THE WAR IN NORTHERN UGANDA

At the beginning of the last century, 80 to 90 percent of war casualties worldwide were military personnel and 10 to 20 percent were civilian and unarmed. By the end of the century, these figures were reversed. Today, in northern Uganda and elsewhere, armed conflicts and civil wars have blurred the distinction between “combatants” and “civilians”, and “civilian” itself is a diffuse and broad category of non-combatants who are living in the midst of conflict. Frontlines are not easily defined and non-combatants are often targets of harassment and deadly violence.

In northern Uganda, more than two million people were displaced from their homes as a result of the conflict between the northern Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by rebel leader Joseph Kony, and the Government of Uganda, headed by General Yoweri Museveni. From 1986 to 2006, the rhythm of the war in northern Uganda has been an uneven one, with sometimes long periods of lull in the fighting and rather peaceful times during which people could lead an almost “normal” life, working in their gardens and travelling rather safely on the roads. In 2005, however, nearly 90% of the population in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts, those most affected by violence, had relocated into camps for internally displaced people. The IDP Camps have often been described as a scenario of extremely poor, even inhuman living conditions, dominated by military restrictions and impoverishment, where all aspects of life were severely affected, resulting in generally high vulnerability and dependency on support from outside. In the pre-displacement setting, every family lived in its own compound, and in the evenings family members gathered by the fireplace to share supper and for traditional teaching. The displacement characterised by overcrowded camps and lack of security resulted in destruction of the social fabric, with people living in a “state of fear and anxiety”. Youth could hardly access educational facilities and had almost no means of generating an income, which led to self-destructive practices such as drinking alcohol, unprotected sex and early marriage.

INTRODUCTION

Latin America has been the region of the world in which Transitional Justice has had the earliest and largest case studies. Not only because the term was coined in the middle of the first wave of political transitions in the region – the Southern Cone experience, but also because during the last 30 years countries and societies have tried different approaches to addressing a past of violence and, at the same time, to testing the strength of their own democracy and institutions. Although there is sufficient empirical evidence about the terrible impact of violence on children, they have not been a relevant actor in the definition of transitional justice policies, both from the perspective of victimhood and from the horrible consequences of being involved in the conflict. However, children have been severely affected by the violent practices of dictators, merciless guerrilla leaders, the leniency of states and by abusive armies. They have been told, again and again, that they must learn not to cry.

The importance of furthering efforts to support children's involvement in transitional justice processes was identified during an expert discussion on Transitional Justice and Children convened by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) in November 2005. As an outcome of the meeting it was proposed that research on children and truth commissions be undertaken, identifying good practices and lessons learned, and recommending strategies to improve and facilitate children's participation in future truth commissions. UNICEF and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) initiated a process of documentation on the role of children in truth commissions. Different documents can be consulted to expand on this general approach.

This chapter will analyse the ways in which truth commissions in Latin America have tackled the issue of children, taking into account the quite different scenarios of political “transitions”, from the classic transit from a dictatorship to a democracy to the application of transitional justice measures to an ongoing conflict situation. It will review the main findings of these truth-seeking and truth-telling mechanisms in Argentina, Guatemala, Peru and Colombia, with some references to other Latin American countries.

INTRODUCTION

Since the year 2000 more than 15,000 separated children1 have entered the UK seeking asylum. Many of these children and young people have fled war, enduring traumatic events and losses. Once in the UK, they face secondary stresses such as navigating welfare and legal systems that are often incoherent, inconsistent and unsettling. As a result, the already complex process of rehabilitation in exile is made even more difficult.

In response to the issues that young separated refugees face, Dost, meaning friend, was set up nine years ago. Dost is based within the communal space of the Trinity Centre, a community centre and independent charity in East London; it is used by individuals of all ages and backgrounds for education, recreational purposes and support services. Within this community setting Dost aims to provide psychosocial assistance to vulnerable children, including young refugees separated from their families and fleeing violent conflict. A holistic approach is necessary as the needs of separated children, like those of all children, are multiple and interdependent. To this end, Dost provides education, play and youth work, and advice and advocacy (casework).

The first section of this paper will investigate in depth how Dost's flexible casework model therapeutically benefits young separated refugees who are new to the UK. A central aim is to elucidate the subtle multiplicity of factors needed to aid the psychological recovery and social rehabilitation of war-affected children. The paper will go on to explore how the wider framework of Dost and the Trinity Centre strengthens the casework model's ability to provide psychosocial support. Dost's other integral services of education and play offer young separated refugees the opportunity to access community and natural healing processes. Moreover, the relationship that children and young people are able to build within the Trinity Centre's space, as well as the intergenerational interaction that can take place within the community context, is fundamental to social rehabilitation processes.

This paper makes use of anecdotal evidence accrued over the past three years working with war-affected children separated from their families. Quotes from young people are from semi-structured interviews conducted for the purposes of an ongoing piece of research relating to belonging and community.

INTRODUCTION

The two preceding chapters were the subject of discussion on methods applied in law reform, constitution-making and institutional reform. This chapter examine the question of accountability and effectiveness of rule of law reform.

There is a fundamental paradox in rule of law assistance, particularly in situations where international actors exercise a form of executive power. While they promote reforms with intent to achieve judicial independence, the supremacy of law, the separation of powers and increased access to justice, statebuilding missions often perform in ways that contradict those very principles.

This is explained partly by the idea itself of state-building missions. International actors substitute for local governments, or assume responsibility for legal and judicial reform, because of weak domestic capacity. International participants are not elected officials, and often the local interlocutors with which they cooperate are transitional governments, but interventions are accepted on the basis of necessity or out of human rights and humanitarian imperatives in order to redress past abuses and violations and for the maintenance of peace and security.

But while there might be acceptance towards the idea of state-building, there are deficiencies in the structure and methods that undermine effectiveness and accountability. One such deficiency arises from the employment of vague or excessively ambitious mandates as constitutional foundations for rule of law assistance. This aspect, together with the existence of weak coordination mechanisms for multilateral interventions, is discussed first in this chapter. The multitude of donor agencies is one impediment to effectiveness and accountability. Each comes supplied with their own policies, procurement procedures, contracts, and lines of accountability, and in the starkest cases “each organization asks for exemptions from prevailing law; and each drains the talent of the government and the private sector while lamenting the government's lack of capability”.

Such attitudes and habits give rise to tensions and disagreements between international and national actors. The president of East Timor, for example, tired of constant suggestions from international agencies on what his country was required to accomplish in the transitional period, stated: “We are not interested in a legacy of cars and laws, nor are we interested in a legacy of development plans for the future designed by [people] other than East Timorese”.

INTRODUCTION

The previous chapters examined the conceptualisation of the rule of law in war to peace transitions. What has emerged from the investigation of policy documents, UN Security Council mandates and operational directives is a concept that appears to be a situational response. In other words, the rule of law is defined and formed to fit challenges and problems as identified by international actors specifically in war-torn societies. The following chapters will proceed to consider how the rule of law is put into effect by way of tangible actions.

The first topic for consideration is law reform. This is one of the top priorities of rule of law reform in those societies torn apart by war. Countries such as Afghanistan, Liberia and Kosovo underwent an intensive law-making activity at the start of each transitional process. The typical mode of law reform involves providing technical support and legal advisory services to governments, assisting them in ratifying or acceding to international conventions, and helping legislatures in the draft ing of new laws in accordance with international standards and benchmarks. Several law reform initiatives are also founded upon laws drafted in other state-building missions.

Numerous parallels, but also substantial differences, exist between the approaches of earlier segments of rule of law reform and those rule of law reforms that are effected in war-torn societies today. One crucial difference is that the primary source for transplants in war to peace transitions does not rely as much as before on individual countries that happen to have an interest in the region in question – that is, through trade relations or historical ties (though this still occurs). The process of law reform and constitution-making in these societies draws more on international law, standards and benchmarks.

International law is emphasised by the UN Secretary-General's listing of the normative sources for rule of law reform. The normative framework is presented as that consisting of various branches of international law – criminal, refugee, human rights, and humanitarian law. As seen in the previous chapter, the intimate link between international human rights law and the rule of law concept for war-torn societies is held to provide legitimacy and credibility in reforms.

INTRODUCTION

An estimated 2 million children died as a result of armed conflict between 1994 and 2004. During this period about 6 million children were disabled or injured. Since the 1990s thousands of children have suffered the fate of enforced disappearance. At the same time there are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers in about 21 conflicts around the world. These numbers include forced, conscripted, and voluntary children from state as well as non-state actors. The problem is thought to be worst in Africa and Asia, but there are also instances in Europe and the Americas. In Colombia, for example, there are an estimated 14,000 children under thez age of ten involved in armed conflicts, in Uganda 20,000 children and an estimated 70,000 in Burma. Up to 200,000 children were left orphaned during the civil war in Mozambique. About 1 million Angolan children lost one parent in the war in that country and almost 300,000 lost both parents. Thus, the situation of children after war, and other types of conflict, is severe and in need of ongoing attention, especially as far as the needs of the child victim is concerned.

Besides the effect that conflict has on children, who are mostly merely bystanders, but dramatically affected, often as a result of the conflict, children are at times forced to commit human rights violations, including murder, amputations, rapes and other forms of sexual violence during hostilities.This is done intentionally to make the abducted child feel stigmatised and less likely to try to run away and return home. Stigmatising children may also be a problem after their return home, and thus steps ought to be taken to prevent this, and deal with it where it has occurred.

This chapter explores the needs of child victims. It explores specifically their needs for reintegration and rehabilitation linked to processes of reconciliation. It does not focus, however, on dealing with children or others as perpetrators of violence. Obviously, dealing with perpetrators, including those who are children, and finding ways of ending the use of child soldiers, reducing enforced disappearances and other violations against children or those that affect children, are vital.

GENERAL BACKGROUND

The recruitment of child soldiers has been hitting the headlines in politics and the media for many years. However, many commentators seem to forget that a much broader circle of children is affected by armed conflicts in general. While there are no reliable estimates of the number of children currently living in waraffected areas worldwide, UNICEF (2006) reports that conflicts in the decade to 2006 killed more than two million children and left another six million injured or permanently disabled, twenty million homeless, and over one million separated from their parents. Countless others have been orphaned, raped or forced to witness acts of violence. It is estimated that during war, 5 per cent of child deaths result from direct violence and 95 per cent from malnutrition, illness or infection. Even when children are not directly affected by exposure to violence or disease, their lives may be changed by the burden of displacement, the loss of caregivers, socio-economic hardship, the destruction of infrastructure, crops and livestock, etc. In consequence, the many challenges in dealing with children affected by armed conflict extend far beyond the issue of the recruitment and subsequent demobilisation of child soldiers to include also questions concerning the rehabilitation/recovery, reintegration and reconciliation – not necessary in that order – of all youths.

It is striking that, in general terms, academic work has taken a rather narrow view of these issues as well. International law has focused on a number of very specific issues, such as age limits for the recruitment of children in children's rights law, and the punishment of recruiters of children in international criminal law. The discipline of psychology has put its emphasis on the effects of traumatic exposure on individuals and their recovery therefrom, although it has been looking for a more psychosocial perspective, trying to incorporate the broader war-affected context. Finally, studies in the field of transitional justice have paid remarkably little attention until recently to the role of children in transitional justice mechanisms, both as victims and as offenders.

INTRODUCTION

The 1994 Rwandan genocide is a stark illustration of the changing nature of conflict in the late twentieth century and the increasingly different and new ways in which children are involved, as captured in Graça Machel's seminal 1996 study for the United Nations on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children. For instance, human rights reports documented the active participation of children and youth in devising survival strategies, committing murder, raping women and girls, stealing, burning and destroying houses, and acting as informants. Subsequently, it has been estimated that ten percent of children have lost one or both parents, 110,000 orphans are living in child-headed households (CHH), 7,000 children live on the streets and 19,000 children aged 0–14 years are infected by HIV/AIDS. The shattering of social relations has destroyed traditional protective structures, meaning children are left inadequately supported in their daily struggle for survival, compounded by the emotional distress caused by loss or imprisonment of loved ones.

Traditionally, the predominant response within academia, policy briefings and the media in interpreting the impact of such ‘extraordinary’ events is to approach individuals, both adults and children, as being traumatized and so in need of psychological assistance. In the case of children, this understanding is applied in conjunction with stage development theories which argue that conflict influences long-term psychological, social and emotional development owing to the trauma left in its wake. The inherent vulnerability of children, according to this paradigm, therefore necessitates urgent psychological intervention in order to facilitate ‘normal’ growth and development and to prevent the intergenerational transmission of trauma.

Rwanda is a vivid example of all these phenomena – the changing nature of conflict, the capturing of its impact upon children in psychological terms – and so has acted as a testing ground for approaches ranging from the biomedical to psychosocial, Christian-orientated and rights-based initiatives. Reflective of these different approaches and drawing on the priorities identified by children and young people during four periods of participatory action research in Rwanda, conducted between 2006 and 2009, the chapter explores the work of three programmes: firstly, CARE Rwanda's Nkundabana Initiative for Psychosocial Support (NIPS); secondly, Save the Children UK's child protection programme; and finally, the childcare and development programme of the Rwandan organization ‘Abana’, in conjunction with its counselling and evangelism mission.

INTRODUCTION

The challenges of reintegration in post-conflict settings have been a focus of attention in Uganda, which experienced over 20 years of armed conflict between the government of Uganda and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) that ended only five years ago. War-affected children in Uganda include not only those who were abducted by rebel forces, but all those children and adolescents who suffered – amongst other difficult experiences – internal displacement, loss of livelihood and caregivers, and disruption of infrastructure and services during the prolonged armed conflict. Several studies have highlighted the important interaction between exposure to possible traumatising experiences, available social and professional support and children's mental health in conflict settings. Simultaneously, a large number of interventions have been created in these conflict settings to tackle the possible impact of traumatising experiences on the mental health of war-affected young people.

This paper will focus on the fit between children's mental health needs on the one hand and the programming responses for children in (post-)conflict settings on the other hand by providing, firstly, an overview of child- and adolescenttraumatising experiences and their outcomes; secondly, discussing the interventions that have been used with war-affected children and adolescents to improve their mental health; and, lastly, discussing practice implications for the fit between mental health needs and feasible programming responses.

TRAUMATISING EXPERIENCES AND MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS OF WAR-AFFECTED CHILDREN IN NORTHERN UGANDA

A mental health disorder can be defined as ‘the presence of psychological distress; impairment in psychological, social, or occupational functioning; or, any disorder that is associated with an increased risk of suffering death, pain disability or loss of freedom’. Mental health problems among war-affected children have been well documented in Uganda. Most of these studies have focused on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), although the prevalence rates of PTSD in these studies vary considerably, ranging from 97 to 27%.

Other mental health problems have also been documented, including depression, generalised anxiety disorders and substance abuse.

INTRODUCTION

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) were established in 2006 to prosecute crimes perpetrated during the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) ‘Khmer Rouge’ (KR) regime (1975–1979), under which an estimated 1.7 million people perished due to disease, malnutrition and starvation. As one of a recent movement toward ‘mixed’ tribunals, established as part-internationalised bodies within existing domestic legal structures, the ECCC is purported to offer a credible internationalised response to Cambodia's troubled past, while maintaining a strong sense of domestic public ownership over proceedings. As of April 2010, four senior KR leaders and ‘Duch’, the head of the Tuol Sleng ‘S-21’ detention and execution centre, had been charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, with the first trial of Duch nearing conclusion. Important procedural questions are currently being asked about the ability of the court to meet international standards of fairness, transparency and independence. The Cambodian judiciary is weak, and the ECCC has recently been embroiled in allegations of (administrative) corruption. Moreover, serious criticism has been voiced concerning ongoing political interference by the Cambodian government. These concerns have led some commentators to raise doubts over the legitimacy of the ECCC as a ‘free and fair’ mechanism for the dispensation of international justice, in accordance with established international legal norms and standards.

In this chapter, I approach questions of legitimacy at the ECCC from a different perspective. I suggest that beyond questions of legal procedural standards, we must also be attentive to the particular social and cultural politics of memory that the ECCC implicates as it seeks to garner public legitimacy within Cambodia. This relates to important questions about the extent to which Cambodians feel a sense of ownership toward the ECCC, the ways in which Cambodians feel invested in the ECCC process, and the ability of the ECCC proceedings to reflect and validate socially and culturally embedded experiences and memories of suffering.

Conversely, and more critically, I scrutinise the actions of the ECCC in relation to these questions: how does the ECCC entice public support? How does the ECCC engage and involve local communities? To what extent does the ECCC subordinate, marginalise, reconfigure or impose upon socially and culturally embedded experiences and memories of pain?

INTRODUCTION

Scarcely anyone would deny that reconciliation is a desirable goal after violence and repression. It therefore may not seem surprising that reconciliation has emerged as a powerful ideal in the context of post-conflict situations. It has been promoted by incoming governments after civil war and regime transition, for example in Spain, Chile or South Africa and it has been the goal of several peacebuilding missions of the UN, for example in Sierra Leone or Timor Leste. In the academic discourse, reconciliation is predominantly discussed in relation to truth commissions. Truth commissions have become the dominant – though not exclusive – processes examined by scholars when theorising about reconciliation. In this context a powerful reconciliation paradigm has emerged which opposes reconciliation processes to retribution and punishment and largely takes for granted that truth-telling and finding out about the past lead to national reconciliation. This reconciliation paradigm is rather more normative than analytic, however. It recommends policies and processes in the name of reconciliation, but is ill-equipped to understand the performances of and differences between reconciliation mechanisms in transitional societies, other than by judging them as more or less complete or satisfactory. Reconciliation has, however, been central to a number of highly diverse transitional mechanisms: it served as a label for ‘forgive and forget’ policies in Spain or Namibia, it was the overarching goal of several truth commissions, and it was identified as an objective by punitive transitional justice institutions, for example the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

In this chapter I suggest a way to theorise reconciliation and to inquire into the discursive role and the political effects of reconciliation policies. Based on a comparison of different reconciliation policies since the 1970s, I argue that reconciliation is first and foremost a discursive phenomenon which featured prominently in several transitional situations. I therefore suggest that a discourse theoretical approach can be fruitful for an analysis of reconciliation in transitional processes. Building centrally on the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I argue that reconciliation can be conceptualised as an empty universal, a vague yet powerful social ideal which is fundamentally political as it produces social reality and legitimises or delegitimises certain policies.

INTRODUCTION

Societies emerging from a long period of armed conflict often lack a judicial tradition that complies with international notions of the rule of law and respect for human rights. When local regulations and policies openly defy such principles, it is sometimes necessary to take recourse to international human rights law to re-establish the rule of law. The problem with such an approach, however, is that international human rights standards are not specifically geared towards the needs and challenges of post-conflict societies. Such standards are often too general, without providing specific and comprehensive guidance on such salient issues for post-conflict situations as property restitution or the provision of other effective remedies and reparations. Thus a judicial intermediary seems to be called for to interpret international norms in the light of local conditions. In this regard, the most obvious actors to perform such task would be national judges. However, in the immediate post-conflict phase national judicial mechanism are often either not functioning or heavily tainted by their links to one of the warring parties. Thus both their effectiveness and legitimacy are, more often than not, weak. Some kind of mixture between purely local and purely international justice – both in composition, legal basis, and normative standards – could possibly counter the disadvantages of the two extremes. Such a mixed or hybrid institution would offer stronger guarantees of independence and impartiality than national judiciaries. At the same time, it would have the potential to safeguard the local embeddedness of such an institutionalized attempt to re-establish the rule of law. This local element increases the long-term viability and effectiveness of such a process towards compliance with the rule of law.

Hybrid institutions have emerged since the 1990s mainly in the context of criminal law, for example in Sierra Leone and Cambodia. These institutions were created precisely to avoid the problems mentioned above of both purely domestic and of completely detached international mechanisms of rendering justice. Such hybrid criminal law institutions are increasingly perceived as key components in addressing the problems of post-conflict societies. However, little attention, both in practice and academia, has been paid to hybrid human rights institutions in the post-conflict phase. This is all the more surprising since one of the first hybrid judicial mechanisms of the 1990s – the Human Rights Chamber in Bosnia and Herzegovina – was a human rights mechanism and not a criminal law institution.