UGANDA

COMPENDIUM OF CONFLICTS IN UGANDA
Introduction
Against the backdrop of a multiplicity of conflicts over a protracted period encompassing
both the colonial and post-independence eras, it is perhaps surprising that more has not
been done to address the legacies of this turbulent past. A couple of exceptions stand
out: in 1974 then President Idi Amin Dada established a Commission of Inquiry into
the Disappearance of People in Uganda to investigate rampant disappearances in the
country. When the Commissioners ultimately implicated the regime, they themselves
disappeared. In 1986, after taking power, the NRM instituted a Commission of Inquiry
into Human Rights Violations and Abuses from 1962 to 26 January 1986. The Commission
conducted extensive invesgiations and made several recommendations, most of which
were never implemented, save for the establishment of a permanent human rights body,
the Uganda Human Rights Commission, and the report was never publicly disseminated.
Both commissions, therefore, failed to bring closure to the multiple violations which
drover their establishment.
Following these experiences more than two decades passed before the incumbent
regime engaged again in a discussion about possible transitional justice measures for
Uganda. The 2007 Juba Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation, together with
its 2008 Annexure, were the first roadmap for transitional justice ever drawn up for
post-conflict Uganda. Although there was no final peace agreement with the LRA, the
Government of Uganda nevertheless proceeded to implement some of the agreed upon
mechanisms, notably a Special Division of the High Court, known as the International
Crimes Division. A Transitional Justice Working Group was also established under the
Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) to advise Government on appropriate transitional
justice mechanisms, and tasked with the development of a national Transitional Justice
Policy by 2014. Whereas a fourth draft of the policy was presented to Cabinet in 2013,
and a fifth draft of the policy was developed in 2014, at the time of writing it was not
clear if and when the draft policy would be accepted.
Recognising that much of the discussion about transitional justice had been informed
by perceptions of the LRA-GOU conflict in northern Uganda, Refugee Law Project, in the
course of conducting the National Reconciliation and Transitional Justice (NRTJ) Audit,
sought to elicit grassroots perspectives on appropriate transitional justice processes
from around the country.
This section of the Compendium of Conflicts portrays both how individuals dealt with
conflict legacies in their communities in the past and how they conceive of approaches
to transitional justice in the future. It presents grassroots understandings of concepts
common in the lexicon of transitional justice, which are key tenets of the Juba Peace
Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation, including mechanisms such as
prosecutions, amnesty, truth-seeking, reparations, traditional justice, institutional
reform and memorialisation.
Accountability
In the transitional justice realm, accountability connotes measures adopted to eliminate
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