3 results
9 - No Return Home: The (Non-)Reintegration of Youth Ex-Combatants in Sierra Leone as a Challenge to the Contextualisation of DDR and Transitional Justice
- Edited by Ilse Derluyn, Cindy Mels, Stephan Parmentier, Wouter Vandenhole
-
- Book:
- Re-Member
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 20 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 21 February 2012, pp 215-242
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
RESEARCH QUESTION AND METHODOLOGY
In 2003, while working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (hereafter the TRC or the Commission), I once had an interview with a former child soldier, together with one of the Commission's psychosocial councillors. A 24-year-old adult at the time we met, the boy had been abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) around the age of twelve or thirteen and stayed with them for about ten years. Through his bravery and “good” behaviour he rapidly climbed up to the level of “captain” and later “colonel”, which included him being allowed the use of a truck (meaning he did not have to walk) and the command of a “Small Boys Unit” (SBU). During the interview, he explained why and how he was feared by the others, how he had all the food and money he wanted, how he could order his boys to pass him any looted item he preferred, the crimes and abuses they committed when attacking villages, how he was given the oversight of some mining activity, what sophisticated materials they had at their disposal during combat, how he escaped when captured by another armed group, etc. The whole interview sounded like someone describing the role he played in a “Rambo” film. He seemed very proud of his acts and the status he acquired. His main problem was with his current status in the community where he had decided to settle down after demobilisation (instead of returning home). He seemed to feel somehow relieved about the fact that people were not aware of his acts during the war (though they knew he had been a child combatant) and he had even become an appreciated solo singer in the church choir. On the other hand, he may have had some feelings of guilt, since he wanted to come out and apologise publicly for what he had done. But his (former combatant) friends discouraged him from doing so. Coming out and laying down his old status would lose him old friends. In addition, he would run the risk of being rejected by his new community and losing his new status as well.This prevented him from showing up for the TRC's reconciliation hearing.
14 - ‘Blow Your Mind and Cool Your Heart’: Can Tradition-Based Justice Fill the Transitional Justice Gap in Sierra Leone?
- Edited by Nicola Palmer, Phil Clark, Danielle Granville
-
- Book:
- Critical Perspectives in Transitional Justice
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 22 December 2020
- Print publication:
- 10 February 2012, pp 263-288
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Sierra Leone was one of the first post-conflict countries to simultaneously employ amnesty, prosecutions, truth-finding and reconciliation initiatives, and more recently reparations, in the framework of transitional justice. The question is whether there remains a transitional justice gap in Sierra Leone and, if so, whether there is a need to fill it and how tradition-based justice can contribute. Traditional culture still plays an important, though contested, role in rural Sierra Leone, as acknowledged in the mandate and the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This chapter assesses the role of traditionbased justice in ongoing justice and reconciliation initiatives and the challenges to its use.
The chapter situates itself in the ongoing debate on the localisation of transitional justice: moving away from one-size-fits-all solutions and externally imposed models, the current transitional justice landscape presents a variety of mechanisms and tools, which are supposed to complement each other. Along this spectrum, local mechanisms to deal with past crimes have come to the fore in recent years. These may include traditional conflict resolution mechanisms, i.e. ‘non-state justice systems which have existed, although not without change, since pre-colonial times and are generally found in rural areas’. Other mechanisms have shifted further away from traditional practices but are inspired by underlying traditional values, in which case I prefer to call them tradition-based. Both traditional and tradition-based mechanisms are part of the broader group of local justice mechanisms, ranging from informal to formalised, some of which can even be entirely new or modern. In this definition, I suggest, ‘local’ does not necessarily refer to their applicability in a limited geographic area, but rather to the origins of the mechanisms, stemming from a bottom-up approach as opposed to external imposition.
This chapter first assesses whether key goals of transitional justice – accountability, truth-finding, reparations and reconciliation – have been met by the mechanisms enacted in Sierra Leone. To ascertain whether there is a transitional justice gap, the outcomes of the transitional justice mechanisms are compared to the findings of research, including my own, concerning perceptions on the ground of dealing with the past. In this regard the popular saying ‘we forgive and forget’ will be analysed and compared to what is needed to obtain ‘a cool heart’. Examples are given of ongoing initiatives to assess whether traditionbased justice mechanisms can fill the gap.
XIV - Justice at the Doorstep: Victims of International Crimes in Formal Versus Tradition-Based Justice Mechanisms in Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Uganda
- Edited by Rianne Letschert, Roelof Haveman, Anne-Marie de Brouwer, Antony Pemberton
-
- Book:
- Victimological Approaches to International Crimes: Africa
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 24 November 2022
- Print publication:
- 07 November 2011, pp 353-384
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Uganda are only three out of so many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that suff ered from violent conflict during the past two decades. What is particular to all three countries is that many or even most crimes during the conflict targeted civilians. In addition, civilians Often joined the armed forces in committing these crimes, After forceful or voluntary conscription or as a result of hate campaigns. This means that victims and perpetrators, even if they did not know each other directly, were Often from the same village or region and have to live together After the conflict ends. This chapter focuses on coexistence between victims and perpetrators and therefore on the micro-level of dealing with the consequences of armed conflict, even though this level is closely inter-related with the intergroup- and national level. The micro-level does not only include the individual relation between victim and perpetrator, but also the community to which they belong.
The assumption explored in this chapter is that in post-conflict situations where victims and perpetrators live together, especially in areas where tradition is Often still part of daily life, tradition-based justice pays more consideration to the victims’ rights and needs, compared to formal justice. This chapter assesses the actual consideration of victims’ needs in the three countries by both formal and tradition-based mechanisms. Interestingly, each of the three countries has developed a different relationship between formal and tradition-based justice mechanisms in the framework of transitional justice, allowing comparison between the ways victims’ rights and needs have been addressed in those varying mechanisms.
The chapter is based on three types of information: (1) existing academic research and grey literature; (2) 209 semi-structured interviews I conducted in Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Uganda in April, July and August 2009 and in July 2010, with international donors and organisations, as well as state actors, civil society organisations, traditional authorities, academics and participants in tradition-based justice activities; (3) my previous professional experience in Rwanda with genocide trials at the level of national courts in the years 1998 to 2000 and as a consultant for various organisations in the following years, and in Sierra Leone with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2003.