I have been pondering this article from The Guardian for the last week and I am no closer to resolving exactly what I think about the issues that it raises. However, I thought that it was worth discussing regardless.
Essentially, the Ugandan government has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to drop its charges against Joseph Kony – the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army – so that they can proceed with a peace deal that may see the end of the civil war in Uganda.
The ICC believe that dropping the charges at this point would be fatally damaging to the credibility of the Court and would be a blow for International Justice. The Ugandan government (and many community members) believe that they should not be made to suffer an ongoing war just so that the ICC can have its historic first case and feel good about itself. I think that they both have a point.
On the one hand, dropping the charges against Joseph Kony would seem to encourage an international culture of impunity; one where people can get away with anything they like so long as they are powerful and violent enough to broker a good settlement at the end of the day. It sends the message that mass murder, mutilation and abducting children in order to force them to become child soldiers and sex slaves is OK – so long as you hold enough power to force the government to grant you amnesty in exchange for a peace deal. What will this mean for future conflict? Will it give confidence to future Joseph Konys that they will never have to deal with the consequences of their actions? Will it mean that they hold out longer and cause more suffering in order to ensure that they too are granted amnesty when it all gets too hard?
On the other hand, why should the people of Uganda continue to suffer for some nebulous idea of justice or even to serve as a warning for future conflicts in other countries? How do they benefit from a standing warrant when they are being terrorised daily and are forced to watch as their children are taken away to face hell on earth?
There is also the question of consequences – how do we know that charging Kony will have any kind of deterrent effect on future tyrants? I doubt any of them start with the idea that they are actually going to lose. It is just ‘Western’ arrogance to assume that we can solve these issues through the courts rather than allowing them to be solved internally over the negotiating table?
I just don’t know. Both dropping the charges and refusing to do so seem completely wrong – how dare the real world be so messy.
Crossposted at two peas, no pod.
A very neatly articulated expression of the eternal dilemma, Cristy. Good post.
wouldn’t the fact that the Uganda government is using the possible ICC charges as a bargaining chip mean that the complete opposite of the ‘international culture of impunity’ argument? that is, because the charges have real weight they can use them in negotiations for a peace treaty. or are we talking about some punitive power trip of the liberal global governement not being effected? surely peace is more important
I see lots of merit in Museveni’s position that a deal with the remnants of the LRA is preferable to making a political martyr out of Kony in a show trial. There is no need for the ICC to be precious about this; its really just a form of plea bargaining.
Most of the LRA’s recruits are across the border in Sudan beyond the reach of Uganda’s military. The two sides signed a truce in August 2006 and a final settlement is likely to be dependent on the fate of Kony. Its all well and good for Britain and the ICC to insist on a trial, but Uganda will have to live with the consequences. I think realpolitik will win out.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t at all surprise me to find out the US had made an aid condition to Uganda contingent on dropping the charges in order to discredit the ICC.
Some sense of the scale of the horror is here.
The problem is that dropping the charges may set a precedent, Glen. It’s the sort of thing that will work once, but may compromise the ICC for the future.
A real thorny one this – I don’t think I’m much help to you either, Cristy.
The very intention of the ICC, which has barely gotten off the ground, is to avoid any semblance of a ‘show trial’. For the pursuit of justice and a fair trial to be used as a mere bargaining chip, I can understand how the legitimacy of the Court is very much at stake here.
And although I take Glen’s point that this suggestion shows the process is being taken seriously, it was hardly the intention of those who worked for decades to establish the Court that charges brought against alleged war criminals (after a great amount of toil in each case) could be dropped as an incentive for a peace settlement.
Peace settlements come and go, and while I hope for the best for Uganda, surely a long-term peace depends on justice being served. If Kony is not prosecuted and this peace settlement holds, the potential for true post-conflict justice in Uganda will have been dealt a severe blow.
That said, while it is often repeated that there can be no peace without justice, in this case it seems that there can be no peace unless justice is forgone. What a quandary.
I’ve noted that the plead out deal has been pushed a lot by some of the African xtians. Xtianity is huge and growing exponentially in Africa btw.
I’m a pragmatist but I also believe in ‘ Good cop-bad cop’ game theory.
My bad cop for this dude is a new net based law enforcement model advocated by Jim Bell, Carl Johnson and myself.
One way or another – dead-or-alive – all these crazy religious statist murderers are coming with us.
Kony today – Bush tomorrow ( just my 2c)
Dunno about this. There seems to be no “real” complex issue here, as far as I can tell, because the whole thing seems to stand on an elephant standing on a tortoise, standing on… well…
from Cristy’s Kony link:
“On October 6, 2005 it was announced by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that arrest warrants had been issued for five members of the Lord’s Resistance Army for crimes against humanity following a sealed indictment. … A week later, on October 13, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo released details on Kony’s indictment. … On July 31, 2006 Kony met with several cultural, political, and religious leaders from northern Uganda at his hideout in the Congolese forests to discuss the war. The following day, August 1, he crossed the border into Sudan to speak with Southern Sudan Vice President Riek Machar. Kony later told reporters that he would not be willing to stand trial at the ICC…”
I repeat that Kony said “he would not be *willing* to stand trial”. Well! That’s certainly very unsporting of him! Ball’s in your court, cape-wearing Super-Friends of the ICC. Whatcha gonna do?
How very bold and visionary of the ICC to sit on its ass in Europe, sealing and unsealing indictments, while their prey crosses back and forth into Sudan at will, making statements about whether he ‘wants’ to be tried or not. If the ICC are worried about their precious “credibility” then they must do what real justice systems do: send their armed police force (??? Huh? what’s that? Where do we get one? Perhaps from our 104 signatory nations? Dare we ask them to pony up?) into the fray to separate the combatants, disarm the bad guys, and haul them back to their “court,” in cuffs if necessary, to face justice. If they can’t or won’t get their hands dirty fulfilling the necessary conditions of their claims to authority, credibility and/or jurisdiction, then they should be cordially invited to go back to the playroom.
Meantime the Ugandans themselves are personally suffering the brutal conditions of civil war. If they can do something to stem their suffering, then they ought to do what they deem best, and not worry overmuch about what a bunch of pompous Euroweenies, living in countries with war-crimes histories as long as yr arm, think. I can’t see how any decision here sets any precedent, or sends any credible message or warning to future bad guys, unless the ICC has a few pointy teeth in its jaws. But maybe there’s important details I’m missing, so fill me in if there are.
The compromise solution is clear: send all war criminals to be tried by me, in the personal Court of Self-Righteousness I have set up in my living room. It’s just me wearing a wig (as I often do) and feeling rather full of myself; there’s no constabulary, and no system in place to enforce my judgements. But like your average European, I just loooooove me some good judgement-making, and not having to sweat over the details.
JPZ – It was the Ugandan government who initially requested that the ICC issue the warrant and committed themselves to enforcing it. Don’t let your American anti-European prejudice blind you to the issues that are at stake here.
‘American anti-European prejudice’ …
The curious thing about that phrase is, you can switch ‘American’ and ‘European’ around and still have a perfectly accurate description!
j_p_z: “Super Friends”? “Euroweenies”? I see.
Cristy, I can see why you had to mull over this one for a while. I’ve been keeping up with this story via AlertNet, and it does indeed represent a tragic dilemma.
On the one hand, I think that the international community should support the ICC in all of its endeavours. Fledgling multilateral institutions which are attempting to create new forms of international justice must be strengthened wherever possible, not undermined or encouraged to back away.
That said, it is also a responsibility of the ICC and its supporters to recognise that all conflicts are different, and therefore all processes are by definition also different. In short, flexibility is required. Overall, the first priority should be the humanitarian imperative: if conflict and suffering persist, then action must be taken to end the conflict. Politics, perhaps, can wait another day.
However, I do recognise the importance of “justice” – through law – for the process of reconciliation and national healing. We cannot deny the victims the right to justice. Perhaps then, we should find a way to delay justice, to keep the ICC away from the peace process: after all, it is unlikely that a “coalition of the willing”, keen to defeat a tyrant who kills his own people, will step in to keep the peace while a trial proceeds.
Anyway, I don’t have an answer. I guess my gut feel is that human suffering should be the key driver of any efforts in Uganda. But I am hardly in a position to decide on the correct path. That should perhaps be the role of the Ugandan people themselves, with appropriate support from international actors.
On that note, here are a couple of interesting perspectives from Ugandans:
1. From a 58 year old woman. “More than anything we want our children back. They have suffered so much. This war has been so terrible that we do not want it to go on for another day. We can forgive those men for their crimes against us if it ends the war. They will face judgment another day.”
2. A Catholic priest: “There is also a moral dilemma about the rebels. People say they hate the rebels but then they say our sons are rebels because they were abducted. The real view is anything that stops the war. It’s been going on for 20 years. People have gone through social torture. They want an end to this nightmare.”
In the same article, j_p_z’s point about the ICC (that it’s a paper tiger, not that it’s full of “Euroweenies”) is echoed in the suggestion that Ugandans feel like the international community (which includes all of us, not just European states) has ignored their conflict for a long time, and only now wants to step in with western-style “justice”.
If anything, all of this serves as a reminder of how complex all conflict situations are. We should also be reminded that ideologically-driven one-liners about how such conflicts can be resolved should be ignored in favour of those that take all of the factors into consideration.
Thanks for the post. It is pleasing to see that these issues are being consdidered in forums like LP.
There is only a perplexing moral dilemma here, unless of course the US is intimately involved, then the moral choice becomes crystal clear to so many here.
Cristy, I can see why you had to mull over this one for a while. I’ve been keeping up with this story via AlertNet, and it does indeed represent a tragic dilemma.
On the one hand, I think that the international community should support the ICC in all of its endeavours. Fledgling multilateral institutions which are attempting to create new forms of international justice must be strengthened wherever possible, not undermined or encouraged to back away.
That said, it is also a responsibility of the ICC and its supporters to recognise that all conflicts are different, and therefore all processes are by definition also different. In short, flexibility is required. Overall, the first priority should be the humanitarian imperative: if conflict and suffering persist, then action must be taken to end the conflict. Politics, perhaps, can wait another day.
However, I do recognise the importance of “justice” – through law – for the process of reconciliation and national healing. We cannot deny the victims the right to justice. Perhaps then, we should find a way to delay justice, to keep the ICC away from the peace process: after all, it is unlikely that a “coalition of the willing”, keen to defeat a tyrant who kills his own people, will step in to keep the peace while a trial proceeds.
Anyway, I don’t have an answer. I guess my gut feel is that human suffering should be the key driver of any efforts in Uganda. But I am hardly in a position to decide on the correct path. That should perhaps be the role of the Ugandan people themselves, with appropriate support from international actors.
On that note, here are a couple of interesting perspectives from Ugandans:
1. From a 58 year old woman. “More than anything we want our children back. They have suffered so much. This war has been so terrible that we do not want it to go on for another day. We can forgive those men for their crimes against us if it ends the war. They will face judgment another day.”
2. A Catholic priest: “There is also a moral dilemma about the rebels. People say they hate the rebels but then they say our sons are rebels because they were abducted. The real view is anything that stops the war. It’s been going on for 20 years. People have gone through social torture. They want an end to this nightmare.”
In the same article, it is suggested that Ugandans feel like the international community has ignored their conflict for a long time, and only now wants to step in with western-style “justice”.
If anything, all of this serves as a reminder of how complex all conflict situations are. We should also be reminded that ideologically-driven one-liners about how such conflicts can be resolved should be ignored in favour of those that take all of the factors into consideration.
I had some trouble posting, so apologies if my lengthy comment appears twice. Or not at all.
That is quite true TimT. I think that we are all guilty of some version or other of this blindness…
They both went into Spam LVD – I am not sure why. I have retrieved them for you now though…
That quote was in the Guardian Weekly and I wanted to put it in the post, but didn’t find it online. Thanks for bringing it up LVD.
Cristy — thank you for the additional info; though I can’t quite see how it tips the scales any differently here.
As I see it, the main (maybe the only) issue here is for Ugandans to put a decisive end to their horror, in the way that they think works best for them, and which best prevents the fears of it reviving. Any attempt to ‘balance’ this morally urgent claim against the future ‘credibility’ of the Euroweenie ICC (whoops! there’s that word again! s-s-s-sorry!) should by rights be met with howls of derisive laughter, except that laughter in this case is hardly appropriate.
If the Ugandans themselves requested the ICC warrants, well, fine by me; if they think that adds a species of gravity to whatever forces they need to muster to meet their own urgent requirements, I have no problem. But that I believe is self-interest, not international principle (again, fine by me in this horrific case). If, on the other hand, the issue is the ostensible ‘credibility’ of this august body of Euro-worthies, consider the problem of one side in a conflict personally requesting a warrant against the other side, for its own reasons. What sort of credibility does that lend an ostensibly august, serene, and impartial court of international justice? Is this not a civil war, that is, with combatants making claims on both sides? What if Kony made a similar request against the Ugandan leadership? I have a hard time believing they are decked out in robes of purest lambs-wool, and may have something to answer for on their end. (Not supporting Kony here, just being deliberately difficult.)
As for my alleged prejudice against the Europeans, I’m not convinced it isn’t fully earned. I’d much rather see even common car thieves tried by a tribe of Tibetan Buddhists than by these pompous windbags, with their claim to — what, exactly? Except for Mr. Churchill, the last time any European leader I can readily think of had any strong claim to moral ‘credibility’ was, I believe, some time prior to 1914. And only 50 years down the road from the greatest organized genocide in history, which happened right on their home soil, they were again confronted with the moral urgency of a similar spectacle and a similar threat in Yugoslavia, again on the home playing field, thus risking setting a whole new precedent, and they did what? Waited for the US Air Force to sort the matter out for them.
“What are you reading, Hamlet?”
“Words, words, words.”
Leftvegdrunk – your condescension is duly noted. But as you can see, there’s a very long line; please step to the back of it.
“Anyway, I don’t have an answer.” Carry on.
A good post, Cristy.
This dilemma has parallels with that involved in attempting to bring about the democratic transformation of an authoritarian or totalitarian regime.
In many of the most notable examples of a successful democratic transformation (Spain, South Africa, Chile, many of the nations of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union), change has been achieved with at least some degree of compliance, and in some cases active encouragement, by the leaders of the former regime. The question which arises is whether such compliance would have been achieved if the leaders concerned believed there was a reasonable likelihood that they would be brought fully to account and fitly punished for all the crimes of their regime.
In the case of Chile, for instance, we may well ask whether Pinochet would have complied with the orderly restoration of Chilean democracy if he had either not been promised immunity or had known beforehand that this promise would be superseded by the actions of the Spanish authorities and subsequent developments within Chile. This has opened my mind to the conclusion (which does go against some of my instincts) that the attempts to prosecute Pinochet in the last years of his life, and the legal basis of these attempts, may not be helpful in inducing tyrannical governments in other places to mend their ways.
Yes, that was certainly the very strident opinion of my International Law Lecturer at the time (and he was a European no less!) and I can see the validity of it… I still feel uncomfortable with the ethics of such real politics and am not entirely convinced that we can so clearly predict the consequences of insisting that justice be done. There may be other dividends from a consistent insistence on justice that we just don’t know about.
That is far from conclusive though isn’t it?
When I say “at the time” I mean when the House of Lords first upheld his extradition to Spain. Sorry for being unclear.
Justice should serve Peace.
We have a justice system so that we have some security that if someone offends us or we offend them that we have an ordered way of addressing the issue rather than starting an ongoing fight that will cause more problems than the orginal offense.
The leaders of the LRA are a pack of murdering thugs and deserve to spend the rest of their life in jail but if that results in ongoing conflict that serves nobodies interests.
Sometimes the implementation of justice does help bring about peace.
Personally I think Mandela in South Africa in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission managed to get a great balance. In short lets be honest about history. Let history judge.
The NAZI trials to establish guilt and law could be peacefully done because the Allies had won and imposed peace (Thank God for that!). Real peace of mind was going to be achieved by running the trials.
I am with the moral quagmire with Cristy when it comes to applying principles to real life.
I dont think it is a “European” need for justice..I think we all want the bad guy punished but I expect not at the price of ongoing war.
D’oh. Stoopid spam thingy.
Graeme Dobell mentioned today a very wise saying: “The tragedy of the UN is that it became essential before it became effective.” The same, he said, applied to Oz foreign policy in the Pacific. As a student of peace and conflict, I think the same applies to peacebuilding.
j_p_z: What you see as condescension is actually a challenge. Why not leave the petty politicking behind for a bit and help work toward real outcomes? Yes, I admitted to not knowing the answers. It would do you some good to do the same from time to time.
leftvegdrunk — Yes, that’s a fair reply; and I reckon my tone was unnecessarily snide, so I do apologize.
Gongguru — well said. And a lot shorter, better observed, and less snarky than the way I put it. Your points about Mandela, and about Nuremberg justice only being made possible by Allied victory, illustrate the point nicely. Sorry to have harped too strongly on the “European” thing; the main issue with bodies like the ICC is not that they are “Euro” as such, but that they do things that can be perceived as arrogant: asking a war-riven nation to post-pone its potential hopes for peace, in the name of a watery ‘credibility’ that they themselves have not worked sufficiently to earn. That sort of stuff. The fact that such actions are often congruent with an identifiably “European” attitude in the world is merely grounds for a bit of acid comedy on the side, it’s not the real issue.
The problem seems to me to be that anyone who can be reasonably charged under internation auspices is surely subject to local law as well. Unless the ICC has some kind of plan for how to go in and get people where the local law enforcement is inadequate or preoccupied, what’s the point?
In the absence of such, there might still be a place for an international court, but it really is reduced to Nuremberg-esque retrospective trials rather than smoking gun arrests. This really negates any likely deterrent effect – a megalomaniac atrocity-monger can always keep thinking “as long as my side wins, I’ll be fine”. Still, the reduced role is a worthy one for the sake of closure and retribution.