Forgiveness, amnesty and justice
| Date | 01 March 2011 |
| Published date | 01 March 2011 |
| Author | Renée Jeffery |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836710396853 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Cooperation and Conflict
46(1) 78–95
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0010836710396853
cac.sagepub.com
Forgiveness, amnesty and
justice: The case of the
Lord’s Resistance Army in
northern Uganda
Renée Jeffery
Abstract
The practice of forgiveness in processes of conflict resolution and post-conflict justice is
confronted by two sets of serious criticisms. First, scholars and practitioners alike have questioned
whether or not the fundamentally interpersonal practice of forgiveness can be readily and
legitimately transposed to broader socio-political contexts. Second, questions have also been
raised concerning the potential for forgiveness, particularly when associated with amnesties, to
jeopardize and even circumvent the application of justice in post-conflict contexts. By contrast,
supporters argue that forgiveness is not only possible but necessar y in politics and, by drawing a
distinction between amnesties and forgiveness, and restorative and retributive forms of justice ,
that forgiveness contributes to the achievement of restorative justice. By analysing the role that
forgiveness is playing in bringing almost two decades of conflict between the Lord’s Resistance
Army and the Ugandan government to an end, this article demonstrates that a disjuncture
exists between the theoretical treatment of forgiveness and the practice of political forgiveness.
That is, it demonstrates, contrary to arguments made by both its supporters and critics, that
political forgiveness, even when conceived in conjunction with amnesties, may contribute to both
restorative and retributive forms of justice.
Keywords
amnesty, forgiveness, Lord’s Resistance Army, restorative justice
Introduction
In November 2007, the Ugandan government and its ‘erstwhile enemy’, the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA), embarked on a ‘forgiveness tour’ of conflict-ravaged northern
Uganda (Okeowo, 2007). The aim of the tour was to garner support for a programme of
traditional justice ceremonies designed to bring a permanent end to humanitarian atroci-
ties committed by the LRA over the past two decades. Prior to the tour, both parties
Corresponding author:
Dr Renée Jeffery, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia.
[email: r.jeffery@griffith.edu.au]
Jeffery 79
argued that forgiveness, manifested in the granting of amnesties and the application of
traditional justice, constituted the most expedient way to bring an extremely violent con-
flict to an end. In doing so, they sought to circumvent processes of formal legal justice
being pursued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had seen arrest warrants
issued for the leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, and four of his associates.1 In particular,
the decision to pursue forgiveness was underpinned by a strong sense that achieving the
sort of retributive justice meted out by the ICC was of secondary importance to restoring
stability to Ugandan society.
Despite a recent flurry of interest in the practice (Digeser, 2001; Govier, 2002; Bole
et al., 2004; Amstutz, 2005), however, forgiveness remains a highly controversial
approach to conflict resolution and post-conflict justice. In particular, two sets of criti-
cisms dominate debate about the place of forgiveness in politics, both domestic and
international. The first raises doubts over the legitimacy of transposing the fundamen-
tally interpersonal practice of forgiveness to the socio-political realm (Griswold, 2007:
179), while the second is concerned with its ‘potential for short-circuiting justice’
(Digeser, 1998: 701). In particular, the customary operationalization of political forgive-
ness in the practice of granting amnesties renders it susceptible to the claim that it
unfairly accords the perpetrators of wrongs impunity for their actions. Critics of forgive-
ness thus routinely argue that it is only by pursuing formal legal processes at either the
domestic or international levels that justice will be served (Orentlicher, 1990–91;
Ssenyonjo, 2007: 54).
In response to these criticisms, supporters argue that forgiveness is not only applica-
ble to politics but constitutes an instrument of justice (Shriver, 2003; Amstutz, 2005). In
doing so, they draw on two analytical distinctions: between forgiveness and amnesty, and
between retributive and restorative forms of justice. Forgiveness is thus characterized not
as circumventing justice through institutionalized processes of forgetting often associ-
ated with amnesties, but as an instrument of restorative justice designed to bring about
peace (Hovil and Quinn, 2005).
However, the case of the LRA in northern Uganda reveals that the practice of political
forgiveness does not always adhere to this set of neat and tidy analytical distinctions.
That is, a disjuncture exists between the theoretical treatment of forgiveness and the
practice of political forgiveness. In particular, this article demonstrates that in this case
neither the analytical distinction between forgiveness and amnesty, nor the theoretical
association of forgiveness with restorative forms of justice, is borne out in the practical
application of political forgiveness. To do so, it utilizes a range of materials including
several large-scale surveys of Ugandan attitudes to forgiveness, amnesty, peace and jus-
tice (Hovil and Lomo, 2005; Hovil and Quinn, 2005; Pham et al., 2005, 2007). Although
it does not draw on the specific statistical data generated by these studies, it does look to
the general trends they identify in how the Ugandan population, as well as particular sec-
tors of it, think that post-conflict justice processes operate and ought to operate. By
combining these findings with a range of scholarly works and in-country studies, the
article provides a broad-based portrayal of the complicated relationship between amnesty,
forgiveness and justice in northern Uganda from the perspectives of the state, the
International Criminal Court, the individual victims of the LRA, the wider community
and, although to a lesser extent, the LRA itself.
To continue reading
Request your trial