time, amnesty would
seem to shift the balance of the debate towards peace.
It follows, then, that given the momentum of this age of accountability, outlined in the
previous sub-section, amnesty could be considered, on the surface, to be a direct
contradiction of law and of justice: “the very declaration of amnesty laws is not only a
26 Ibid., xxv.
27 Grono and O’Brien, “Justice in Conflict?,” 14.
28 Lessa and Payne, introduction, 4.
29 Barney Afako, “Reconciliation and Justice: ‘Mato Oput’ and the Amnesty Act,” Conciliation
Resources, 2002, http://www.c-
r.org/sites/default/files/Accord%2011_13Reconciliation%20and%20justice_2002_ENG.pdf
(accessed August 24, 2014).
30 Mark Freeman and Max Pensky, “The Amnesty Controversy in International Law,” in Amnesty
in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and International Perspectives, eds.
Francesca Lessa and Leigh A. Payne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 42.

10
recognition that crimes against humanity and war crimes have occurred, but that also no
one should be investigated and held accountable.”31
However, the assumption that amnesty serves as a contradiction of law and of justice is
found to be somewhat problematic. Firstly, regarding law, it is useful to note that the
“status of amnesty under international law is truly unsettled.”32 International treaties
only indirectly outlaws such legal measures in that they make no mention of amnesty
itself, rather making a provision that instructs states of their duty to prosecute those that
commit the atrocities that amnesties are usually designed to pardon. Accordingly, it is
argued that this indirect route contains enough ambiguity and loopholes that allow
amnesties to exist under international law.33
Furthermore, the Rome Statute, as the culmination of the justice cascade, reportedly
“could not agree on any single amnesty policy so they left the authority to the ICC to
develop its own jurisprudence on the matter over time.”34 Thus, no policy explicitly
regarding amnesty has been made under international law, such that it cannot be
justifiably asserted that amnesty contradicts law.
Secondly, the assumption that amnesty contradicts justice must be considered in light of
the earlier differentiation between different forms of justice was made in this paper.
While amnesty might contradict retributive justice (at least on the surface), the case for
suggesting that amnesty contradicts restorative justice is much harder. Where
restorative justice emphasises rehabilitation, reconciliation, compensation and
restoration, amnesty emphasises pardoning, exemption and forgiveness whereby the
objectives of restorative are possible. In that respect, amnesty cannot be said to
contradict restorative justice.
Regarding retributive justice, it can be argued that, despite their apparent
incompatibility, amnesty laws used in the correct manner can actually fulfil the three
main goals of prosecutions.35 Firstly, an official amnesty law is able to reinforce the rule
of law through definitively acknowledging certain crimes as criminal, such that it is not
31 Apuuli, “Amnesty and International Law,” 48.
32 Freeman and Pensky, “The Amnesty Controversy in International Law,” 64.
33 Ibid.
34 Kimberly Hanlon, “Peace or Justice: Now that Peace is being negotiated in Uganda, will the ICC
still pursue justice,” Tulsa Journal of Comparative and International Law 14 (2007): 326.
35 Kathleen E. MacMillan, “The Practicality of Amnesty as a non-prosecutory alternative in post-
conflict Uganda,” Cardozo Public Law, Policy and Ethics Journal 6 (2007): 207.

11
associated with amnesia;36 secondly, official amnesty laws can help achieve justice in that
they can co-exist with prosecutions where lower-level offenders are amnestied while
those most responsible for atrocities committed are held accountable – this is
particularly effective where those lower-level offenders are bound by the blurred
perpetrator/victim line;37 thirdly, it is argued that official amnesty laws achieve the same
result as prosecutions in deterring future offenders because prosecutions themselves do
not successfully deter violations, plainly due to the fact that there is no proof that they do
so and human rights violators, as human beings, are not rational actors.38
At this point, it is useful to refer to Ronald Slye’s outline of the ideal amnesty law so as to
illustrate the manner in which amnesty can help fairly balance the peace vs. justice
debate. Slye refers to this amnesty as ‘accountable amnesties,’ and details six
characteristics of this amnesty: it must be democratic in creation, it must not apply to
those most responsible for gross human rights violations, it must impose some form of
public procedure or accountability on its recipients, it must provide an opportunity for
victims to question and challenge certain individual’s claims to amnesty (“only the
victims of abuse have the right to pardon”39), it must provide reparations to victims, and
it must be designed to facilitate a transition to a more human rights friendly regime.40
Slye notes that ‘accountable amnesties’ is the only type of amnesty to hold “the promise
of legitimate amnesty eligible for recognition and respect by foreign states and
international tribunals.”41
Amnesty, therefore, can play a key role in the balance of the peace vs. justice debate.
Admittedly, it is primarily designed to encourage the end of conflict such that it appears
to tip the scales towards peace over justice. However, contrary to popular opinion,
amnesty does not serve as a contradiction to either law or justice; in fact, where there is
a combination of trials and amnesty, such as in the ideal amnesty law outlined above by
36 Tricia D. Olsen, Leigh A. Payne and Andrew G. Reiter, conclusion to Amnesty in the Age of
Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and International Perspectives, by Francesca Lessa and
Leigh A. Payne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 341.
37 Barney Afako, “Undermining the LRA: Role of Uganda’s Amnesty Act,” Conciliation Resources,
2012, http://www.c-r.org/comment/undermining-lra-uganda-amnesty-act-barney-afako
(accessed August 24, 2014).
38 MacMillan, “The Practicality of Amnesty,” 219-220.
39 Richard Carver, “Called to Account: How African Governments Investigate Human Rights
Violations,” African Affairs 89 (1990): 415.
40 Ronald Slye, “The Legitimacy of Amnesties under International Law and general principles of
Anglo-American Law: Is a Legitimate Amnesty possible?,” Viriginia Journal of International Law
43 (2002): 245-246.
41 Ibid., 247.

12
Slye, amnesties can also become “part and parcel of the age of accountability”42 to the
extent that it is a mechanism of justice and of peace. Thus, if handled correctly in its
design and implementation, amnesty can enable a post-conflict society that pursues both
peace and justice, whether that is retributive justice (through the trials of those most
responsible) or restorative justice (through the amnesty and subsequent reintegration,
rehabilitation, and restoration of lower level offenders).
In this way, this paper argues that amnesty can be utilised as a tool of political justice: it
is a legal instrument, with dozens of significant choices in design and negotiation, driven
by state policy.43 In its primary function as a mechanism to end conflict and ensure
peace, it doubles as a mechanism to pursue a political justice whereby, to achieve the
‘ideal’ balance, policies that encompass both trials and pardons are implemented to the
best interests of the state and, importantly, the victims of atrocities.
Towards anAfrican-specificTransitionalJusticeagenda
Having outlined the potential place of amnesty in the peace vs. justice debate, it is
necessary to narrow the dialogue further to briefly explore the extent to which these
measures couldbe utilised in an African-specific transitional justice agenda.
The necessity of discussing the potential for such an agenda arises out of the common
African perception that “contemporary transitional justice narratives dehistoricise
Africa’s relationship with the rest of the world.”44 It is argued that there is a disconnect
between the manner in which transitional justice has developed, specifically with regard
to key concepts such as justice and reconciliation, and the local contexts that are
expected to adopt these increasingly global perspectives.
A clear example of this disconnect was offered earlier in this paper: concepts of ‘justice’
are greatly debated across global and African agenda’s, but one clear differentiation
arises. The increasing momentum of the age of accountability, reflected by the justice
cascade and culminating with the signing of the Rome Statute and the establishment of
the ICC, has encouraged a justice whereby individual criminal accountability has been
emphasised, and prosecutions against those who have committed atrocities are
42 Sikkink, “The Age of Accountability,” 21.
43 Freeman and Pensky, “The Amnesty Controversy in International Law,” 65.
44 Levis Onegi, introduction to Where Law Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, by
Moses Crispus Okello et al. (Nairobi: Pambazuka Press, 2012), 2.

13
demanded. On the other hand, local African tradition reads that atrocities are addressed
on a community or clan based level such that responsibility is accepted on behalf of the
perpetrator; furthermore, prosecutions are not necessarily required in the traditional
conceptions of justice in African communities, such that the it could be considered
immoral and essentially ineffective to force such a process in the effort to achieve justice
in post-conflict African states.45 African conceptions of justice see “greater value in
educating and rehabilitating an offender than in simply incarcerating him and forgetting
about him.”46
At this point, a clear shortcoming of the appeal for an African-specific transitional justice
must be acknowledged. Namely, just as global conceptions of the field fail to address the
nuances of different local contexts, Africa is not homogenous. It too is made up of vastly
varying contexts and traditions such that it could be argued that an African-specific
transitional justice agenda could run the danger of failing to address certain contexts.
However, whilst this is acknowledged, it is also noted that “common themes emerge
across societies”47 in a manner that is not true of the world. For the purposes of this
essay, and in line with the characteristics of restorative justice, it is useful to highlight the
fact that the majority of African communities consider the individual to be a part of the
collective identity. This common theme reads that responsibility is accepted on that
collective level, where peaceful approaches to resolving conflict is preferably to a process
of prosecution and retributive justice.48 Thus, an African-specific transitional justice
based on these principles would address local contexts to a far greater extent, and to
greater effectiveness, than the broader contemporary transitional justice agenda does at
the moment.
It is clear, then, that an African-specific transitional justice agenda would be based on
local and traditional justice processes. An initial justification of such an approach lies in
the fact that the realities of colonialism suppressed local customs in favour of foreign
values that were not aligned with people’s sense of justice.49 Other benefits of such an
approach include accessibility, often regarding rural clans who would be familiar with
45 MacMillan, “The Practicality of Amnesty,” 212.
47 Murithi, “Towards African Models of Transitional Justice,” 201.
48 Ibid.
49 Stephen Oola, “A conflict-sensitive justice: adjudicating traditional justice in transitional
contexts,” in Where Law Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, eds. Moses Crispus
Okello et al. (Nairobi: Pambazuka Press, 2012), 57.

14
such routines and would consequently legitimise them, and the fact that these processes
could be carried out in local languages.50
It is necessary to consider further challenges faced by traditional justice practices in the
African context. Firstly, one may note the traditionally patriarchal nature of such
processes; this raises questions as to the role of women and youth in such methods. The
extent of this potential challenge is perpetuated by the fact that women and the youth
are often amongst the biggest sufferers, if one could quantify such a term, of conflict in
Africa. It is noted that this is changing, but the pace is slow.51 This is one of if not the
biggest challenges face by traditional processes in a transitional justice agenda.
Secondly, research has shown that “traditional justice practices have been historically
used to address ‘ordinary’ or daily criminal and civil conflicts … and not conflicts arising
from war.”52 It is acknowledged that the atrocities committed during war far outweigh
that of the usual crimes faced by traditional methods. Furthermore, there is a complexity
of abuses committed, exemplified by the blurred perpetrator/victim line outlined earlier
in this paper, that traditional processes may be unfamiliar in dealing with.53
While this essay could not go into more depth in the topic, as it is a secondary focus, it is
nevertheless important to note that the call for an African-specific transitional justice
agenda is bold, but it has both benefits and shortcomings. This paper finds that Lyandro
Komakech makes a convincing argument in that he suggests “traditional justice practices
should therefore be used to establish the principles of a national system, while also being
practised directly in local communities affected by the conflict.”54 This enables the use of
traditional processes while also leaving space for state-led adaptation in their efforts to
overcometheir shortcomings.
This is a particular convincing argument when considering the potential place of
amnesty in the peace vs. justice debate, as outlined in the previous sub-section.
Traditional processes in Africa have largely encouraged a peace-orientated approach to
justice, motivated by clan-based responsibility and an emphasis on forgiveness and
50 Lyandro Komakech, “Traditional justice as a form of adjudication in Uganda,” in Where Law
Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, eds. Moses Crispus Okello et al. (Nairobi:
Pambazuka Press, 2012), 70.
51 Ibid., 74-75.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Komakech, “Traditional justice as a form of adjudication in Uganda,” 76.

15
reintegration; this, naturally, opens the door for the use of amnesty as a tool of political
justice in the effort to simultaneously end the conflict and begin the process of context-
specific justice.
III. Background: The Conflict in Northern Uganda
Causesof theConflict
It is argued that there are essentially four roots of the conflict in Northern Uganda. The
first clear cause lies in the National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) successful takeover of
the country in 1986, led by Yoweri Museveni. This takeover was met with further
resistance and unrest; indeed, within two years of Museveni’s rule, there were 27
different armed rebels that rose up against the new government.55 The Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, was one of the only and certainly the most effective to
have prevailed, the reasons for which will be discussed in the next sub-section. Thus, the
struggle between the government and the LRA forms a first clear root of the conflict.56
A second root of the conflict can be described as the North-South divide, which can be
explained “in terms of the economic imbalance that was perpetrated by the
colonialists.”57 Specifically, this involved inter-ethnic tensions that stemmed from the
manner in which the colonial British favoured the South for economic purposes while the
North was used as a base for cheap labour and army recruitment. This imbalance was
not shifted post-independence, such that, for many, the LRA rebellion against the NRM
was simply a continuation of the North-South ethnic competition that had its roots in
colonialism.58
Thirdly, the conflict was also characterised by the Northern-based intra-ethnic tensions
reflected by the struggle between Acholi LRA and the much-victimised wider Acholi
population; this was further exacerbated by the initial claims of the LRA that they
represented the Acholi ethnic tribe against the government of the NRM, a fact
increasingly denied by the Acholi as the conflictprogressed.59
55 Sverker Finnström, “Wars of the Past and War in the Present: The Lord’s Resistance Army in
Uganda,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 76 (2006): 200.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 37.

16
A final characteristic of the conflict is reflected by inter-state tensions: namely, animosity
between Sudan and Uganda resulted in each state providing territorial support for the
other’s rebel opposition. It is in fact argued that “Sudan’s assistance to the LRA was in
part response to the Ugandan government’s long-standing support of the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement (SPLM), a rebel group in southern Sudan that had fought the
Sudanese government for twenty-one years.”60 The LRA were able to base themselves in
Sudanese territory, a key factor in their ability to outlast some of the other 27 different
rebel groups that initially rose up against the NRM.
Natureof the Conflict
A discussion of the nature of the conflict between the government of Uganda and the LRA
necessitates a look at each of the sides involved. As will be shown, the extent and nature
of the LRA’s are such that it must be considered first. The rebel organisation was actually
established out of a different movement: Alice Auma ‘Lakwena’ captivated the anti-
government sentiments of the North in the immediate pre-Museveni phase with her Holy
Spirit Movement. She was a popular leader amongst the Acholi, leading through
supposed spiritual powers, before being defeated by the army of the NRM in 1987. 61
Thus, with her defeat as well as the defeat of other North-based organisations, there was
a rebel leadership vacuum in the region. Joseph Kony stepped up to fill this void, and,
despite being a man largely shrouded in mystery, he reportedly portrayed himself as a
messenger of God sent to save the Acholi of the North from the repressive rule of the
South.62 His mission, so to say, was to overthrow Museveni and thereafter build his own
state founded upon an interpreted version of the biblical Ten Commandments.63 In this
way, Kony did not actually believe that he played a role in starting the war; rather, he
was “a passerby who[was] handed overthe lion’s tail.”64
Kony built his army and led them through an extended period of brutal violence against
both the army of the government and the innocent civilians of Uganda. The LRA’s tactics
60 Southwick, “Investigating War in Northern Uganda,” 111.
61 Zachary Lomo and Lucy Hovil, “Behind the Violence: Causes, consequences and the search for
solutions to the war in Northern Uganda,” Working Paper No. 11 (Refugee Law Project, 2004),
2014).
62 Ibid.
63 “Kony 101: Why is he fighting?,” Invisible Children, accessed October 10, 2014,
http://invisiblechildren.com/blog/2014/10/13/kony-101-fighting-survival/.
64 Finnström, “Wars of the Past and War in the Present,” 211.

17
were characterised by egregious offences that included war crimes, crimes against
humanity and torture.65 Most notably, and perhaps most atrociously, it is estimated that,
between 1986 and 2006, the LRA abducted around 54,000 to 75,000 people, 25,000 to
38,000 of whom were children kidnapped into their ranks.66 Civilians were kidnapped
predominantly from the Acholi regions of the North, resulting in the intra-ethnic tensions
that was previously outlined as a characteristic of the war. This ‘army of children’ was
effective in that they were easily malleable to whatever purpose; they could be used as
disposable porters, or forced to kill friends or family as a method of instilling fear and
forcing loyalty. Abducted women and girls, on the other hand, were subjected to rape,
unwanted marriages and preganancies, and sexually transtimitted diseases. 67 All in all,
Kony was able to build his army quickly and efficiently.
Attempts to understand the nature of the LRA are complicated by the fact that the rebel
organisation itself lacked a clear political agenda. While there was certainly a spiritual
dimension to the LRA, there was confusion throughout the conflict as to whether Kony
even had a political agenda at all or whether he simply could not articulate it. The rebel
organisation does not engage citizens in political mobilisation or indoctrination, rather
preferring to a form of rule motivated by both power, from controlling an insurgency,
and fear, from possible incarceration. 68 In fact, one could either go further and argue
that, over the course of the conflict, the LRA even lost their initial spiritual dimension:
“The LRA has changed from its early days. No longer solely a revolutionary movement
based on religious beliefs, it now includes blatant criminal activity.”69
The manner in which the LRA seemingly lost their initial spiritual dimension, and
whatever political motivations they might have had, to adopt an agenda of criminality is
ably reflected by the relocation of their activities. Specifically, as will be discussed in
more detail later on in this paper, the LRA moved from Uganda to South Sudan, the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2006,
and “is currently terrorising communities thousands of miles away their original
home.”70 What of the objective to overthrow Museveni, then? Or of ‘God’s mission’ to
66 Phuong N. Pham, Patrick Vinck and Eric Stover, “The Lord’s Resistance Army and Forced
Conscription in Northern Uganda,” Human Rights Quarterly 30 (2008): 404.
67 Lomo and Hovil, “Behind the Violence.”
68 Ibid.
69 Robert Feldman, “A Deal with the Devil: Issues in Offering Joseph Kony Amnesty to Resolve the
Conflict in Uganda,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 18 (2007): 138.
70 “Kony 101: Why is he fighting?”

18
rescue the Acholi people of the North? It has diminished, clearly, alongside their
prevalence in Northern Uganda. Their current tactics are simply ones of survival and
staying alive, through criminal activity.71 Throughout all of this, however, it remains clear
that the LRA’s strategies were and still are heavily reliant on gross human rights
violations, led by those at the top and perpetrated by those throughout its ranks,
particularly on civilians and both woman and children.
Of vital importance to the discussion in this paper is the extent to which the government
of Uganda and its army also implicated themselves in the perpetration of gross human
rights violations. Indeed, it is asserted by some that government forces not only made
use of inordinate violence and force, but they also practiced the abduction and forced
recruitment of children and youth in the army, large-scale massacres, rape and forced
labour.72 Furthermore, both forces reportedly violated bodily integrity and altered
human tissue (cutting off limbs, for instance) to “communicate messages, humiliate the
enemy and their support base, and dominate both people and territory.”73 A further
conjecture is made suggesting that the government forces were the worst violators in the
early years of the war, perhaps when the LRA were more of a revolutionary movement
based on religious beliefs, before the rebel forces became the worst violators for the
remainder of the war, when they become more of a criminal organisation.74
One of the clearest ways in which the gross human rights violations of the government
forces can be illustrated is through a brief discussion of their internally displaced
persons (IDP) camps. These camps were initiated in 1996 as ‘protected camps’ to which
Ugandan civilians of the North were forced to move into; they were promoted as a place
safe from LRA attacks.75 However, they were anything but: firstly, living conditions were
very poor while basic services like food, water, sanitation and shelter were in short
supply, and secondly, “the camps provided little or no protection from the LRA, and
residents were vulnerable to abuse by the UPDF [Uganda People’s Defence Force – the
army of the government] and individual soldiers.”76 This seemingly corroborates the
71 Ibid.
72 Theo Hollander and Bani Gill, “Every Day the War Continues in My Body: Examining the
Marked Body in Postconflict Northern Uganda,” The International Journal of Transitional Justice 8
(2014): 218.
73 Ibid., 217.
74 Ibid., 218.
75 Manisuli Ssenyonjo, “Accountability of Non-State Actors in Uganda for War Crimes and Human
Rights Violations: Between Amnesty and the International Criminal Court,” Journal of Conflict and
Security Law 10 (2005): 418.
76 Ibid.

19
above assertion that government forces were similarly complicit in gross human rights
violations to the same extent as the rebel forces, particularly regarding forced abduction,
rape and forcedlabour.
In short, two points are particularly worth emphasising. Firstly, both rebel and
government forces made use of egregious tactics in their efforts to force an advantage
over one another. Secondly, a high percentage of these atrocities were committed by
children and youths who were forcibly kidnapped for just that purpose. This resulted in a
society where neighbours have perpetrated violence on each other and children have
perpetrated violence on their communities.77 As such, the complex nature of the conflict
meant that “social cohesion [was] fragmented and the persistence of violence and
abductions thoroughly undermined levels of social trust.”78
This leads to an important realisation regarding the socio-political realities of the two-
decade conflict in Northern Uganda. Abducted members of the LRA were both victims, in
that they were forcibly kidnapped, and perpetrators, in that they were implicated in
committing atrocities; similarly, members of the government forces were both victims of
the conflict in general, and perpetrators, given the level of abuse implicit in the IDP
camps. As such, to give a practical example of an earlier assertion, “individuals and
groups of people are both victim and perpetrator at the same time.”79 The confirmation
of this claim has significant implications for the ways in which a state attempts to end
conflict and achieve justice, which is the main focus of the next section and indeed of this
paper.
77 Phil Clark, “Creeks of Justice: Debating Post-Conflict Atrocity Accountability and Amnesty in
Rwanda and Uganda,” in Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and
International Perspectives, eds. Francesca Lessa and Leigh A. Payne (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012), 224.
78 Murithi, “Towards African Models of Transitional Justice,” 208.
79 David Kaulemu, “Culture, Customs, Tradition and Transitional Justice,” in Where Law Meets
Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, eds. Moses Crispus Okello et al. (Nairobi: Pambazuka
Press, 2012), 87.

20
IV. Mechanisms to end conflict: The Paradox of Dual Policies in Uganda
There are effectively two broad approaches a state can take in the effort to end conflict.
Firstly, the state can approach the issue aggressively, meeting fire with fire,
characterised by the attempt to address the root of the conflict through military and legal
power. Secondly, the state can approach the issue peacefully, by using the power of
negotiation and mediation to implement political measures that are, in turn, designed to
end the conflict. This section will examine the government of Uganda’s attempts to
address the nuances of conflict resolution through these two approaches. Specifically, it
is noted how the East African state tried to combine both aggressive and peaceful
mechanisms, such that they implemented dual policies; it will be argued that this was a
problematic approach in Northern Uganda given the contradictions that this approach
encouraged, resulting in confusion and, importantly, the continued prevalence of
conflict-basedviolence.
For the sake of clarity, this chapter will be further divided into four sub-sections so as to
allow for a more organised understanding of the Ugandan government’s approach to end
the conflict. Firstly, the initial attempts to subdue the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) will
be considered, covering the mechanisms that were implemented up until the year 2000;
this will be followed by an examination of the background, justifications, and effect of the
Amnesty Act of 2000. This will involve an emphasis on the manner and extent to which
local traditions informed the amnesty policy as a peaceful means to end the conflict.
The third sub-section will illustrate how the Ugandan government combined this
peaceful approach with an aggressive approach, characterised by military and legal
offensives as well as the government’s referral of the Ugandan case to the International
Criminal Court (ICC). This method of dual policies was continued throughout the decade,
through the likes of the peaceful Juba talks and aggressive military advances. The final
sub-section will examine the most recent measures of the Ugandan government as well
as the continued influence of local actors in these processes, characterised by the
decision made by the Ugandan government to revoke the peace-driven Amnesty Act in
2012 before its reinstatement in 2013.
In summation, it will be asserted that the decisions of the Ugandan government to
pursue a path of dual policies, representing both peaceful and aggressive approaches, in
their effortto end the conflictcreated a paradox that undermined this objective.

21
Pre-2000
Given the rise of the numerous rebel groups in response to the takeover of Yoweri
Museveni in the late 1980s, including that of the LRA, it is useful to acknowledge early
efforts to end the conflict. Interestingly, it is found that “successive governments in
Uganda have used the instrument of amnesty to end various insurgencies that had
started against them.”80 In the context of Uganda, amnesty was clearly seen as a
legitimate mechanism with whichto end conflict.
In 1988, so within two years of Museveni’s takeover, the Ugandan Parliament, then
known as the National Resistance Council (NRC), passed the Amnesty Statute as a
complementary policy to the peace deals that had been concluded with the Uganda
People’s Democratic Army (UPDA) and the Uganda People’s Army (UPA).81 The Statute
served as an encouragement to the insurgencies and their sponsors to end their activities
against the newly established government of Uganda. Interestingly, this statute excluded
four offences that rebels were to be exempt from: genocide, murder, kidnapping and
rape.82
Thereafter, army commanders in the Ugandan government’s force worked with local and
traditional leaders to utilise mechanisms based on unofficial amnesties. For instance,
beginning in 1996, “Maj. Gen. Katumba Wamala successfully encouraged large numbers
of rebels from the West Nile Bank Front (WNBF) … to lay down their arms and return
from the bush, [by] assuring the rebels that no returnees would face retribution and the
army would facilitate their reintegration into their home communities.”83 Thus, it is
apparent that a peaceful approach to ending conflict, characterised by amnesty
provisions in various forms, was a common tool in the scope of conflict in Uganda.
Furthermore, it is important to note the active role that local and traditional leaders
played in this process. Indeed, it can be argued the examples given foreshadowed the
followingAmnesty Act of 2000, whichwill be discussed in the next sub-section.
Interestingly, it is also apparent that the Ugandan government made use of aggressive
measures to end the conflict in the pre-2000 period. This was specifically against the
81 Ibid., 44.
82 Ibid.
83 Clark, “Creeks of Justice,” 225-226.

22
LRA, as opposed to the other rebel groups outlined above that benefitted from amnesty
in 1988 and 1996: “In 1991, [the Ugandan government] launched Operation North, a
military offensive that succeeded in greatly weakening the LRA.”84 This was followed by
initial peace talks in 1994, which eventually failed due to mistrust between the groups.
Thereafter, the LRA grew in strength, not least because of the support of neighbouring
Sudan, such that the conflict intensified to the extent that any large-scale efforts to
disband the insurgency were ceased.85 However, the policy decisions of the Ugandan
government against the LRA in the 1990s once more foreshadowed what was to come in
later years: specifically, a combination of peaceful and aggressive processes by which to
end the conflict, characterised in this instance by military efforts and peace deals. It can
be argued further that the failure of this combination foreshadowed the failure of future
combinations of peaceful and aggressive policies.
TheAmnestyAct of 2000
In the case of Uganda, which could justifiably apply elsewhere in Africa, it is argued that
“peace must be secured before any other activity or process may be successfully
undertaken.”86 The justification for such a statement rests on the fact that people’s
security must be guaranteed before they can make the time or inclination to focus on
post-conflict reconstruction.87 As such, it is perhaps no surprise to learn that the
Ugandan amnesty process was initiated by an umbrella civil society group from Northern
Uganda, who recognised the necessity with which peace had to be secured first. The
Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), an interfaith forum of religious and
community leaders, began the movement for an amnesty act in 1998 after re-emerging
peace talks between Museveni’s government and the LRA.88 Their campaign was the
result of widespread consultation with victims groups in Northern Uganda, who
reportedly emphasised a desire for “personal and collective healing and reconciliation
with the rebels.”89
It is clear that the calls for an amnesty act arose out of local culture. Indeed, the
justification for such a call was underpinned by the faith of the Acholi in their traditional
84 Hema Chetlani, “Uganda: A Nation in Crisis,” California Western International Law Journal 37
(2007): 285.
85 Ibid.
87 Ibid.
88 Clark, “Creeks of Justice,” 225.
89 Ibid.

23
measures, such as the capacity of the community and cultural institutions that would
manage reconciliation against the background of rebel atrocities.90 Firstly, then, it can be
asserted that principles involved in an amnesty provision are reflected by the culture
that attempts to implement it. Indeed, it is largely acknowledged that, for the Acholi tribe
and for the majority of Ugandan citizens, forgiveness is in their culture.91 This
corroborates with the earlier observations made when discussing the common themes of
African-specific justice, whichnecessarily encorporates a restorative nature.
The extent to which forgiveness plays such a vital role in the traditions of Ugandan
tribes, particularly that of the Acholi, is perhaps best illustrated by an examination of
some of these traditional justice mechanisms. In an effort to reach a comprehensive and
reliable understanding of such mechanisms, this paper will refer to a presentation made
at the 4th Institute for African Transitional Justice, convened in Kampala, Uganda by the
Refugee Law Project (RLP), by Chief Jerimiya Muttu Bongojane of the Acholi Patiko
clan.92 Firstly, the Chief (known as ‘Rwot’ in his culture) articulated their standing on
retributive justice: “Acholi viewed the trial and conviction of perpetrator, for example, as
only benefitting the state and leaving the victim in pain.”93
Thereafter, he outlined three traditional justice mechanisms that, from an Acholi point of
view, were appropriate conflict resolution measures that, in turn, informed the call for an
amnesty act. Specifically, these included Mato Oput, meaning blood compensation, which
involves a ritual ceremony that seeks to reunite alienated parties on a clan-based level;
Culu Kwor, meaning compensation for the bones and blood of the deceased, which
revolves around communal understandings of guilt; and, finally, Gomo Tong, meaning the
bending of the spear, which involves a ceremony whereby a spear is bent to signify the
end of conflict.94 Common principles across all of these justice mechanisms are truth-
90 Afako, “Reconciliation and Justice,” 64.
91 Boniface Ojok, “’Forgiveness is our Culture’: Amnesty and Reconciliation in the Northern
Uganda,” (Masters diss., University of Notre Dame, 2014).
92 The presentation was made at the 4th Institute for African Transitional Justice, which the
author of this paper was fortunate enough to attend. The conference took place in June 2014 in
Kampala, Uganda, and specifically aimed to advance suggestions of an African-specific
transitional justice agenda.
93 Patiko Jerimiya Muttu Bongojane, “Traditional Justice in Practice: Understanding the key
practices, principles and application of traditional justice mechanisms in Acholi” (report
presented at the 4th Institute for African Transitional Justice, Kampala, Uganda, June 15-19,
2014).
94 Ibid.

24
telling, acknowledgement of wrongdoing, acceptance of responsibility and offer of
compensation.95
Thus, the influence of such traditional justice mechanisms enabled the ARLPI to rally
support around a potential amnesty act that would reflect the principles of the likes of
Mato Oput, Culu Kwor and Gomo Tong. Moreover, the overriding theme of restorative
justice was further justified by the recognition that “most combatants in the LRA were
forcibly abducted and have themselves been victims.”96 This blurred victim/perpetrator
line helped create a moral empathy of sorts with the perpetrators, many of whom had
been forced to fight and commit atrocities. This was exacerbated by a profound
weariness with the war and a lack of faith in the ability of the formal justice system to
differentiate between legal and moral guilt. This, then, led to the ARLPI call for an
amnesty act which they believed would not only achieve peace but also act as a form of
political justice for those that were abducted as children and forced to become
perpetrators.97
As such, an Amnesty Bill was firstly introduced in parliament by the government of
Uganda, before, in 2000, the Amnesty Bill was finally passed into an Act on a six-month
rolling basis.98 The Act offered pardons on an individual case-by-case basis to “all
Ugandans engaged or engaging in acts of rebellion against the government of Uganda
since 26th January 1986.”99 Thus, it was aimed at all rebel groups, and not just at LRA
combatants, though the Kony-led organisation was the main focusof the Act.
Thereafter, parliament established the Amnesty Commission (AC) whose objective it was
to persuade defections from the rebellions in the light of the amnesty, and to encourage
the active participation of the community in receiving and reintegrating these
defectors.100 Furthermore, a Demobilisation and Resettlement Team (DRT) was
established to decommission arms, and to demobilise, resettle and reintegrate
95 Ibid.
97 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 Zachary Lomo and Lucy Hovil, “Whose Justice? Perceptions of Uganda’s Amnesty Act 2000:
The potential for conflict resolution and long-term reconciliation,” Working Paper No. 15
(Refugee Law Project, 2005),
2014).

25
defectors.101 The process by which defectors could receive amnesty was also outlined:
once cleared by the Director of Public Prosecution, their applications were handed over
to the AC; the defector would then denounce his activities by signing a declaration, after
which they would receive an Amnesty Certificate and finally a resettlement package
containing money and supplies.102
It is firstly necessary to outline the successes of the Amnesty Act. Namely, since its
enactment in 2000, over 26 000 individuals have sought and benefitted from amnesty.103
In design, the Amnesty Act of 2000 appeared to achieve a balance between peace and
justice, further complemented by the fact that it advanced local conceptions of justice
and conflict resolution methods, arguably enabling practical conceptions of an African-
specific transitional justice agenda. Regarding the war-torn state of Uganda, the amnesty
was said to “create the space for reconciliation, restoring social and political cohesion at
the community and national levels.”104 As such, it can be argued that the policy was used
as a tool of political justice in Uganda, whereby the pursuit of justice is informed by the
political realities and agenda of the state in question. This political reality is a direct
reference to the blurred victim/perpetrator line, in that the amnesty is a form of justice
for those that were abducted in their childhood.
On the other hand, however, it is necessary to discuss the initial shortcomings of the Act.
Firstly, regarding the ideological realties of the Act, it is argued in certain circles that the
ARLPI were actually largely self-interested in their pursuit of an amesty act based on
traditional justice mechanisms. Specifically, the Act was seen as a way for the older male
Acholi to reinforce their faltering power within the community, given their key role in
the local traditions that inform the act.105 In this way, it is argued that those Acholi that
actually wanted retributive justice were silenced.106
A major critique in the early stages of the Amnesty Act was informed by an apparent
disconnect between traditional justice mechanisms, such as Mato Oput, and the realities
of the Amnesty Act. While the Act effectively encompassed principles of clan-based
reconciliation and reintegration, it failed to address the need for truth. It is argued that “a
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Ojok, “Forgiveness is our Culture.”
104 Afako, “Undermining the LRA.”
105 Adam Branch, “Uganda’s Civil War and the Politics of ICC Intervention,” Ethics and
International Affairs 21 (2007): 192.
106 Ibid.

26
vital part of the [Mato Oput] ritual is acknowledgement and truth telling, something that
is missing from the amnesty process.”107 Furthermore, traditional justice mechanisms
emphasise the need to compensate the victims; the amnesty act instead offered
reparations to returning rebels, of which more than half have yet to be been allocated or
delivered,108 while it falls short of community expectations given their lack of
compensation to victims.109
Regarding the practical realities if the act, many of the abductees out in the bush said
they had “no access to radios when they were with the LRA, and therefore did not know
about the amnesty.”110 Furthermore, others spoke of Kony’s manipulation in convincing
his abducted rebel soldiers that the Amnesty Act was a lie, and that they would be
prosecuted if they tried to reintegrate themselves back into the community.111
A final critique of the Amnesty Act outlines concerns that the policy amounts to a blanket
amnesty. This is denied by conceptions of the Act: it is argued that Act of 2000 is
modelled on the 1988 version, where four offences, namely genocide, murder,
kidnapping and rape, were considered too heinous to be included.112 Moreover, the
individualised nature of the policy indicated that it was not a blanket amnesty. However,
in practice, no top-level combatants attempted to benefit from the amnesty, which is
where the Act was said to have failed, because “amnesty means nothing other than plain
surrender.”113 As such, the extent to which the Amnesty Act could have been a blanket
amnesty was not tested.
However, if one was to solely consider the statistics, it is largely acknowledged that the
Amnesty Act of 2000 represented a somewhat effective tool of political justice in the
attempt to achieve the goals of conflict resolution and restorative justice based on local
mechanisms. Thousands responded to the Act and returned home, while the community,
local governments and other agencies developed reception and reintegration
programmes for those that chose to benefit from the Act.114 In design, as a peaceful
approach to end conflict, the Amnesty Act was successful in the way it acted as a form of
109 Komakech, “Traditional justice as a form of adjudication in Uganda,” 65.
111 Ibid.
114 Ibid., 66.

27
justice for reintegrated victim/perpetrators. It also has the potential to help end war,
because of how the defections of these victim/perpetrator lower-level combatants
weaken the rebel opposition. However, as will be discussed later in this paper, measures
must be taken to include truth and compensations for victims in the process. This next
sub-section will discuss how the introduction of dual policies, such as aggressive
approaches to ending conflict, served only to undermine the positive effects of the
Amnesty Act.
TheRealitiesof DualPolicy Implementation
The policy decisions made by the government of Uganda in their attempts to combat the
threat of the LRA had an irrevocable effect on the length and scale of the conflict. It is this
author’s contention that they must be commended for the way they took into account
local approaches to solving the conflict, which the Amnesty Act of 2000 was established
to reflect; similarly, however, this author contends that their subsequent policies
disabled the potential benefits of this Amnesty Act. This sub-section will outline the ways
in which the government of Uganda reversed their approach to resolving the conflict by
attempting to end the LRA insurgency through aggressive means alongside the peaceful
nature of the Amnesty Act. It is argued that this, in turn, negatively affected length and
scale of the conflict.
The first indication of the dual policy approach appears in 2001, when the ‘Suppression
of Terrorism Bill’ started making its way through parliament.115 Importantly, this Bill
was drawn up under the knowledge that, in 1998, the LRA was officially labelled as a
terrorist organisation. Furthermore, the Bill stated that “persons engaged in war or
rebellion against the government would be charged with crimes under the Anti-
Terrorism Act.”116 At this point, it was clear that the government seemed willing to
pursue a dual approach pursuing legal action against the insurgents while maintaining
the integrity of the Amnesty Act.
The appearance of this Bill, ill advised in itself, was swiftly followed by indications that,
alongside the Amnesty Act, the Ugandan government would attempt to pursue military
action as well as legal action against the insurgents. In March 2002, the army of the
government, the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), launched an “aggressive
115 Ibid., 67.

28
offensive against the LRA.”117 Dubbed ‘Operation Iron Fist,’ the plan of the operation was
meant to eliminate the LRA. However, the offensive had a boomerang effect in that it only
served to encourage a reaction from the LRA, leading to increased human rights
violations in the North.118 If that was not enough, the government of Uganda launched
‘Operation Iron Fist II’ in 2004, which was once again met with increased violence by the
LRA.119 The offensives arguably caused doubt amongst LRA ranks as to the legitimacy of
the Amnesty Act: while Kony and other LRA leaders would tell the rebel abductees and
potential defectors that the Act was a lie, how could such offensives by those claiming to
want to reintegrate the abductees into their society convincethem otherwise?
However, besides the abject failure of these military offences, perhaps the biggest
contradiction of the Amnesty Act was initiated in December 2003 when Museveni
referred the case of Uganda to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
(ICC).120 This was the first time a state had invoked Article 13(a) and 14 of the Rome
Statute, such that the referral was essentially seen as a litmus test of sorts for global
justice.121 It is important to note that the ICC decided to intervene in an ongoing conflict,
as opposed to post-conflict state – indeed, all four of the ICC’s investigations, in Uganda
Darfur, the Democratic Rebuplic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR)
have occurred during wartime.122 In acknowledging that, however, one must also
contend that both parties could have had specific agendas to fulfil that might affect the
nature and consequences of the investigations.
Indeed, in some circles it is argued that ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo
actually “approached President Museveni in 2003 and, despite the president’s initial
reluctance, persuaded him to refer the Northern Ugandan situation to the ICC.” 123 This
indicates a separate ICC agenda, notably that the ICC did not have global justice as their
primary motivation behind Moreno Ocampo’s persuasion of Museveni to refer the case;
rather, one could justifiably contend that the Court’s judgement was skewed by its
117 Ssenyonjo, “Accountability of Non-State Actors,” 417.
118 Ibid.
119 Chetlani, “Uganda: A Nation in Crisis,” 286.
120 Payam Akhavan, “The Lord’s Resistance Army Case: Uganda’s Submission of the First State
Referral to the International Criminal Court,” American Society of International Law 99 (2005):
403.
121 Ibid., 404.
122 Victor Peskin, “Caution and Confrontation in the International Criminal Court’s Pursuit of
Accountability in Uganda and Sudan,” Human Rights Quarterly 31 (2009): 663.

29
“prioritisation of its short-term institutional interest in ‘making its mark.’”124 Given the
relatively recent establishment of the ICC on the back of the Rome Statute, it could be
asserted that the Court aimed to use the case of Uganda to legitimise their endeavours of
global justice rather than consider the context within which they were attempting to do
so.
Thus, the LRA referral raised important questions about the ICC’s jurisdiction. Firstly, in
accordance with the Rome Statute, the initial referral by Museveni and the acceptance of
that referral by the ICC implied that the Court necessarily recognised Uganda to be a
‘failed state,’ whose judicial system was unable to bring violators of atrocities to justice
without international assistance.125 The extent to which this was the case was debatable:
it is in fact largely asserted that Uganda’s judicial system was both willing and able to
conduct prosecutions.126 This reiterates the theory that the referral was pushed and
accepted as a means for the ICC to legitimise themselves.
A second important jurisdictional question raised concerns over the impact of ICC
investigations on the peace negotiations at the time. Specifically, it was questioned
whether or not possible ICC prosecutions were in the ‘interests of justice.’127 This, of
course, related to the Amnesty Act and its objectives; while the Ugandan law promised
exoneration from all the atrocities committed against the government in the name of
rebellion, the ICC’s investigations were undertaken with a view to prosecuting those sort
of crimes against humanity. The situation, therefore, represented a paradox of dual
policies: a local, peace-based approach supporting an amnesty which was designed to
lure perpetrator-victim rebel soldiers out of the bush and back into society against an
internationally-backed aggression-based approach supporting investigations into
humans rights violations and subsequent prosecutions of perpetrators by a newly
established global Court attempting to legitimise themselves in the process.
Compounding the jurisdictional questions raised in the initial referral of the Northern
Ugandan case to the ICC, questions of legitimacy were raised once the investigations got
underway. As acknowledged in an earlier chapter, the conflict in Uganda was such that
both the LRA and the government of Uganda’s army committed atrocities in the scope of
124 Waddell and Clark, introduction, 10.
125 Mahmood Mamdani, “Responsibility to Protect or Right to Punish,” Journal of Intervention and
Statebuilding 4 (2010): 62.
126 Akhavan, “The Lord’s Resistance Army Case,” 404.
127 Ibid.

30
the war. One would expect, therefore, that the ICC, as the pursuers of complete global
justice, would show no bias in its investigations; indeed, the prosecutor reportedly
notified Museveni that the ICC would “interpret the referral as concerning all crimes
under the Rome Statute committed in Northern Uganda, leaving open the possibility of
investigating atrocities by government forces.”128 However, this was not to be the case:
the ICC investigated and charged only the leadership of the LRA and not that of the
government of Uganda, all while attempting to justify the decision by claiming that the
“crimes committed by the LRA were much more numerous and of much higher gravity
than alleged crimes committed by the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF).”129 This
led to allegations of the pro-US nature of the ICC, in that the Court would not investigate
or prosecute US allies which effectively confersimpunity upon them.130
Thus, it is argued that the ICC stooped to embrace a partisan notion of justice by
choosing to pursue a politically pragmatic case despite the way it contravened not only
its own mandate but also the interests of peace, justice, and rule of law.131 In this way,
and in reference to government of Uganda’s own agenda, it is theorised that the
government politically instrumentalised the ICC. The argument reads that Uganda stood
to gain very secular benefits from ICC intervention, particular if it could ensure that only
the LRA would be investigated and prosecuted.132It was largely accepted that ICC
intervention would entrench the war rather than help to solve it, as any arrest warrant
would discourage defectors to leave the bush and eviscerate the Amnesty Act. It is
argued, however, that this would serve Museveni in the following ways: it would enable
him to silence any political dissent by persecuting political opposition; maintain
spending on his large, unreformed army upon which he places his power, which in turn
enables him to dodge donor demands for the reduction of this military by citing the
presence of the war; open up land in the North, by forcing the Acholi and other Northern
tribes into internally displaced person’s camps (IDPs) such that the land may instead be
occupied by southerners and foreigners; and reinvent himself as a key US ally fighting
the injustices of the LRA in the region.133 Thus, the agenda of the Museveni himself,
which reflects the agenda of the government, justifies dual policies of peace-making and
international prosecutions as that specifically does not end the war. This provides further
129 Mamdani, “Responsibility to Protect or Right to Punish,” 61.
130 Ibid., 62.
131 Branch, “Uganda’s Civil War,” 180.
132 Ibid.,183.
133 Ibid.,185.

31
evidence, then, to the assertion the there is a paradox inherent in these dual policies for
those that wish to see an end to the conflict.
Despite all the above, however, which illustrates beyond doubt that any sort of
indictment would directly threaten the principles of the Amnesty Act, October 2005 saw
the ICC issue five arrest warrants for members of the LRA leadership, including Joseph
Kony.134
These indictments encouraged an amendment in the Amnesty Act, as, under Ugandan
law, those indicted by the ICC would contradictorily be eligible for a pardoning of all
crimes and reintegration in their home country. In May 2006, the government amended
the Act to exclude certain people from receiving amnesty, such as those that had been
indicted by the ICC.135 The amendment gave the Minister of Internal Affairs the power to
exclude whoever he thought should not benefit from amnesty.136 It was an attempt to
distance the Amnesty Act from criticisms levelled at it, specifically that it amounted to a
blanket amnesty; under the amendment, those that were most responsible for gross
human rights violations in the conflict, such as high-level LRA commanders, would, in
principal, be denied amnesty and would therefore be prosecuted, while those lower-level
officers, most of whom were abducted from childhood and perhaps had to commit
atrocities under order such that they were therefore less responsible, could benefit from
the amnesty. However, it is often argued that “the amendment most likely served to give
an appearance of compliance with international human rights law.”137 The amendment is
considered a façade plainly because the Minister of Internal Affairs has never actually
utilised the provision.138
Despite the vast and convincing catalogue of shortcomings concerning ICC intervention,
it is necessary to acknowledge the initial benefits brought about by the referral. Earlier in
this paper, it was noted that one of the primary causes of the conflict was the inter-state
tension between Uganda and Sudan. Both states supported rebel groups in each other
territories, even going as far as harbouring base camps for the rebel groups on their own
land. However, the ICC referral helped pressure Sudan into withdrawing their support
135 Ibid., 227.
136 Ibid.
137 Stella Yarbrough, “Amnesty or Accountability: The Fate of High-Ranking Child Soldiers in
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transitional Justice 47 (2014): 564.
138 Ibid.

32
for the LRA, to the extent that they stopped harbouring rebel camps.139 The cost of
continued support for the LRA became too high for Sudan, partly due to the increased
international attention that the ICC brought to the situation; this, in turn, significantly
weakened the LRA, as they had previously been able to escape UDPF forces across the
border and reach safety as wellas their stockpile or weapons and supplies.140
It is argued that this loss of safety and security drove the LRA back to the negotiating
table in 2006, in the form of the Juba peace talks. In principle, this indicates that the ICC
referral was directly responsible for the possibility of further peace negotiations.
However, this point is contentious: it is asserted that “the processes that led to the
inception of the Juba talks had been on going long before the ICC became active in
Uganda.”141 It is without doubt, however, that the Court’s intervention certainly played a
role, albeit unintentional, in the establishment of the peace talks.
Thus, the Juba peace talks represented a further attempt by the Ugandan government to
end the conflict with the LRA. They began on July 14th, 2006 in the Southern Sudan
capital of Juba, and, initially, seemed to hold much promise for peace in Northern
Uganda.142 By late August, the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement enabled a
ceasefire in September, which removed a key source of insecurity from Northern Uganda
that is still true to this day.143 Given the abject failure of the government of Uganda’s
aggressive approach to conflict resolution, represented by military pursuits such as
Operation Iron Fist I and II and legal pursuits such as the Suppression of Terrorism Bill, it
appeared that the government of Uganda re-established their peaceful approach to
conflictresolution.
The initial promise of the Juba peace talks justified this switch in approaches. However,
the government’s habit of dual policies came back to haunt them, ultimately causing the
eventual breakdown of the peace talks. The Principles of Accountability and
Reconciliation was commissioned in June 2007, which enabled a plan whereby “top LRA
representatives would be prosecuted by a special chamber of Uganda’s High Court and
139 Akhavan, “The Lord’s Resistance Army Case,” 404.
140 Ibid.
141 Patrick Wegner, “Ambigious Impacts: The effects of the international criminal court
investigations in Northern Uganda,” Working Paper No. 22 (Refugee Law Project, 2012),
2014).
142 Esuruku, “The Peace,Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda,” 153.
143 Ibid.

33
lower-level suspects would face traditional justice.”144 This was, firstly, in line with the
amendment to the Amnesty Act as noted earlier and, secondly, a sign that the Ugandan
judiciary were willing and able to take over LRA prosecutions from the ICC.145 However,
Moreno-Ocampo repeatedly refused to withdraw the indictments, despite the initial
promise of the peace talks and the recognition that Uganda was not in fact a failed state
that would be unable to meter out their own forms of justice. This attitude from Moreno-
Ocampo can be attributed to the agenda of the Court indicated earlier – they were intent
on making their mark as a mechanism of global justice by embracing prosecutions as a
key to lasting peace.146 This was particularly problematic given that “Kony would not
sign the final agreement until the warrants were dropped, a position that LRA leaders
had previously made clear.”147
As such, when Kony, rather predictably, failed to sign the final peace agreement by April
2008, the consequences of the Ugandan government’s pursuit of dual policies became
clear. Having allowed the ICC to intervene while trying to implement an amended
Amnesty Act in amongst aimless military offences, the Juba peace talks, in which real
solutions were initially reached, crumbled.
There were several reactions to the failed Juba peace talks. Firstly, the LRA used the time
taken by the peace talks to regroup and strengthen, such that they were a much harder
force to combat and disarm in 2008 than a few years previously.148Furthermore, despite
the negative role of the ICC in the breakdown of the talks, Moreno-Ocampo intensified his
campaign for the arrests of the LRA’s indicted commanders, despite the continual
problem that the Court “lacks any reliable way of apprehending the indicted men.” 149
Instead, the ICC can only rely on the Ugandan government to produce them so that they
can be prosecuted.
The Ugandan government’s reaction to the failed Juba peace talks reflected a switch back
once more towards an aggressive approach to conflict resolution. Firstly, in July 2008,
the International Crimes Division (ICD) was established as a way of “fulfilling the
Government of Uganda’s commitment to the actualisation of Juba Agreement on
144 Peskin, “Caution and Confrontation.” 686.
145 Ibid.
146 Ibid., 684-685.
147 Ibid., 686.
148 Ibid., 688.
149 Hine, “Dueling Ideals,” 136.”

34
Accountability and Reconciliation.”150 As per the agreement, its mandate read that the
ICD intended to locally prosecute perpetrators of gross human rights violations such as
those committed by the leadership of the LRA.151 Additionally, in December 2008, the
government of Uganda colluded with the armies of the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) and South Sudan to launch an attack on the LRA in northeastern DRC. However,
much like Operation Iron Fist I and II, the military offensive was botched and the LRA led
a ruthless retaliation on Congolese civilians in the area.152 In fact, this relocation of the
conflict reflected a new strategy for the LRA, which publicised the decreasing presence of
a political or even spiritual agenda for fighting; having signed the ceasefire regarding
Northern Uganda, the rebel group moved their focus to South Sudan, the DRC and the
Central African Republic (CAR), resorting to plainly criminal activities.
The detrimental accumulation of these varying policies, crossing both peaceful and
aggressive approaches to conflict resolution, can be ably represented by reference to the
case of Thomas Kwoyelo. Kwoyelo was in fact the only person to be seen before the ICD,
having been arrested in the military offensive of December 2008. Kwoyelo had risen up
the ranks of the LRA after being abducted as a child to become one of the highest-ranking
officials (though not one of the ICC’s five indictee’s) in the rebel organisation. However,
before the ICD could hand down a conviction, the Ugandan Constitutional Court
intervened, ruling that Kwoyelo was entitled to amnesty.153 Once, again, the Minister of
Internal Affairs did not utilise his right to recommend that Kwoyelo be excluded from
amnesty, providing further evidence to the argument that the 2006 amendment served
only give the impression that Amnesty Act was compliant with international human
rights law. In short, the government of Uganda found that, despite employing
individually effective policies, such as the 2006 amendment or the 2008 establishment of
the IDC, other policy decisions contradicted the positive results that these individually
effective policies enabled. Thus, it is surmised that the pursuit of dual policies raises a
paradox that disabled the attempts at effectiveconflictresolution.
150 “International Crimes Division,” The Judiciary: The Republic of Uganda, accessed September
19, 2014, http://www.judicature.go.ug/data/smenu/18/International_Crimes_Division.html.
151 Ibid.
152 Peskin, “Caution and Confrontation,” 688.
153 Yarbrough, “Amnesty or Accountability,” 566-567.

35
LocalInfluenceson RecentMeasures
As indicated above, the remnants of the conflict between Uganda and the LRA have
moved from Northern Uganda to neighbouring countries, namely South Sudan, the DRC
and the CAR. This renewed conflict, arguably starting from the botched offensive of
December 2008, have been characterised with “tragic and well-publicised humanitarian
results.”154 This shift in the physical battleground, so to say, of the conflict motivated yet
another controversialpolicy from the Government of Uganda.
“On 23rd of May 2012, the Minister of Internal Affairs declared the
lapse of the amnesty in Uganda. The decision was apparently
taken without any reference to Uganda’s Parliament, [and]
appears to be based on three main assumptions: that the wars the
amnesty was addressing are now over; that the lapse of the
amnesty will not have negative consequences; and, that the
Amnesty Act violates Ugandan and other laws.”155
In response, 22 organisations, including ARLPI, the Amnesty Commission (AC), Invisible
Children and the Refugee Law Project (RLP), gathered in June 2012 to deliberate on the
decision to remove Part II of the Amnesty Act, which referred to the actual process of
granting amnesty. Thereafter, these groups released a ‘Communiqué’ that stated the
urgent necessity with whichPart II of the Amnesty Act needed to be reinstated.156
The Communiqué stated that, firstly, Uganda has a moral obligation to the many innocent
children that still remain under the control of the LRA against their will through
abduction; secondly, Uganda has a further moral obligation to the other countries,
namely South Sudan, the DRC and the CAR, who now suffer the remnants of Uganda’s
conflict.In this way, the Communiqué argued that the war was not over.157
Furthermore, the Communiqué reasoned that the lapse of the Amnesty Act discouraged
those that might wish to defect from the LRA, particularly those abducted children to
154 “Reinstate the Full Amnesty Law: Note Accompanying Fairway Communiqué,” Conciliation
Resources, accessed August 30, 2014, http://www.c-
r.org/sites/default/files/Reinstate%20the%20Full%20Amnesty%20Law.pdf.
155 Ibid.
156 “Fairway Communiqué,” Conciliation Resources, accessed August 30, 2014, http://www.c-
r.org/sites/default/files/Reinstate%20the%20Full%20Amnesty%20Law.pdf.
157 Ibid.

36
which Uganda has a moral obligation.158 This lessens the prospects of peace for the
neighbouring countries that continue to be affectedby the rebel organisation.
Finally, it was interesting to note that the Minister of Internal Affairs initiated the lapse,
and that one of the justifications was that the Amnesty Act was not compliant with both
Ugandan and global law. However, that criticism of the Act was addressed in 2006 when
the Minister himself was given the power to exclude certain individuals. This
amendment removed the Amnesty Act from the bracket of a blanket amnesty,159 as it was
designed such that the Act would comply with the law; in fact, it is slightly ironic that the
very person whose role allows him to ensure that a blanket amnesty is avoided can then
outlaw the Act on the basis that it is a blanket amnesty which is in turn unconstitutional.
The fact that the amendment has not yet been utilised is an implementation failing and
not a failing of the Act itself. In that respect, the Communiqué recognises that “the Act
thus remains grossly underused,”160 and one of its recommendations are that further
dialogue is needed between government, parliament and all stakeholders so as to
improve the implementation of the entire Act and fulfil the goals of peace and genuine
reconciliation.161
The Communiqué succeeded in its attempts to get the Amnesty Act reinstated: “In the
spring of 2013, northern religious leaders responsible for the Act once again prevailed
upon the Ugandan Parliament to reinstate the lapsed portion of the Act and to empower
the Commission to grant amnesty.”162 It is important to note the continual influence of
local actors in this process, such as the ARLPI, which reflects the continual influence of
traditional approaches to peace, justice and reconciliation.
However, the same problems in the Act still exist. It does not differentiate between levels
of combatants such that high or low level combatants need only report to an appropriate
military, community or religious leader to renounce and abandon insurgency
involvement to be eligible to benefit from amnesty.163 The implications of this are that
even Joseph Kony, as well as other high-level actors such as Kwoyelo, would be entitled
to amnesty as it stands today.164
158 Ibid.
159 “Reinstate the Full Amnesty Law.”
160 Ibid.
161 Fairway Communiqué.”
162 Yarbrough, “Amnesty or Accountability,” 544.
163 Ibid., 540.
164 Ibid., 563.

37
In short, there are still some serious problems regarding the implementation of the
Amnesty Act as a mechanism to end conflict in Uganda. However, in design, the
Communiqué argued that it needed to remain available as a successful example of
African approaches to conflict resolution, not least due to the fact that, since its
enactment in 2000, “over 26000 individuals from over 25 armed groups have abandoned
insurgency, and been reintegrated into society.”165
V. Lessons Learnt: Peace vs. Justice in the African context
This chapter will seek to deliberate the conclusions reached in the above chapters and
examine the existing literature in an effort to contemplate what lessons can be taken
from the case of Uganda when discussing the concepts of peace, justice, amnesty and an
African-specific transitional justice agenda in the wider scope of popular transitional
justice thought. As such, this chapter will be structured in the same manner as the second
chapter, so that the conceptual findings made in those sub-sections may frame the
overall conclusions that will be made in this paper. Within this context, an observation
must be made: Joseph Kony and the LRA are still at large in South Sudan, the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR). He is reportedly hiding
in an area called Kafia Kingi on the border of South Sudan and the CAR, while his troops
continue to commit atrocities in mainly the DRC and the CAR.166 In accordance with the
Communiqué, it was outlined that, so long as Kony and the LRA are active in Africa,
Uganda has a moral responsibility to address the remnants of their conflict; thus, their
war is not over.
ThePeace vs. Justice Debate
It was surmised in this corresponding sub-section in chapter two that, in attempting to
end war, it is important to find the right balance between peace and justice such that
they can be mutually reinforcing and they could hold the best hope for conflict
resolution. Furthermore, it was emphasised that peace must necessarily be secured first:
what might originate as negative peace, the absence of war, will enable mechanisms that
could achievea sense of positive peace.
165 “Reinstate the Full Amnesty Law.”
166 “Take Action Now: Kony in Kafia Kingi,” Invisible Children, accessed October 27, 2014,
http://invisiblechildren.com/blog/2014/10/27/take-action-kony-kafia-kingi/.

38
Positive peace incorporates some of the principles of restorative justice, differentiated
from retributive justice made popular by the ‘justice cascade’ in the so-called age of
accountability. The case of Uganda has raised question regarding the legitimacy and
effectiveness of this ‘justice cascade,’ particularly in the African context. Given the
prevalence with which the International Criminal Court (ICC) tries to implement these
principles of retributive justice in Africa, one can examine Uganda as the foundation for a
discussion on the role of the ICC in the peace vs. justice debate.
Firstly, it is recommended that the ICC should “avoid intervening into ongoing conflicts …
only when a conflict has ended will those subject to violence have the capacity to
deliberate, organise, and act toward realising and effecting their vision of justice and
defining the place of the ICC within it.”167
Secondly, it is clear that the ICC must remove their own agendas, which serves only to
politicise the cases in which they intervene. This is first apparent in the biases shown in
their investigations, in that they did not look into the US-allied Ugandan government’s
atrocities: in order to become an effective and legitimate global justice mechanism, the
Court must remove such biases.168 Moreover, their unwavering refusal to withdraw the
indictments against the five LRA combatants indicated the perseverance with which they
wished to legitimise their conception of justice. This conception of justice, however, was
hugely problematic in the case of Uganda: their insistence on retributive justice through
prosecutions, led by Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, does not recognise the
reality that “’justice’ cannot be reduced to only one form, namely criminal or punitive
justice”;169 furthermore, this approach was not actually in the Court’s mandate, as the
Rome Statute does not require prosecutions where it is proven that they would not serve
the best interests of justice.170 As concluded in an earlier chapter, the ICC’s indictments
and attempted prosecutions certainly did not serve the best interests of justice in
Uganda, but rather complicated the peace process.
Thus, with the failures of the ICC in Uganda still fresh in the memory, it is useful to allude
to Linda Keller’s criteria for circumstances in which the ICC can legally and justifiably
167 Branch, “Uganda’s Civil War,” 195.
168 Chetlani, “Uganda: A Nation in Crisis,” 297.
169 Issaka K. Souaré, “The International Criminal Court and African Conflicts: The case of Uganda,”
Review of African Political Economy 121 (2009): 371.
170 MacMillan, “The Practicality of Amnesty,” 230.

39
defer to alternative methods of justice, such as local mechanisms, so that they do not
implicate themselves as obstacles to peace and justice.171 Based on interpretations of the
Rome Statute, Keller outlines four major possibilities whereby the ICC can defer as such:
1. Security Council deferral (Article 16 of the Rome Statute172), which requires the
ICC to suspend a prosecution as a threat to international peace (which is
“desirable in a great number of cases”173).
2. Inadmissibility (Article 17174), which interprets the principle of complementarity
such that the existence of negotiated local or alternative justice methods render
the case inadmissible (where the state in question is willing and able carry out
prosecutions themselves).
3. ne bis in idem (Article 20175), which treats the local or alternative justice
mechanism as the primary court of prosecution such that the ICC cannot
prosecute individuals again for the same crime.
4. Prosecutorial discretion (Article 53176), which allows the Chief Prosecutor to
decline to prosecute in the best interests of justice (not utilised by Moreno
Ocampo in the case of Uganda given his personal and organisational agenda of
prosecutions).177
Thus, the lessons learnt from the case of Uganda regarding the peace vs. justice debate
reflect the common themes that characterise much of Africa: peace is the priority, and
any justice that is pursued must seek to repair all rights, from civil and political rights to
economic, social and cultural rights, informed by local mechanisms.178 This paper has
also asserted that the ICC must firstly decline from intervening in ongoing conflicts, and
secondly must remove their own political agendas from their decision-making process so
as to better balance the peace vs. justice debate on a global scale. As observed in the case
of Uganda, once it was recognised that their intervention contravenes the interests of
both peace and justice, Luis Moreno Ocampo could have interpreted the Rome Statute a
171Linda M. Keller, “The False Dichotomy of Peace versus Justice and the International Criminal
Court,” Hague Justice Journal 3 (2008): 17.
172 “Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
173 Alexander K.A. Greenawalt, “Complementarity in Crisis: Uganda, Alternative Justice, and the
International Criminal Court,” Virginia Journal of International Law 50 (2009): 161.
174 “Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
175 Ibid.
176 Ibid.
177 Keller, “The False Dichotomy of Peace versus Justice,” 17.
178 Souaré, “The International Criminal Court and African Conflicts,” 382.

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