Spirits and social reconstruction after mass violence: Rethinking transitional justice

African Affairs

Volumn 109, Issue 436, 2010, Pages 409-430

  Baines, Erin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT; CRITICAL ANALYSIS; INTEGRATED APPROACH; SOCIAL JUSTICE; VIOLENCE;

ARTICLE; CULTURAL FACTOR; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNIC GROUP; ETHNOLOGY; HISTORY; HOMICIDE; HUMAN; HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; JURISPRUDENCE; LEGAL ASPECT; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SOCIAL PROBLEM; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY; UGANDA; VIOLENCE;

CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS; ETHNIC GROUPS; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 21ST CENTURY; HOMICIDE; HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES; HUMANS; INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES; JURISPRUDENCE; PREJUDICE; RACE RELATIONS; SOCIAL PROBLEMS; SOCIAL VALUES; UGANDA; VIOLENCE;

UGANDA;

EID: 77954431688     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adq023     Document Type: Article

References (91)

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2. International Crisis Group (ICG), 'Northern Uganda: understanding and solving the conflict' (Africa Report No. 77, 14 April 2004); Frank van Acker, 'Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army: the new order no one ordered', African Affairs 103, 412 (2004), pp. 335-57.
3. Frank van Acker, 'Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army: the new order no one ordered', African Affairs 103, 412 (2004), pp. 335-57.
4. The LRA abducted 30,000-60,000 children and youths. An unknown number have been recruited into local defence units and the Ugandan military. Berkeley-Tulane Initiative on Vulnerable Populations, 'Abducted: the LRA and forced conscription in northern Uganda' (Berkeley University, 2007), p. 3.
5. Ugandan Ministry of Health, 'Health and mortality survey among internally displaced persons in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts in northern Uganda' (Ministry of Health, Kampala, 2005), p. 35.
6. see also Civil Society Organizations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU), 'Counting the cost: 20 years of war in northern Uganda' (CSOPNU, Kampala, 2006). This report estimated that the rate of death from the war in northern Uganda was three times higher than in Iraq following the Allied invasion.
7. Chris Dolan, Social Torture: The case of northern Uganda, 1986-2006 (Berghahn Books, New York, NY and Oxford, 2009).
8. The relative peace in the north is the result of a two-year peace process, a renewed military campaign against the LRA in neighbouring countries following the collapse of the peace process in 2008, and the weakening of the LRA - all of which have diminished the likelihood of its return to the north.
9. Andrew Mawson, 'Children, impunity and justice: some dilemmas from northern Uganda. Children and youth on the frontline: ethnography, armed conflict and displacement' in Jo Boydon and Jay de Berry (eds), Children and Youth on the Frontline (Berghahn Books, New York, NY and Oxford, 2005), pp. 130-44.
10. The Agreement and its Annexure can be found on (11 April 2010).
11. Justice, Law and Order Sector, 'Transitional justice in northern Uganda, eastern Uganda and some parts of West Nile Region' (JLOS, Kampala, 2007), (26 October 2009)
12. Luis Moreno Ocampo, 'Key note address: integrating the work of the ICC into local justice initiatives', American University International Law Review 21, 4 (2007), pp. 497-503.
13. Veena Das et. al. (eds), Remaking a World: Violence, social suffering, and recovery (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2001).
14. Caroline Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1997)
15. Rosalind Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the historical imagination in Sierra Leone (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2002).
16. Erica Bouris, Complex Political Victims (Kumarian Press, Sterling, VA, 2008)
17. Tristan Anne Borer, 'A taxonomy of victims and perpetrators: human rights and reconciliation in South Africa', Human Rights Quarterly 25, 4 (2003) pp. 1088-1116
18. Erin Baines, 'Complex political perpetrators: reflections on Dominic Ongwen', Journal of Modern African Studies 47, 2 (2009), pp. 163-91.
19. Kimberly Theidon, 'Justice in transition: the micro-politics of reconciliation in postwar Peru', Journal of Conflict Resolution 50, 3 (2006), pp. 433-57.
20. Rwanda's gacaca process was designed to deal with the overwhelming caseloads of community low-level perpetrators; however this still established some degree of complicity and did not provide a forum for the resolution of all grievances in the war.
21. Tim Kelsall, 'Truth, lies, ritual: preliminary reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone', Human Rights Quarterly 27, 2 (2005), pp. 361-91.
22. Rosalind Shaw, 'Memory frictions: localizing truth and reconciliation in Sierra Leone', International Journal of Transitional Justice 1, 2 (2007), pp. 183-207.
23. Between 2004 and 2009, I was the research director of the Justice and Reconciliation Project, a collaborative research effort between myself and the Gulu District NGO Forum. We hired and trained 12 Acholi researchers, some of whom were located in refugee camps. We recruited local leaders in displaced persons camps to document any conflicts and mechanisms for dispute resolution.
24. Laura Arriaza and Naomi Roht-Arriaza, 'Social reconstruction as a local process', International Journal for Transitional Justice 2, 2 (2008), pp. 152-72.
25. Oskar N. T. Thoms, James Ron, and Roland Paris, 'The effects of transitional justice mechanisms' (CIPS Working Paper, April 2008).
26. Laurel Fletcher and Eric Stover, 'Violence and social repair: rethinking the contribution of justice to reconciliation', Human Rights Quarterly 24, 3 (2002), pp. 573-639
27. Eric Stover and Harvey Weinstein, My Neighbour, My Enemy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004).
28. Ellen Emilie Stensrud, 'New dilemmas in transitional justice: lessons from the mixed courts in Sierra Leone and Cambodia', Journal of Peace Research 46, 1 (2009), pp. 5-15
29. Alexander Betts, 'Should approaches to post-conflict justice and reconciliation be determined globally, nationally or locally?', European Journal of Development Research 17, 4 (2005), pp. 745-52
30. Paul Gready, 'Analysis: reconceptualising transitional justice: embedded and distanced justice', Conflict, Security and Development 5, 1 (2005) pp. 3-21.
31. Richard A. Wilson, 'Reconciliation and revenge in post-apartheid South Africa', Current Anthropology 41, 1 (2000), pp. 75-98.
32. Shaw, 'Memory frictions'.
33. Luc Huyse and Mark Salter (eds), Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from African experiences (IDEA, Stockholm, 2008).
34. Rosalind Shaw, Lars Waldorf, and Pierre Hazan (eds), Localizing Transitional Justice: Justice interventions and local priorities after mass violence (Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, forthcoming).
35. Patrick Burgess, 'A new approach to restorative justice - East Timor's community reconciliation processes' (pp. 176-205)
36. Timothy Longman, 'Justice at the grassroots? Gacaca trials in Rwanda' (pp. 206-28) in Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Javier Mariezcurrena (eds), Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century: Beyond truth and justice (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006).
37. Lars Waldorf, 'Mass justice for mass atrocity: rethinking local justice as transitional justice', Temple Law Review 79, 1 (2006), pp. 1-88.
38. Luc Huyse, 'Introduction', in Huyse and Salter, Traditional Justice, p. 5.
39. Rosalind Shaw, 'One size does not fit all - but how to choose? Re-visiting common myths and assumptions' (paper presented at the International Journal for Transitional Justice Board Conference, 'Challenging the Assumptions in Transitional Justice: the Role of IJTJ', Cape Town, South Africa, 28-30 May 2008).
40. Kieran McEnvoy, 'Beyond legalism: towards a thicker understanding of transitional justice', Journal of Law and Society 34, 4 (2007), pp. 411-40.
41. Sally Falk Moore, Law as Process: An anthropological approach (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and Boston, MA, 1978).
42. Wilson, 'Reconciliation and revenge'.
43. United Nations Security Council, 'The rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict: report of the Secretary-General' (S/2004/616, 2004). It recognizes that 'we must learn better how to respect and support local ownership, local leadership and a local constituency for reform, while at the same time remaining faithful to United Nations norms and standards'.
44. Shaw, 'One size does not fit all', p. 1.
45. Adam Branch, 'Global justice, local injustice', Dissent 51, 3 (2004), pp. 22-6
46. Adam Branch, 'Uganda's civil war and the politics of ICC intervention', Ethics and International Affairs 21, 2 (2007)
47. Katherine Southwick, 'Investigating war in northern Uganda: dilemmas for the International Criminal Court', Yale Journal of International Affairs (Summer/Fall, 2005), pp.113-14.
48. See Kasaija Phillip Apuuli, 'The ICC arrest warrants for the Lord's Resistance Army leaders and peace prospects for northern Uganda', Journal of International Criminal Justice 4, 1 (2006), pp. 179-87
49. Lucy Hovil and Joanna Quinn, 'Peace first, justice later: traditional justice in Acholi' (Working Paper, Refugee Law Project, 2005)
50. Marieke Wierda and Michael Otim, 'Justice at Juba: international obligations and local demands in northern Uganda' in Nicholas Waddell and Phil Clark (eds), Courting Conflict? Justice, peace and the ICC in Africa (Royal African Society, London, 2008), pp. 21-8.
51. Erin Baines, 'The haunting of Alice: local approaches to justice in northern Uganda', International Journal of Transitional Justice 1, 1 (2007), pp. 91-114
52. Thomas Harlacher and Caritas Gulu Archdiocese, Traditional Ways of Coping in Acholi (CARITAS, Kampala, 2006)
53. Joanna Quinn, 'Social reconstruction in Uganda: the role of customary mechanisms in transitional justice', Human Rights Review 8, 4 (2007), pp. 389-407
54. Refugee Law Project, 'Tradition in transition: drawing on the old to develop a new jurisprudence for dealing with Uganda's legacy of violence' (Working Paper 1, Refugee Law Project, Kampala, 2009).
55. An exception is a series of unpublished background reports by CARITAS on local coping mechanisms, some of which were practised among once abducted youth (on file with CARITAS-Gulu).
56. Quinn, 'Social reconstruction in Uganda', p. 401.
57. Tim Allen, 'The International Criminal Court and the invention of traditional justice in northern Uganda', Politique Africaine 107 (2007), pp. 147-66
58. James Latigo, 'Northern Uganda: tradition-based practices in the Acholi region' in Huyse and Salter (eds), Traditional Justice and Reconciliation, pp. 83-120.
59. Sverker Finnström, Living with Bad Surroundings: War, history, and everyday moments in northern Uganda (Duke University Press, Durham, NC and London, 2008).
60. Harlacher and Caritas, Traditional Ways, p. 42.
61. See also Okot p'Bitek, Religion of the Central Luo (East African Literature Bureau, Nairobi, 1971)
62. Heike Behrend, Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits: War in northern Uganda, 1986-97 (James Currey, Oxford, 1999)
63. Tim Allen, 'Understanding Alice: Uganda's Holy Spirit Movement in context', Africa 61, 3 (1991) pp. 370-99.
64. See Letha Victor, 'Abomination' (Justice and Reconciliation Project, Field Note 4, 2006).
65. Harlacher and Caritas, Traditional Ways, p. 48.
66. Behrend, Alice Lakwena, p. 107.
67. Harlacher and Caritas, Traditional Ways, p. 49.
68. Behrend, Alice Lakwena, p. 116.
69. Dolan, Social Torture, p. 92.
70. My own research with former LRA captives and fighters confirmed the desire of Kony to create a new Acholi.
71. See Behrend, Alice Lakwena, Chapter 7
72. p'Bitek, Religion of the Central Luo.
73. See also Baines, 'The haunting of Alice'.
74. Amnesty International (AI), 'Human rights violations by the National Resistance Army' (AI, New York, NY, 1999)
75. Chris Dolan, 'What do you remember? A rough guide to war in northern Uganda' (COPE Working Paper 33, ACORD, 2000), p. 8.
76. See also Sasanka Perera, 'Spirit possessions and avenging ghosts: stories of supernatural activity as narratives of terror and mechanisms for coping and remembering' in Das et al. (eds), Remaking the World, p. 193.
77. From a community dialogue with 23 displaced persons by the Justice and Reconciliation Project, Kitgum-Matidi, 13 August 2009. Out of 22 interventions made during the dialogue, 8 discussed cen as a great problem facing them in the return process.
78. Victor Igreja, 'Gamba spirits and the homines aperti: socio-cultural approaches to deal with the legacies of civil war in Gorongosa, Mozambique' (paper presented at the international conference on 'Building a Future on Peace and Justice', Nuremburg, 25-27 June 2007), p. 3.
79. For a similar observation in Mozambique see V. Igreja, B. Dias-Lambranca, and A. Richters, 'Gamba spirits, gender relations, and healing in post-civil war Gorongosa, Mozambique', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, 2 (2008), pp. 353-71
80. Victor Igreja, 'Why are there so many drums playing until dawn? Exploring the role of Gamba spirits and healers in the post-war recovery period in Gorongosa, Central Mozambique', Transcultural Psychiatry 40, 4 (2003), pp. 460-87.
81. Alcinda Honwana, Child Soldiers in Africa (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2007), p. 105.
82. From a community dialogue with 23 displaced persons, Justice and Reconciliation Project, Kitgum-Matidi, 13 August 2009.
83. Interview, Respondent 'A', 45-year-old female and mother of six, caring for eight orphans, Barlonyo, 2 June 2008. Interview conducted by research assistant in English, with translation by native Luo speaker.
84. Interview, 'Florence', mother of abducted son, Padibe, conducted by research assistant in English, with translation by native Luo speaker.
85. Interview, 'Joska', formerly abducted woman, conducted by research assistant in Luo, with translation into English (Anaka, July 2006).
86. Observation notes of cleansing ceremony, research assistant (Anaka, February 2007).
87. Or elsewhere, if we consider that religion is an expression of belief in an invisible world.
88. See Heike Behrend and Ute Luig (eds), Spirit Possession, Power and Modernity in Africa (James Currey, Oxford, 1999).
89. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious thought and political practice in Africa (University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA, 2004).
90. Laurel Stovel, '"There's no bad bush to throw away a bad child": tradition-inspired reintegration in post-war Sierra Leone', Journal of Modern African Affairs 46, 2 (2008), p. 308.
91. Liu Institute for Global Issues, Gulu District NGO Forum and Ker Kwaro Acoli, Roco Wat I Acoli: Transforming Relationships (Gulu, Uganda, 2005).