Confronting a deficit:
Decades of injustice in northern Uganda
Dr. Lucy Hovil
Refugee Law Project/International Refugee Rights Initiative
Displacement has become a grim trademark of many of today’s wars and their aftermath. Yet to what extent has the emergent field of transitional justice managed to get to grips with the question of forced displacement? What legislation and mechanisms can be called upon when holding the perpetrators of forcible displacement to account? What exactly is the nature of their crime, and which of the rights of their victims did they violate? Can transitional justice processes themselves at times be blamed for perpetuating displacement?
These are increasingly salient questions as levels of internal displacement in situations of war continue to rise and gain greater recognition, for even where legislation and policies are in place for the protection of victims of forced displacement (e.g. the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1969 OAU Convention, National IDP Policies, and the International Bill of Rights, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness), they offer no solutions for how to deal with the perpetrators and bystanders.
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The Observer
02 June
By Dismas Nkunda
The Road to Justice Started with a Game
So, last Sunday we had a football match in preparation of the Review Conference of the Rome Statute that is still ongoing here in Uganda.
Dubbed as a stocktaking exercise of the last 12 years that the International Criminal Court has been in existence, the football match was bound to have some tickling moments.
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Pambazuka News
29 April
by Dr. Lucy Hovil
It is rare for host countries to offer refugees citizenship, especially in a context such as the Great Lakes region where millions have been displaced. Instead, most governments wait for circumstances to change so that refugees can go back to their home country.
Tanzania, however, has taken the bold and commendable decision to offer citizenship to 162,000 Burundian refugees who fled their country in 1972 and who have since been living as refugees in Tanzania. While it is important not to detract from the level of generosity that this demonstrates, the process itself has revealed a fundamental disjuncture between rhetoric and reality. Only when the gap between the two has substantially reduced, it is argued, can it be judged a success.
Read the article here.
The Observer - Uganda
January 17
By Dr. Lucy Hovil
Sound alarm bells over forced repatriation
The crises that create mass displacement often grab the headlines. War and genocide and the consequent exile of people have a hard sell. More hidden, however, is the way in which displacement ends, long after the drama of flight is over.
One such hidden ending is taking place in Tanzania and Burundi, as refugees who fled to Tanzania in the aftermath of violence in Burundi in 1972 are facing renewed trauma as moves are made to end their exile. On the plus side, they are being offered a choice between returning to Burundi or staying in Tanzania and applying for citizenship. On the downside, research has shown that in practice neither option is really the complete solution it claims to be.
Read the article here.
Ethiopian Reporter
January 23
By Dismas Nkunda
2010: a critical year for Sudan
January 9 had marked the fifth anniversary of the signing of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The agreement was a milestone achievement lauded by the international community. The CPA laid out a roadmap not only for ending a devastating civil war pitting North against South that killed an estimated two million people and displaced millions more. The agreement did not stop there, however, It also called for democratic transformation in Sudan.
Unfortunately, over the past five years, the peace in Sudan has been anything but comprehensive. War has raged in Sudan's western Darfur region, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and displacing another 2.5 million people. Although the scale of violence has declined in recent months, there is no comprehensive political solution and violence could reignite at any time. At the same time, critical elements of the CPA were stalled or frustrated, and the promise of democratic transformation has all but evaporated.
Read the article here.
The Observer - Uganda
January 13
By Dismas Nkunda
If Sudan coughs we will catch flu
It is not Uganda alone that is facing a crucial moment in its political landscape. There are other regional configurations we have to squarely look at; for if left alone, the ramifications could be bad for the region.
There is a day that passed without many of us paying attention. January 9, 2010 marked the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that saw the end of decades of war in Sudan. The agreement was a milestone.
The marginalisation that had created an impasse in Africa’s largest country was seen to be over. The CPA laid out a roadmap ending a devastating civil war pitting the North against the South, during which an estimated two million people were killed and millions more displaced. The agreement also called for democratic transformation in Sudan.
For some, the willingness of the late leader of SPLM, Dr. John Garang, to enter bed with the North, was humbling. Give and take was the norm.
Read the article here.