Balancing forgiveness with justice

Consolata Auma talks with difficulty because of her mutilated mouth and fights back tears when she recounts her ordeal at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.

With her nine-month-old baby tightly strapped to her back, Auma insists that the only rebels who should be pardoned are those who were abducted and forced to fight, and "not the ringleaders".

"If [LRA leader Joseph] Kony comes back, he should be killed," she said, adding that it was the 'ringleaders' who ordered her lips, nose and ears to be cut off.

Auma was captured by the rebels in April 2005 while walking from Paicho village, 30 km northeast of Gulu town, to Awach. That evening, her captors mutilated her, accusing her of committing a crime by walking on the road. "They said they did not want anybody to move on the road," she said.

Now living in Unyama village, near Gulu, Auma says her life is miserable, but her views on the rebels are firm. "No amount of convincing will make me change my mind. Kony should face a firing squad," she added.

Auma’s views are echoed by many of those who suffered physical atrocities during the 21-year-old LRA war.

Christine Acora, 50, who was set on fire by the rebels, said Kony should be held accountable for crimes committed by the LRA in northern Uganda.

Suspected rebels attacked Acora's house near Gulu in 1993, asking for money. When she pleaded that she did not have any, they poured paraffin over her and set her on fire. Like Auma, she is bitter that nobody has come to their help, saying that instead, ex-rebels "have been given a lot of money and we have been left to suffer".

Both said they were looking for good Samaritans to help them set up small businesses.

Minority views

Auma and Acora are angry with Kony, but their views are a minority position in northern Uganda. Tired of war, most people want the rebels forgiven. According to them, maintaining a tough stance on the rebels and fighting them has only prolonged their suffering.

"We are in a mood of forgiveness. Let the ICC [International Criminal Court, which has indicted LRA leaders on war crimes] not spoil our party preparations," Herron Okello, 30, a leader at Unyama camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) told IRIN.

The ICC has insisted that Kony and four other LRA leaders must face justice, but the Ugandan government says it will convince the Hague-based court to lift the indictment.

Okello insists that despite the LRA’s brutality, they should come home. "The community here supports the peace process. We urge both sides not to let the war go on," Okello said, standing outside the grass-thatched hut that has been home for 15 years.

The mood in the camp is euphoric, as IDPs expect the ongoing peace talks in the southern Sudanese town of Juba to finally end the war. "I have heard about the talks and it is my hope they succeed," Harriet Ajok, 13, said. "I want all rebels, including Kony, to be forgiven because if he is not forgiven, then the war will not end," the primary-school pupil added.

For 11-year-old Kenneth Kidega, an end to the war would mean a better life than in the camp, where he was born. "I would like Kony to be forgiven so that the war ends because we need more food, clothes and better education facilities," he said. "We have been told that these could only be possible if we have peace and return to our homes."

Peace at last?

The signing of a truce last week between the Ugandan government and the LRA at the Juba talks has sparked off a movement by rebel groups towards designated assembly points.

Over the past week, callers to local radio stations in northern Uganda have bombarded the airwaves with messages urging the fighters to come out of the bush. Kony has also spoken out, asking his fighters to abide by the agreement.

"I felt happy about what Kony was telling the people and it showed that he was now willing to talk," Okello said. "Before that, we were pessimistic but now we are encouraged."

Reconciliation

The Gulu District commissioner, Walter Ochora, said the victims’ bitterness was understandable, but hoped that would ease with the traditional rituals of reconciliation.

"The cultural justice system prescribes admission of a crime, reparations and then reconciliation," he told IRIN in Gulu town, the capital of northern Uganda, which has borne the brunt of the conflict. "That has yet to be [put into practice]. When it does and the victims go through it, everything will be okay."

Ochora was referring to ‘Mato Oput’, an elaborate Acholi ceremony. It means to drink a bitter brew made from the leaves of the Oput tree. "The offenders receive forgiveness after saying sorry and are welcomed back into their communities," he added.

During the ceremony, conducted by a council of elders, the guilty party crushes a raw egg to symbolise a new beginning and then steps over an ‘opobo’ (bamboo stick) to represent the leap from the past to the present. Then both the guilty and wronged parties drink the brew to show that they accept the bitterness of the past and promise never to taste such bitterness again.

For Auma and Acora, the ceremony may engender reconciliation, but it neither repairs their mutilated bodies nor removes the memories of the atrocities they suffered. "Others can be forgiven, but Kony should at least be jailed for what he has inflicted on us," Acora said, displaying scars from the fire that cover almost her entire body.

[UGANDA: Rebel leader warns war crimes indictments could derail peace process]

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