The Place of Justice in Peace - Case Study Example

The Place of Justice in Peace & Reconciliation in the Context of African Protracted Conflicts Introduction: An Overview of Conflict Management, evaluating the place of Justice in Peace & Reconciliation The new dimensions for protecting peace at the level of International Politics were explored in the 20th century, especially when the humankind witnessed prevailing devastation caused by the consecutive World War I and World War II. The evolution of International Politics as an important academic discipline for studying relationship between nations and to which extent various traits of such relationship affected protection of human rights, the ambiance of peace and reconciliation so that justice for common people can be granted, helped to a considerable extent in scrutinizing the situation that the human civilization was forced to be into. It was always expected that the “Major national conflagrations … have regularly spawned hopes about an enhanced multilateral capacity to manage international armed conflicts” (Lepgold, and Weiss, 1998, p. 3). However, in reality it has always been observed that in times of need, while the powerful nations could have used their respective power for the purpose of conflict management and could have attempted to provide justice by ensuring peace and reconciliation between the conflicting parties, they remained just mere spectators; consequently, abundant abuse of human rights occurred in forms of torture, humiliation, sexual violence, murder and genocide. Once the entire humankind started recovering from the plaguing trauma of World War I and World War II, impetus for providing the peace process across the globe took a new shape. Apart from development of several organizations aimed at protection of human rights, such as, United Nations (UN), International Criminal Court (ICC), World Organization Against Torture, United Nations Commission on Human Rights, UNESCO and several others. The Nuremberg Trail, in this context, is regarded as a landmark as it elucidated various dimensions of human rights and how those are required to be protected at the level of international politics with the help of legal interference (Morsink, 2000). While it was expected that providing such a great deal of importance to the protection of human rights for ensuring peace and justice within the international domain, world peace can finally be attained. However, commencement of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union for the purpose of attaining complete supremacy over International Politics, consequent diplomatic turmoil and the prolonged threat of nuclear warfare clearly provided the impression that basic objectives of human rights have remained unattained: “The post-Cold War euphoria, however, was short-lived …. Democratization spread but along with micronationalism, fragmentation, and massive human displacement …. As part of the longer historical pattern, the onset of the post-Cold War era initially witnessed a reinvigorated United Nations (UN). But bullishness after the Gulf War turned to pessimism following troublesome UN operations in Bosnia, Croatia, Somalia, and Rwanda” (Lepgold, and Weiss, 1998, p. 3-4). The larger scope of application of Democratization in “micronationalism” context clearly barred the strong possibilities for common people to enjoy their existence in a global society, while it was theoretically acknowledged that globalization will strengthen the process of universal brotherhood. At the same time, it will also contribute to a great extent in providing opportunity to other nations in case of any threat against humanity, finally leading to attainment of peace, by pursuing the path of reconciliation or negotiation and justice will be done. Clearly, in order to secure such a platform, it is also important that the powerful nations act as an intermediate benevolently and for the same purpose they will be provided with sufficient access by respective national political standards. While working as an intermediate to pave the ways of justice and peaceful existence, these nations will prevent all such changes that can lead to violence or acts of crime against humanity as well as recurrence of the same in future. It was also expected that intermediate parties will also act according to the principles of fiduciary relationship, where benevolent trust can be asserted that the intermediate parties will not attempt to churn out any benefit for their sake by influencing socio-cultural and political factors of the subject nation (Ambos, Large, and Wierda, 2009, p. 247). Reflecting over the kind of injustice was to humanity due to protracted conflict among African nations, it can be said that none of these aspects were realized or respected. Conflict management, essentially, is such a process, where “certain strategy, a mode of action” is adopted with the aim for “acquisition of ways and means of establishing control over conflict, and, ultimately, of preventing any possibility of the conflict reemerging” (Kremenyuk, 2005, p. 303). However, in the post-Cold War period, while on one hand, repeated appeals were made by International Human Rights Organizations to retain the ambiance of peace through the method of reconciliation and on the other hand, the same bodies have remained ignorant about the plight of humanity and the kind of crimes were committed against common people. Thus, it can be said that Justice, specifically in context of the incidents that resulted due to protracted conflicts in Africa, was largely ignored and only remained as a form of academic or theoretical discipline, pointing out further to the fact that crimes against humanity are prevalent and in time of need people are left all by themselves. Reasons behind Failure of Justice in Africa The failure of justice in Africa and extended suffering of humanity were resulted mainly due to two factors, namely, tremendous socio-cultural and political turmoil within the nations and complete alienation as well as seclusion by the Western superpowers and other nations. During the post-Cold War period, different parts of the African continents were striving for their respective progress and different layers of political governance existed within their respective domains, each of which were promising common people to satisfy variety of demands, and at the same time, also were trying to enhance the cultural and ideological differences to a greater extent for the sake of more power and support. While trying to search for the root of such gross abuse of humanity in the African continent during the postcolonial era, Claude Ake has observed: “The state in Africa is plagued by crisis of legitimacy because of its external dependence, the decision of the political class to inherit the colonial socio-economic system instead of transforming it; the massive state violence to de-radicalize the nationalist movement and impose political monolithism in the face of deep rooted social pluralism and the use of force to repress a rising tide of resentment against the failures of the nationalist leadership, especially the mismanagement of development, and the impoverishment of the masses” (Cited in Kieh Jr, 2007, p. 3-4). The incidents of human rights abuse during the time of conflict in various parts of Africa, not only reflect the plight of humanitarian justice in the hands of inefficient state legislators, tyrannical oppression and socio-cultural differences, which, to a large extent were created by the colonial rulers but also complete absence of any intermediate factor so that by asserting the paths of peace and reconciliation the situation could have overcome. The incidents of crimes against humanity and abundant abuse of justice, which occurred in their gravest forms in different parts of Africa for a long period of time, such as, Genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, War in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda, were resulted from social differences, legislative oppression and indifference of the rest of the world to stop such gross violation of humanity. Leonce Ndikumana has clearly observed, while reflecting over the case of Burundi that peace negotiation between Burundian governance and opposite party is characterized with “entrenched extremism” and “greed of individual leaders” (Ndikumana, 2007, p. 51). While the traditional conflict between Hutus and Tutsis took form of a civil war in Burundi and resulting in destruction of a huge number of civilians, plight of people belonging to each casts has remained unchanged and neither of the parties attempted to take any responsibility for protecting their own people: “This is true for both the Tutsi population despite the monolithic nature of the government army as well as the Hutu who are caught between the animosities of the frustrated government military and the armed Hutu opposition” (Ndikumana, 2007, p. 51). Trapped within their quest to attain more political power and complete monotheism over the opposition, the Burundian government has failed to perform their respective duties in each domain of social existence, starting from proper application of the rule of law, ensuring security to citizens, proper distribution of national wealth and administering justice (Ndikumana, 2007). The issue of cast and racial discrimination took even a worse form in Rwanda. The murdering of Tutsi minority group in Rwanda commenced on 12th April, 1994 by people belonging to the Hutu community and by the time Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) would have stopped the genocide (18th April), more than 800, 000 Tutsis were assassinated (Beigbeder, 2005, p. 93). Killing of the contemporary Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, is considered as the triggering factor that led to the genocide and much later, while the International Human Rights Tribunals were trying to ensure the ways of Justice, report of the French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere identified Paul Kagame, leader of the newly formed government in Rwanda, as the prime accuse for conspiring against the President, ordering the plane crash by charging two ground-to-air missiles and sacrificing the Tutsis, so that he can emerge as an undisputed leader under the pretention that by leading RPF and defeating Hutus, he not only has attempted to give justice to Tutsis but also helped in asserting the Tutsi claim over national governance (Beigbeder, 2006, p. 295-96). However, despite the fact that Justice has been conferred and efforts were made to establish peace due to interference of the International socio-political powers, if immediate measures were taken by the United Nations, and powerful nations would have acted as intermediates to solve the dispute between Hutus and Tutsis, such massive abuse of human rights could have surely been prevented. The Carlsson Report (Dec 15, 1999), almost half a decade after commission of this crime has undisputedly admitted and at the same time challenged the position of United Nations, as one of the most powerful International Tribunals in the context of preventing the incidents of crime against humanity: “The failure of the United Nations to prevent, and subsequently, to stop the genocide in Rwanda was a failure by the United Nations system as a whole. The fundamental failure was lack of resources and political commitment devoted to developments in Rwanda and the United Nations presence there” (Cited in Beigbeder, 2005, p. 94). The issue of ethnic differences and failure of the ruling government to ingrate them, has also reflected in the case of Uganda and consequent political crisis. The commencement of the Ugandan crisis in 1966 was resulted from self-declaration of the contemporary Prime Minister (Milton Obote) as the Executive President, by violating constitutional norms and by abolishing existence of all kingdoms he attempted to exist at the top of centralized power. Due to such action, ethnic violence resulted in, especially against people belonging to Acholi and Langi communities due to their close association with Obote. The leader of military governance, Idi Amin, in the year 1971 finally overthrew Oboteian civilian government and the era of tyranny under military governance started. The armed struggle that continued almost for two decades against Idi Amin governance and seeds of tyranny that Obote germinated. Finally in January 1986, capturing of state power by the NRA (National Resistance Army) (Omach, 2007). However, within the 20 years time span (1966-86), the way people of Northern Uganda and Sudan suffered due to LRA insurgency, amounted to abundant abuse of human rights in the forms of murder, sexual violence, torture over children, forcing them to act as a part of the armed force and sexual slavery (Apuuli, 2008, p. 52-53). The International Criminal Court (ICC), empowered with an agreement by the Government of Uganda, since January 2004 onwards, has started to investigate the incidents of crime against humanity committed by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). Even after NRA’s coming to power, the political situation of Uganda did not run toward stability; rather the LRA insurgency worsened the entire situation. Consequently, recovering from the situation become tougher for people of the Northern Uganda, as the government refused to permit any foreign force to interfere (Apuuli, 2008). In 2004, finally, invitation by the Ugandan government to ICC regarding investigation of LRA insurgency provided a great scope to International human rights and peace seeking movement to identify the scope of crime against humanity, committed by the LRA (Apuuli, 2008). Reflection over the entire situation that has led to failure of justice and peace in Africa, several factors have attracted attention. While on one hand, the social constructionism and internal conflict within the domains of culture and political ideologies have contributed to a great extent in expanding the scope of crime against humanity as well as failure of justice in the African context, on several occasions, lack of attention by the Civil Society and on others, prevention by the internal governance have also played important parts in catering of Justice, consequently, attainment of peace through the method of reconciliation has also remained unfulfilled. In case of Burundi and Rwanda the situation could have been controlled but the intervention of Civil Society, despite having the scope, did not occur. In case of Uganda, the government is responsible to a large extent for expanding the tragic plight of the citizens as they have prevented the instruments of the Civil Society, such as, human rights tribunals and legal bodies from intervening in the incidents by stating that the State would deal with its own internal affair. Role of the Civil Society in securing Justice and the methods of Peace & Reconciliation that can be followed Human beings’ search for betterment, better survival and existence, better standards of life and better realization of flourishing as well as appreciation of basic human rights in insatiable. Different phases of human civilization clearly provide evidences through changes in existing political and historical backdrop that existence of people as a collective force has helped to a considerable extent in preventing, whenever the natural human quest for betterment has attempted to be smothered by any external force, mostly individual human efforts, “Collective action in search of the good society is a universal part of human experience, though manifested in a million different ways across time, space and culture” (Edwards, 2009, p. 1). In the modern social context, where the globe is regarded as a vast and common platform for mutual existence and interaction, democracy is attaining novel scopes of interpretation and at the same time, nature of abuse as well as exploitation of human rights is changing dynamically, alongside celebration of new democratic philosophies, development of “Civil Society” is one of strongest weapon in the hands of humanity against such forces of exploitation so that a better existence for common people can be ensured. On one hand, in the context of global governance the voice of civil society is regarded as a threat against any tyrannical approaches that aim at exploiting and depriving common people from enjoying their basic rights. On the other, civil society acts as one of the most active as well as influential human entity that can show proper direction to the system of global governance, if it sincerely attempts for human welfare. Global cosmopolitanism, though has emerged as one of the greatest challenges against success of civil society in the context of global governance, however, according to both classical approach and 18th century idea of world citizenship, the philosophy of universal humanism remains unchanged (Held, 2002, p. 309). Thus, if the global civil society has to provide a proper way of governance to the global political and legal institutions, then it has to respect the potential of cosmopolitanism and once it is done accordingly, there will surely be lack of human rights violation; consequently, journey towards attainment of a better society would be easier. It is important for inhabitants of a civil society to believe that a system of governance must have certain means of command and control over them so that the existence of social peace can be maintained properly. Conventionally, devices related to command and control are often interpreted as oppression of a system over its people. It is not that such observation is entirely incorrect, because of several occasions, in names of command and control, governmental institutions oppress common people. However, if a governmental system honestly used the techniques of command and control to maintain the situation of peaceful existence and at the same time also provides empathetic attention towards issues like, interdependence, proliferation, disaggregation, innovation and emergence of new system of governance through relocation of corrupt or tyrannical authority, then there will surely a positive change in the existing scenario (Rosenau, 1998, p. 29-34). In the context of African conflict management, huge failure of the African civil society organizations and the global civil society governance, to introduce justice and secure peace through the methods of reconciliation, encompasses within its scope various aspects. Stuart Rees observes that proper evaluation of human rights and ensuring justice to common people are two primary aspects that cannot be changed but in order to attain the goal interpretation and application of rights and justice can be oriented (Rees, 2003, p. 188) so that both parties, engaged in an act of negotiation, find it easy to comprehend the terms and adhere to the same accordingly, resulting in peace and justice. In case of African civil society organizations, especially the political parties as well as individuals, who have remained at the top of political power, frequently have misused their political capacity for the sake of respective benefit, and in times of crisis, rather than fighting for their own people, they have deprived them. In order to make a process of negotiation successful, it is important that each party into the act are ready to wave off some of their claims and focus further on the issue of common welfare. In case of African politics and civil society organizations, quite a contradictory theme has emerged. Refection over the abuse of human rights and acts of crime against humanity in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda shows that on each occasion the civil society organizations and their leaders violated the terms of reconciliation or the factors that could have led to the situation of peace. The final outcome has always remained in the forms of violation of human rights. I. William Zartman is of opinion that in an act of negotiation “… the negotiating parties have two questions to decide: which principles of justice – priority, equality or inequality – shall govern the negotiations and why? How shall that principle be interpreted - priority, equality or inequality of what, and why?” (Zartman, 2008, p. 71). The African civil society organizations were never strong or capable enough to ponder over these questions effectively. Third party intervention is considered to be an effective instrument for the purpose of conflict management and restitution of peace (Kermenyuk, 2005, p. 303) but in case of conflict management in Africa, establishing peace and finally conferring justice, have always been hindered due to first, inefficiency of the African civil society organization and second, either due to passivity of global civil society to interfere in the matter (the case of Rwanda and Burundi) or restriction on part of an African state, to allow the global civil society to solve the issue of dispute (the case of Uganda). In order to provide a stronger foundation to justice, fight against prevailing impunity and encouraging the process of establishing peace through resolution, the African civil organizations could have followed two steps strictly: first, punish the deliberate commissioners of crime against humanity, strengthening the process of democratization and encouraging the notion of reconciliation; second, channelizing the sources properly so that those could effectively challenge every such government that aim to violate constitutional norms , and attempt to take the rule of governance in their own hands (Grandvoinnet, and Schneider, 1998, p. 97). Additionally, legal instruments of global civil society are also required to enhance scope of their functioning as well as level of their empathy towards people so that in time of need as well as incidents related to crime against humanity can be addressed immediately and effectively. Failure of the United Nations from preventing and stopping the massacre in Burundi and Rwanda, limited legal authority of the ICC (International Criminal Court) to address the issue of criminal trial of LRA due to their insurgency over lives of common people in the Northern Uganda are two highly crucial examples that needs to be remembered in this context and sincere attempts also required to be introduced so that relevant improvements are made, resulting in providing more power in the hands of the global civil society organizations so that recurrence of such heinous crimes can be stopped and the peace of justice in peace and reconciliation both in African and global context can be provided with stronger foundation. References Ambos, K. Large, J. and Wierda, M. (2009). Building a Future on Peace and Justice: Studies on Transitional Justice, Conflict Resolution and Development the Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice. Munich: Springer. Apuuli, K.P. 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Stanford: Stanford University Press. Weiss, T.G. and Lepgold, J. (1998). Collective conflict management and changing world politics. New York: SUNY Press. Zartman, I.W. (2008). Negotiation and conflict management: essays on theory and practice. London: Routledge. Read More