'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

CSM, Charles Taylor, LRA, etc

And so, under the new order at the Christian Science Monitor, I do have a new column "occasional contribution" in today's paper. (It is also here.) It's on the Charles Taylor case-- the trial of the former president of Liberia that is being conducted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. This trial is being conducted not in the SCSL's own seat in Freetown, but in one of the ICC's unused courtrooms in The Hague, instead.

In the piece I write the following text... Be aware, though, that the mark-ups, formating, and hyperlinks in what follows are ** Exclusive to JWN!

In 2002, when the UN was figuring out how to deal with the aftermath of the many atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's civil war, they tried to correct flaws that had become evident during the work of Africa's oldest war-crimes court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Serious criticisms of the ICTR have been expressed – by myself and others – on five main grounds. Despite the excellent motives of ICTR's founders and officials, it has been:

1. selective in its choice of cases...
2. disconnected, both geographically and conceptually, from the primary stakeholders whom it seeks to serve, inside Rwanda...
3. very expensive, gobbling up international aid dollars...
4. largely unaccountable, either to the survivors of the Rwandan genocide or to anyone else,
5. [a]nd it has strongly polarized Rwandan politics.

So in Sierra Leone, the UN located its new war-crimes court inside the country, and, by making it a "joint" court with the national justice system, they tried to maximize the good effects it would have on that system. Also, alongside the court, the UN established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that could – like its earlier model in South Africa – help build national reconciliation while getting the truth out about earlier atrocities. (The Sierra Leonean TRC finished its work in 2004, leaving a mixed record of achievement.)

Regarding the "selectivity of indictments" at the SCSL, I'll note that it has indicted Charles Taylor and ten other individuals, with all the others apparently being Sierra Leonians. It has not, however, indicted any representatives of the numerous international shady businesses-- arms dealers, etc-- whose decisions and support kept the SL civil war going for so many long years. Indeed, in the article I note that one of Charles Taylor's closest business partners was the US televangelist Pat Robertson. Maybe, to make a truly effective point that these modern-era war-crimes courts will make sure no-one, however well connected, is above the law, the SCSL could have indicted Robertson on a charge of "aiding and abetting", at the very least?

As it is, though, don't all these courts-- and especially the ICC-- look worryingly like European-dominated institutions that seek to haul over the coals some naughty Africans while completely ignoring the role that people of European heritage have played for centuries, and all too often continue to play, in fomenting, enabling, and conniving in the commission of atrocious violence in Africa?

Then, regarding the expense of the SCSL, I did try to do find out the size of its global budget. The best estimate I could come up with, from combining the figures in various annual reports and doing one needed act of interpolation (for FY2003-04), was that for its whole duration, 2002-2009, SCSL will have budgets totaling about $200 million... and that, to try a total of 11 indictees. Which would be a per-case processing cost of around $18 million. This would be a considerable improvement over the ICTR, whose per-case costs were at one point running at about $43 million... But the figure still looks outrageous and excessive.

(Per-case processing costs for the many, often very complex amnesty applications processed by South Africa's TRC came to just under $4,300-- see my Amnesty After Atrocity book, p.193.)

You might also want to take into consideration that in 2004 the GDP per capita in PPP$ for Sierra Leone's 5.3 million war-battered people was $561, while for Liberians it was literally unmeasurable because of the lengthy perpetuation of post-civil war impoverishment and social breakdown in the country. (In the Netherlands, meanwhile, it was a very comfortable $31,789.) In 2004, Sierra Leone received a total of $359.7 million of overseas aid.

... And now, more news just in from IRIN in Kampala, where Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda told reporters on 4 July that the Ugandan penal code would have to be changed to include in it a provision to use Mato Oput, which is a system of "traditional" justice practised by the Acholi community of northern Uganda.

Big hat-tip to Jonathan for passing on the link to this story, btw!

The Acholi have been the community worst affected by the 11-year war between Lord's Resistance Army insurgents and the government forces. Both sides in that war have used brutal, extremely inhumane tactics against noncombatants-- mainly, but by no means exclusively Acholi-- who have been caught in the middle. The Acholi are also the community from which LRA leader Joseph Kony and his main sidekicks all emerged.

Meanwhile, Kony and three of his sidekicks are the subjects of a full 50% of the indictments that ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has issued so far in his four years on the job, and for perhaps understandable institution-building reasons Ocampo has so far remained quite unwilling to withdraw or even suspend those indictments... a fact that has considerably complicated the ability of Uganda's peace negotiators to complete the task that most Acholis and perhaps most other Ugandans as well want them to achieve, which is to get Kony and his sidekicks out of the bush-- a place from where they are able to pose a continuing threat to all the peoples of Northern Uganda.

(Last July I spent a bit of time in Uganda researching this whole situation. You can read a lot of my writings on that if you go to this post on Transitional Justice Forum and follow the links from there.)

The fate of Charles Taylor-- offered a safe haven and then later handed over from it to the Americans and the UN for trial in the US-backed SCSL-- has been mentioned as an additional complicating factor by people involved in the Northern Uganda peace negotiations.

Here's a bit more from that IRIN report of the statements from Rugunda-- who is also the Kampala government's main negotiator in the peace talks with the LRA:

Government and LRA delegations to the peace talks in the Southern Sudanese capital of Juba reached an agreement on 29 June on the principles for handling accountability and reconciliation for crimes committed during the conflict.

"The parties committed themselves to ensuring accountability and reconciliation," said Rugunda. "This will require all those who committed crimes to admit the crimes they committed. They will be taken through a transparent justice mechanism to be agreed upon."

Those who confess to war crimes under the Mato Oput mechanism will be required to ask for forgiveness and pay reparations.

Government soldiers accused of human rights abuses will, however, continue to be tried under martial law, the minister said.

Comparing the two justice systems, Ruganda said the national penal code was punitive, while Mato Oput was "restorative [and] hence promotes reconciliation".

"We agreed to formulate and adopt an alternative justice mechanism which will draw on the strengths of the two justice mechanisms and address the weaknesses of each system," he said. "By so doing, the question of impunity will be addressed while at the same time reconciliation will be promoted."

All power to the peace negotiators there, I say! I am still haunted by the round-circle discussion I had with a group of camp leaders in Unyama IDP camp last July... and how the residents in that bleak, dusty camp could only look out at the green hillsides where the ruins of their homesteads were, since the ongoing state of war and the government's regs still kept them cooped up in the camp... and how wistfully one of them said the thing he really hoped for most was that peace could be achieved before the next planting season.

Didn't happen. Let's hope that now no more planting seasons will pass before peace can be achieved and these people are allowed to return to their homes and farms. I hope the very urbane Mr. Ocampo is capable of understanding the importance of that.