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UGANDA-FORGIVE Jan-8-2008 (920 words) With photos. xxxi
Priest says forgiveness should take precedence over justice in Uganda
By Paul Jeffrey
Catholic News Service
KITGUM, Uganda (CNS) -- As the 20-year war in northern Uganda begins to wind down, religious leaders are insisting that forgiveness take precedence over justice and are calling for the international community to back off from legal proceedings against the leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.
"We're asking the international community to reconsider the ICC (International Criminal Court) stand, on the basis of forgiveness, for the sake of peace. The entire Acholi population has said, 'Let us forgive for the sake of peace,'" said Father Matthew Ojara, pastor of Christ the King Parish in Kitgum and a member of the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative, an interfaith peace coalition.
Joseph Kony and four other rebel leaders were indicted in 2005 by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. They were charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape, sexual slavery and the enlisting of children as combatants. The court ordered their arrest by area governments, but Kony has said he will not surrender unless he is granted immunity from prosecution.
Peace talks in Juba, Sudan, produced a cease-fire in 2006, but the process currently is stalled over what will happen with Kony, who has taken refuge in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Acholi are the main ethnic group in northern Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army emerged in the aftermath of the 1986 overthrow of President Tito Okello, an ethnic Acholi, by forces from southern Uganda. The Acholi, who under British colonial rule had provided the country's soldiers and police, feared the erosion of their power, and many supported the beginnings of a guerrilla war against government forces.
Yet that campaign, under the leadership of Kony, a spirit medium who wants to install a theocratic state in Uganda, soon became a war against the Acholi themselves. And most of Kony's soldiers, many of them children, were recruited forcibly from Acholi villages. So while the Lord's Resistance Army has a long track record of abuses, those doing the abuse have been Acholi -- the same ethnic group as their victims. That moral ambiguity, where kidnapped youths are both the perpetrators and victims of brutality, underlies the discussion about forgiveness.
Kony has admitted to no wrongdoing, but a delegation of rebel officials who held a series of consultations with local communities throughout northern Uganda in late 2007 offered what Father Ojara said was close to an apology.
"The LRA delegation asked for forgiveness on behalf of the rebels. Among them were three military officers of the LRA, and they cannot ask for forgiveness on their own. They're also asking on behalf of their leader," Father Ojara told Catholic News Service.
Kony's refusal to personally acknowledge responsibility for his crimes does not trouble Father Ojara.
"On the cross, Jesus said to forgive the others because they didn't know what they were doing. Someone who doesn't know what they're doing can't say they're sorry, because they don't yet see the gravity of their sins. Yet the people, the ones who've been hurt, have already forgiven. You can forgive somebody even if they don't say they're sorry," Father Ojara said. "For true reconciliation to take place, one side eventually does need to say they're sorry. But forgiveness can be unilateral."
In lieu of letting the court try Kony, Father Ojara favors using a traditional Acholi form of justice, known as "mato oput," which seeks, often through elaborate negotiations, the restoration of relationships through truth-telling, accountability, forgiveness and reparations.
"We do not believe in punishment in the sense of imprisoning someone. Once reconciliation is done, you have to walk free and live with your brothers and sisters. There are no prison cells or house arrest. That's a Western practice," Father Ojara said. "People who don't live here have a hard time understanding this, but they haven't been affected directly by the war. There comes a moment when you say enough is enough. We have to forgive and sit down together. A suffering people can't surrender themselves to death. The way to peace is through forgiveness. We'll never attain peace through fighting, through crushing another human being."
Acknowledging that this Acholi form of justice has never been applied to crimes on such a massive scale as those committed by the Lord's Resistance Army, the priest said that "the essence is the same: the need for forgiveness and reconciliation. The rite may not be exactly the same; it may have to be modified. What's important is that we can forgive from the heart and embrace each other as brothers and sisters."
Compensation or reparation is also a traditional element of this form of justice, but the rebel group does not have resources to compensate families for tens of thousands of victims. Father Ojara said that is not a sticking point.
"People have been killed, property destroyed, children abducted. You cannot compensate every case," he said. "How would you pay for it? The offenders aren't in (a) position to give any compensation. And who can put flesh on the skeletons of thousands of children who died in the bush?
"The real question is how can we lift our people out of the pit into which they have fallen. That's where we can talk about compensation, about restoration. Maybe that means helping people rebuild livelihoods, build good roads and infrastructure, health centers and schools. ... That's where the world community can work with us to lift up the life of our people," said the priest.
END
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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