Amnesty as a Foundation for Peacebuilding: An Assessment of the Contribution of Amnesty to Conflict Resolution and Sustainable Peace in Uganda.

Innocent MURAMUZI

Institut d’Enseignement Superieur de Ruhengeri

Musanze, Rwanda, P.O.B. 155 Musanze

Email address: muramu2001@yahoo.com

Received on 31 May 2016; accepted on 25 August 2016; published October 2016

Peacebuilding is a process of trying to restore cordial normal relations between people or groups of people especially after a conflict. It requires the reconciliation of differences, apology and forgiveness of past harm and the establishment of a co-operative relationship between groups, replacing the adversarial one that existed during conflict. Good governance is the efficient, effective exercise of authority with participation, interest and livelihood of the governed as a driving force. Peacebuilding is a foundation of good governance but this foundation needs a lot of resources including time as well as the support of all stakeholders in a country to have a common vision for the future if they are to achieve good governance.

The objective of this study was to determine the limitations of the contribution of amnesty to peacebuilding, conflict resolution and sustainable peace which are foundations for good governance. This study was guided by the desire of peacebuilding for good governance through amnesty. This was so because many wars have been fought in Africa which have greatly destabilised peacebuilding efforts on the continent and extremely dented its good governance credentials.

The results show that peacebuilding through peaceful means like granting amnesty can easily encourage peacebuilding and with the achievement of sustainable peace in a country, good governance can be consequently enjoyed. The findings are beneficial to academicians, policy makers, NGO’s, peace negotiators and politicians as far as they will be painting a green picture in the use of peacebuilding mechanisms to build peace if we are to achieve sustainable peace and good governance.

The mission behind this study was to establish why amnesty in Uganda has not contributed to peacebuilding and end of conflict given the fact that the Amnesty Act (2000) was bent to ending all armed rebellion in the country since it gave a window of opportunity to all reporters as it guaranteed no charge at all to all the reporters save the rebel leaders.

The study’s main objective was to determine how amnesty contributes to peacebuilding. And, the study’s specific objective was to assess the contribution of amnesty to conflict resolution and sustainable in Uganda. The study used both quantitative and qualitative study designs. A questionnaire was used to collect data from one thousand respondents spread throughout the five districts sampled each from Uganda’s five regions. In addition, one-on-one interviews were held with several key informants like reporters, Resident District Commissioners of the sampled districts, staff of NGOs that were involved in the receiving of reporters, some sections of the security apparatus, lawyers and religious leaders.

Key words: Amnesty, Peacebuilding, Sustainable peace, Good governance, Conflict, Conflict resolution Introduction

1

A strong building always lies on a strong foundation. Therefore, any peacebuilding initiative and good governance need to be built on a strong foundation. This strong foundation is an amalgam of several initiatives; and one of them is amnesty. The term amnesty is derived from a Greek word amnestia which means forgetfulness or oblivion (Weisman (1972) & Young (2001)). Amnesty can also be defined as the action of a government by which all persons or certain groups of persons who have committed a criminal offense usually of a political nature that threatens the sovereignty of the government such as sedition or treason are granted immunity from prosecution (Amnesty Commission Report, 2013). This legal pardon does not involve when the president exercises his right of prerogative of mercy to forgive other criminals on death row or other long sentences like life imprisonment. It also conventionally does not involve pardon for war crimes and crimes against humanity under the 1988 Rome Statute.

This forgetfulness and intentional oblivion are meant to implore the victims and relatives of the deceased to forget what happened to them or their loved ones for the sake of peace. For quite some time now, amnesty has been used as a peace building measure the world over. But unfortunately, amnesty in Uganda did not achieve its intended purpose of building peace using peaceful means since its promulgation in 2000 todate (Amnesty Act, 2000). It was there the purpose of this study to find out why amnesty in Uganda did not achieve its intended purpose. The discussion below is a summary of respondents’ views on the questions put to them.

Background to the Study

With the enactment and promulgation of the Amnesty Act (2000), it was highly anticipated that all armed rebellions in Uganda would cease. But unfortunately, we still have rebels in the bush to date. It is against this situation that this study was done to find out the reasons why amnesty in Uganda has not achieved conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

This study entitled; “Amnesty as a Foundation for Peacebuilding: An Assessment of the Contribution of Amnesty to Conflict Resolution and Sustainable Peace in Uganda” was destined to assess what amnesty has achieved and what it has not achieved in Uganda in ending armed activities in the country. It shed more light on why conflict resolution mechanisms should always employ peaceful methods in resolving conflicts such as amnesty if we are to achieve conflict resolution and sustainable peace in Uganda in these modern times.

This is however not always an easy task to implement but, nevertheless, has to be undertaken. Sarat & Hussain (2007) contend that amnesty is that part of the peace treaty that represents the essence of the treaty as a whole. Peace treaties have been signed all over the world usually at the end of violent conflicts and usually end with peace treaties granting amnesty to the belligerents.

Problem Statement

Uganda has had challenges of building sustainable peace since independence to date because our political life has been characterized by incessant coups and counter coups as evidenced by the fact that there has never been a peaceful and ceremonious transfer of power from one president to another since independence to date. Therefore, with the enactment and promulgation of the Amnesty Act (2000), it was anticipated that all armed rebellions in Uganda would cease since amnesty granted a window of opportunity to the reporters as they could come back to Uganda without any fear of being tried in courts of law. But unfortunately, Uganda still has rebels in the bush to date despite the existence amnesty. It is against this situation that this study was carried out.