Two weeks ago, Liberia held the first round of a general election with which it hopes to make good its transition from a decade of bloody civil war. One of the issues running through the election campaign has been whether to establish tribunals - either domestic courts or quasi-international bodies such as that in neighboring Sierra Leone - to try war criminals. That issue has now been addressed by Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, one of the two candidates competing in next month's presidential runoff, who has now come out in favor of a rehabilitation strategy in lieu of prosecution:
Madam Sirleaf told reporters at a news conference at the party's campaign headquarters in Monrovia that her concerns were to provide social transformation, education and empowerment for ex-combatants and not to take them before a war crimes court as it has been widely spread in many quarters.
The UP Standard bearer noted that she was responding to rumors that her government will accept a UN war crimes tribunal for the prosecution of Liberians who committed war-related crimes during the fourteen years of civil war.
She indicated that the plight of ex-fighters will be given serious attention under a UP-led government, especially through skills training programs to empower and make them productive citizens of Liberia.
Johnson-Sirleaf's position may be a recognition that, as in Mozambique or Aceh, all sides in the civil war have committed atrocities and prosecutions would only reopen old wounds. The issue may take on added importance, however, in light of the fact that several former warlords have won parliamentary seats. Given that Liberia has a weak political party system and no single party will hold more than a quarter of the seats in the incoming House or Senate, the warlords may become important power brokers whose support will be needed in order to implement reforms. There is thus a certain amount of political calculation that must go into any judgment on whether to prosecute war crimes: is it worth the risk of paralysis or renewed civil war to bring the warlords to justice, or should they be treated as potential partners in the country's reconstruction? Depending on the role they choose to play in parliament, this issue will doubtless be revisited many times as the new government struggles to find its feet.
Interesting post, Jonathan. Mme. Sirleaf's reported support for job training for ex-combatants certainly is in line with the fairly successful DDR programs-- demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration-- implemented in Mozambique after the 1992 peace agreement.
My judgment is that the reason the blanket amnesty and strong focus on DDR worked in Mozambique was because the peace agreement there really did mark a discernible point of transition, from the atrocity-laden days of the civil war to the much more rule-of-law-abiding days of the post-war. I guess to me, the big question is how to make transitions in that direction really "stick".
As for "justice" and "accountability"? Well, these are big issues that probably deserve a couple of lengthy posts of their own. But "justice going forward" does seem to me rightly to outrank questions of "justice looking back", even if we could all agree on what "justice looking back" ought to look like. Then, regarding "accountability", as I've argued at greater length elsewhere, the kind of accountability demanded of a perpetrator in a criminal proceeding is morally only a very thin-- indeed, virtually non-existent-- form of the thing. The TRC did demand a slightly thicker form of accountability ("Yes, I committed bad acts A,B, and C")-- but it still did not require the perpetrator to express any personal stance toward the moral nature of those acts. Many victims were eagerly looking for expressions of remorse, but sadly few got them.
I found at the ICTR in Arusha, and inside Rwanda, that many survivors of the Rwandan genocide were also looking for expressions of remorse from their erstwhile tormenters. Some said they got something satisfactory in that regard from convicted militia leader Omar Serushago-- but notably not from former premier Jean Kambanda. Like Serushago, Kambanda had given a "technical" confession of his crimes; but in doing so, he expressed no remorse.
... More than enough on those topics for a future post! Meanwhile, I'll await the news of Mme. Sirleaf's election bid with huge interest. It would be nice to imagine that a female president in Africa would not end up acting like a "Big Man".
Posted by: Helena Cobban at October 24, 2005 03:34 PMMay I borrow your thread to ask a more theoretical question: Why is peace such a weak force in our lives while conflict is such a strong force?
Comparatively, by way of explanation, Professor Lisa Randall is a noted theoretical physicist at Harvard University and the author of Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Dimensions. She was and is plagued by an overriding question: Why is gravity such a weak force in the universe? “You might find it hard to imagine gravity as a weak force, but consider,” says Dr. Randall, “that a small magnet can hold up a paper clip, even though the entire earth is pulling down on it.”
I have a similar passion in a wholly unrelated discipline: Why is peace such a weak force in humanity? I, am impressed by the relatively weak force that it takes to eliminate or frustrate peace. I have written elsewhere about what I call the Incompatibility Principle: conflict is incompatible with peace and peacemaking efforts. That is to say, intrude the conflict into any peacemaking dialogue and the former will inevitably consume the latter. In a rational setting this should not be the case.
I know that to many this principle seems self-evident, yet we continually misapply it. In so many mediations, Fisher and Ury notwithstanding, we try to settle disputes by returning to positions over the conflict, with the effect that the mediation almost inevitably breaks down. Presently, in Iraq, we have seen an administration that believes that application of conflict will evoke a population of peace lovers, which would embrace us and beg for Chiclets. If the Incompatibility Principle is so elementary, whence this kind of complete disregard of it at the highest levels of geopolitics? Dare I suggest that there is an overriding attraction toward conflict that is a part of the fabric of the human species?
But my purpose is not to argue a past thesis. Is peace really a value? We know that justice, however defined, and in whatever context, is a value. It is the ultimate value. But other than in old Irish folk songs (…they’re rollin’ out the guns again, but they’ll niver take me sons again…), peace has only really gained credibility as a value since the establishment of the United Nations (see Articles 2 and 51 of the UN Charter).
Your ruminations about the search for expressions of remorse, contrition and possible retribution, and the obstacles these pose for peace, suggest a possible antithetical relationship between the peace value and the justice value. Ms. Cobbins, I like your predilection for a future-oriented justice: “But ‘justice going forward’ does seem to me rightly to outrank questions of ‘justice looking back’, even if we could all agree on what ‘justice looking back’ ought to look like.” I read your ‘justice going forward’ as another expression of the peace value, which you prefer to a return to the conflict or conflict setting. (Is this not recognition of the Incompatibility Principle, clothed in the parlance of justice?)
If it is true that we disturb peace because of injustice, is it not also true that we disturb justice for peace?
Anyway, I'm sorry to hijack your thread. Your dialogue has obviously piqued my interest. I am so late in posting, however, my comments will probably not be seen.
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