Foundation For Peace Research Articles

Forgiveness as a Solution to the Northern Uganda Civil War: Opportunities and Challenges

In Northern Uganda, a rebel group called the Lord's Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony has been fighting the government since the mid-1980s in what has become Africa's longest civil war. It is estimated that more than 100,000 people have died in the civil war while others have had their lips, ears or limbs cut off and thousands of children have been abducted as fighters, laborers, and concubines. This violence, in turn, produced more than 1.8 million Internally Displaced Peoples Camps, throughout Northern Uganda. Many Northerners blame the Ugandan government for forcing them into inhumane camps and for failing to protect them from the marauding LRA.Militaristic attempts by the Government to defeat the rebels has proved futile, as a result, the Government has resorted to peace talks as an alternative solution to the civil war. The Northerners see the peace talks as the only hope and lasting solution to peace in Northern Uganda. The question that remains is; what will be done to the perpetuators of these crimes when the peace talks finally bear fruits? Legal means such as trying the perpetuators in the courts of law has been considered with the Government recently setting up a special division in the high court to try the rebels. Non legal means such as forgiveness has also been considered as a way of dealing with the rebels. The Acholi and other Northern tribes of Uganda do have a longstanding tradition of resolving intra-tribal disputes through apology, negotiation, compensation, and forgiveness. The Acholi people have used mato put - blood atonement - for centuries. They believe that killing a person makes you unstable. By ceremonially cleansing his soul, the former soldier would exorcise the evil spirits.This paper seeks to analyze what is considered to be the cause of the civil war in northern Uganda. It argues that a solution to the civil war cannot be found unless the cause of the civil war is first taken into account.The paper will define and discuss the nature of forgiveness and evaluate the significance of forgiveness as the solution to the long standing civil war in Northern Uganda. The paper argues that the tribal ways of resolving disputes through forgiveness are alive and well, and can serve as a firm foundation for peace. The Acholi tribal chiefs will be able to devise an effective system for mass reconciliation through traditional methods.\The paper also argues that a rule of traditional justice such as the Acholi mato oput, has its weaknesses in that once the case has been addressed through the traditional process, the matter is put to rest and it is forbidden to speak of it again. This is argued that it would significantly hamper any other approach to justice and reconciliation and may inculcate the spirit of revenge in the victims of the civil war against their perpetuators.The paper also discusses the challenges to the option of forgiveness as a means of healing the wounds of the civil war and concludes by making recommendations that can be put in place while applying forgiveness to solve the long standing civil war.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items---reprinted articles, statistics, and maps---pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps——pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Cross Border Health Cooperation in Complicated Regions: The Case of the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network

The spread of avian influenza and other naturally occurring or man-made biological threats presents a grave security threat to the world. Dramatic increases in the worldwide movement of people and goods and uneven public health systems heighten this vulnerability. No country is immune and global economic and political stability could fall victim to a pandemic too. Reducing the danger requires preparedness and monitoring. Rapid identification, information sharing, and response protocols are critical to limit the perils of pathogenic threats. Although the peril is great, so too is the promise of building cooperation and a foundation for peace regionally and globally through disease surveillance, detection, and response.Cases of emerging health cooperation in infectious disease control among traditional adversaries in the Middle East, the Mekong Basin, East and Southern Africa, and the Balkans may provide important insights into the motives and methods of building regional and global health cooperation. Using these 'least likely' cases, the larger project of which this case is a part explores empirically several contending, but untested, hypotheses suggested by the global health diplomacy literature to determine, 'Why is public health cooperation occurring among traditional antagonists and does health cooperation spillover into other functional areas?' In addition, these regional initiatives - which involve states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and private actors - may inform questions of transnational problem solving for both scholars of global governance and practitioners and policymakers engaged in safeguarding this dimension of national and international security. Practitioners and governance scholars will be able to look to this study for answers to a related question, that is: 'How is this form of cooperation instigated, nurtured, institutionalized, and extended to other issue areas?'This presentation investigates sub-regional cooperation in infectious disease control among the six countries that border the Mekong River. As the most established of several sub-regional networks worldwide, the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network (MBDS) may hold important lessons for understanding the basis for cooperation and the mechanisms for effective transnational governance.

Living with Fear: A Population-Based Survey on Attitudes about Peace, Justice, and Social Reconstruction in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Two years after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) held its first elections since independence, the country is at a crossroads. Among the key challenges facing the DRC today is the question of how the country will address the massive human rights atrocities of its recent past to establish a foundation for peace and security, the rule of law, and respect for human rights to prevail in the future. The 2006 elections capped an era of international armed conflict and massive violence in the DRC that began with Laurent Desire Kabila’s 1996-97 campaign to liberate Congo from decades of repressive rule under Mobutu Sese Seko. The advent of an elected government sets the stage for state-building initiatives focusing on governance and critical long-term institutional reform in the security and justice sectors. Yet armed conflict and mass violence continue to plague eastern DRC.This report presents the results of a population survey undertaken by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the Payson Center at Tulane University, and the International Center for Transitional Justice. Focusing on areas most affected by conflict in eastern DRC, surveys were conducted from September to December 2007 among a sample population of 2,620 individuals in the Ituri district in Oriental province and the provinces of North and South Kivu. The report concentrates its analysis on the survey results in eastern DRC, but comparative interviews were also conducted among a sample population of 1,133 individuals in Kinshasa and Kisangani. The survey sought to assess exposure to violence among the population, understand the priorities and needs of Congolese civilians affected by the conflicts, and capture attitudes about peace, social reconstruction, and transitional justice mechanisms.

Environment and Peacebuilding in War-torn Societies: Lessons from the UN Environment Programme’s Experience with Postconflict Assessment

Environmental challenges create high-stakes choices in war-torn societies. Handled well, they may create a solid foundation for peace and sustainable development; handled poorly, they risk undercutting an already tenuous peace. In this article, we identify patterns and lessons from the work of the UN Environment Programme's Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, which has conducted postconflict assessments in several war-torn societies over the past decade. PCDMB's experience sheds considerable light on the nature of conflict-related environmental challenges, identifies possible entry points for environmental initiatives in peacebuilding, and suggests cautions about the requirements for environmental initiatives to be peacebuilding tools. We identify four themes emerging from their work: the multiple and often indirect links between violent conflict and environmental degradation; the political dimensions of environmental assessment as a confidence-building tool; resource and environmental linkages ...

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps——pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps——pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps––pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items––reprinted articles, statistics, and maps––pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps––pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Peace, Justice and Transition in Colombia: Current Problems

This article is a revised version of a speech given at the University of Medellin, Colombia, September 2007. This speech was internally published by the university because of its critical importance to the crisis of transitional justice in the state. The internal publication is titled: ¿Qué tan alternativas son las justicias alternativas? (Grupo de Investigaciones en Derecho Procesal). This revised version is submitted with the permission of the Department of Procedural Law at the University of Medellín, by the author.The fundamental theme of the piece is transitional justice. The concept emerged from the indeterminate nature of many post-war internal national conflicts. These conflicts were often sponsored by the superpowers who dominated the Cold War world. As the Cold War began to recede, these conflicts came to be seen in terms of genuine interest and concerns or as implicating irrational concerns and often as in the case of Colombia, the broader influence of organized crime cartels.We provide a reconstruction of the foundations of conflict in Colombia, and review the shifting justifications and alliances that have given it an unending interminable challenge for peace and proper political development. In Colombia, there is the question of violence itself as an essential consequence and condition of continuing violence. Thus, Colombia represents a complex challenge for national, regional and international policy making about how to contain the violence with sufficient efficacy and coherence to permit the strengthening of a democratic rule of law based dispensation.The article seeks to provide a more coherent description and justification of the emergence of the diverse paradigms of transitional justice, which effectually might be seen as an important gloss on the nature of international justice and peace. We review the Colombia experience from a comparative and international law perspective. It provides a critique of Colombia's "criminal justice model" and suggests that their broader sanctioning objectives inherent in transitional justice cannot be effectively accommodated in a system which provides excessive deference to the criminal justice mode as a foundation for peace and justice in Colombia.The article provides the broad outlines of a more informed comparative and international appraisal of modern approaches to transitional justice. There is recognition that each specific situation has many distinctive and unique elements, which challenge the efficacy and application of the diverse approaches to this problem. Colombia, it is suggested, has a system that requires significant modifications to respond to the problems confronting the state.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps––pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps——pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material. Major documents relating to settlements appear in the Documents and Source Material section.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps——pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material. Major documents relating to settlements appear in the Documents and Source Material section.

The U.S. Financial Sanctions against North Korea

In September 2005, the U.S. imposed financial restrictions on North Korea after blaming the North for illicit financial activities, including counterfeiting and money‐laundering. The U.S. financial sanctions against the North had direct and immediate impact on the ongoing six‐party negotiations on North Korea's nuclear issue. North Korea insisted on the lifting of U.S. financial sanctions as the precondition for returning to the negotiating table and consequently the six‐party talks on North Korea's nuclear issue stalled. The third session of the fifth round of six‐party talks in February 2007 produced an important accord on North Korea's nuclear question. This agreement was made possible after the U.S. and the DPRK reached a compromise on the financial sanctions issue. This article discusses the U.S. financial sanctions against North Korea and their implications for North Korea's nuclear question. It begins with an overview of the U.S. financial restrictions. This study then examines the nexus between the financial sanctions and the impasse at the six‐party talks on North Korea's nuclear issue. This is followed by a discussion of the breakthrough on the financial restrictions issue and the landmark agreement on North Korea's nuclear issue in February 2007. In this study, the authors argue that a mutually satisfactory resolution of the BDA dispute holds the key to a peaceful settlement of the second North Korean nuclear crisis. With the BDA dispute behind, the six‐party talks should gain momentum and prepare a road map for implementing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Both the U.S. and North Korea should not miss this golden opportunity and make earnest efforts to build a firm foundation for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps——pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material. Major documents relating to settlements appear in the Documents and Source Material section.

Peacekeeping and Conformity with Human Rights Law: How MINUSTAH Falls Short in Haiti

This article uses the UN mission to Haiti to demonstrate how present efforts to integrate human rights in peace operations are at best marginal and at worst a violation of UN members' human rights obligations. It highlights the growing division between the UN's theoretical understanding and practice in this context. The UN has acknowledged the need to address root causes of conflict (including violations of economic, social and cultural rights) and how respect for these helps to combat poverty and facilitates good governance thereby building the foundation for sustainable peace. This recognition is trumped in practice by the way in which money is disbursed in the UN system and by bureaucratic in-fighting. The article contends that human rights law can be used as a vehicle to overcome this gap between UN understanding and practice.

Technology, Health, Impairment and Disability: An historical overview

Pia Rockhold reflects on the concepts of health, impairment and disability in the context of the technological evolution and development over time and space. New technology is often seen as the solution to our problems, but what have these technologies done for us over time? She argues that equity and equality must be the foundation for global peace and sustainable development.

Settlement Monitor

This section covers items——reprinted articles, statistics, and maps——pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material. Major documents relating to settlements appear in the Documents and Source Material section.