Mato Oput is a Cloak of Impunity in northern Uganda (II)
Proponents of mato oput
Advocates and promoters of mato oput can be loosely divided into four subgroups with their international barnacles. The first group are a section of Acholi elite imbued with imposed self-doubt and collective guilt, who are emotionally and mentally dazed and dizzied by twenty-one years of violence, blood and death, and have internalised Museveni and NRM/A propaganda of Acholi collective complicity in Uganda’s historical socio-political pathology, perceiving their current predicaments as some just divine retributions for past evil deeds of their forebears or kith and kin. For them, mato oput is just penitence.
The second group of Acholi who embrace mato oput and support its use in northern Uganda over post-Nuremberg international humanitarian and human rights norms and special war crimes tribunal practices, are those who see its adoption as a matter of cultural pride and international recognition for an otherwise obscure and nationally marginalised minority group. While the sentiments of this group flow from a needed cultural self-assertiveness and objective displeasures with self-serving West European realist and racist international moral order and political domination, its parochial emotional impetus isolates them from the preponderant imperatives for efficacious justice and deterrent opprobrium for which tested and predictable international humanitarian and human rights laws are axiomatic.
The third and fourth groups are the belligerents in the northern Uganda conflict theatre- Joseph Kony and the LRM/A, and Yoweri Museveni and the NRM/A. These indicted and implicated war criminals are amenable to mato oput because it offers both parties a cloak of impunity that seeks to shield them from international scrutiny and accountability for their respective roles in the northern Uganda genocide. For the LRM/A, there is nothing they want out of the war termination model of settlements more than reintegration into normal society as free men and women without any formal trial, possible conviction, imprisonment and stigmatisation as murderers, rapists and perpetrators of genocide.
For Museveni and the NRM/A, it suits them well for mato oput to give credence to their propaganda that the northern insurgency was nothing more than an internal Acholi brigandage by remnants of a former criminal state army dislodged from power, who resumed a life of violent robbery and murder among their own people, who in turn rejected them. According to Museveni and the NRM/A, insurgencies in Acholi were rebel retributions on the Acholi for their rejection by the population. Therefore, mato oput is the best way to reconcile these criminals with their own kith and kin whom they have victimised over the years. In other words, the NRM/A or the Ugandan state had no role in the destructive consequences of the war; the rationality being that the LRM/A was not fighting the Ugandan state or that the Ugandan state was not contested. Therefore, the state has no actions and behaviour to account for, and there is no role for international justice institutions for what has gone on in northern Uganda, because the LRM/A criminal activities can be competently handled by municipal laws, and also by the Acholi traditional jurisprudence of mato oput. However, international justice in the form of the ICC, is conveniently welcome to complement mato oput, as long as its focus is limited to non-state parties and the LRA.
The main purpose of such arguments is to deflect international focus away from the state’s own counter-insurgency strategies and tactics under the principles of jus in bello, and shield as well as absolve state elements from culpability and any role by action and behaviour of their troops and officials, in the perpetration of the northern Uganda genocide. But the history of this war tells a different story; a narrative that mato oput as a model is ill-equipped to grapple with.
Accordingly, stumbling blocks to a just peace and preventing future conflicts in Uganda stem from the following actions:
Adoption of mato oput as an exclusive or major plank for concluding peace and resolving the northern Uganda conflict;
Rejection of the ICC indictments of the LRA, and reluctance and refusal by the ICC to expand its investigations to cover all parties to the conflict; indict, try and punish both state and non-state parties convicted of their roles in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the northern Uganda genocide;
Scare-mongering that the ICC indictments are impeding resolution of the conflict and peace for northern Uganda; and speculations that the LRA will resume offensive stance should the Juba Peace talks fail.
There is no doubt that both the LRA and the Uganda government are afraid of the ICC indictments and the possibility of expanding its investigations to cover all belligerents in the northern Uganda conflict. An expanded ICC investigation would mean bringing the behaviour and actions of the UPDF and state officials under international scrutiny, expert examination of evidence and possible trial and cross examination of witnesses. This would not be welcome development by the regime in Kampala. Therefore, rather than acting as a setback, the ICC indictments of the LRA and possible indictments of Museveni and elements of the UPDF are a boon to the prospects for peace in northern Uganda. What may drive the LRA back into their trenches is not the ICC indictments, but their politicised, partial and selective applications that have cut holes through the net of international justice large enough for Museveni and his henchmen to wiggle through. Were there possibility of the ICC considering dragooning both Joseph Kony and Yoweri Museveni to the docks at the ICC, everyone around the table at the Juba peace talks would be at their best behaviour and none speaking out of turn.
In any case, the fears of a return to war by either party, particularly the LRA, are based on fanciful talks and speculations, rather than on any hard evidence of war preparations and credible intent. Nonetheless, were the subjects of these speculations even likely, the best means to dissuade a return to hot conflict is not through mato oput, but through international and national support for the ICC indictments of the LRA and the expansion of its investigations to include Museveni and his generals and let the evidence rather than political decisions, implicate and convict or inculpate them in the erection of the architecture and perpetration of genocide in northern Uganda. Failing that, an international tribunal for northern Uganda would be the best hope for a just peace.
Advocates and promoters of mato oput can be loosely divided into four subgroups with their international barnacles. The first group are a section of Acholi elite imbued with imposed self-doubt and collective guilt, who are emotionally and mentally dazed and dizzied by twenty-one years of violence, blood and death, and have internalised Museveni and NRM/A propaganda of Acholi collective complicity in Uganda’s historical socio-political pathology, perceiving their current predicaments as some just divine retributions for past evil deeds of their forebears or kith and kin. For them, mato oput is just penitence.
The second group of Acholi who embrace mato oput and support its use in northern Uganda over post-Nuremberg international humanitarian and human rights norms and special war crimes tribunal practices, are those who see its adoption as a matter of cultural pride and international recognition for an otherwise obscure and nationally marginalised minority group. While the sentiments of this group flow from a needed cultural self-assertiveness and objective displeasures with self-serving West European realist and racist international moral order and political domination, its parochial emotional impetus isolates them from the preponderant imperatives for efficacious justice and deterrent opprobrium for which tested and predictable international humanitarian and human rights laws are axiomatic.
The third and fourth groups are the belligerents in the northern Uganda conflict theatre- Joseph Kony and the LRM/A, and Yoweri Museveni and the NRM/A. These indicted and implicated war criminals are amenable to mato oput because it offers both parties a cloak of impunity that seeks to shield them from international scrutiny and accountability for their respective roles in the northern Uganda genocide. For the LRM/A, there is nothing they want out of the war termination model of settlements more than reintegration into normal society as free men and women without any formal trial, possible conviction, imprisonment and stigmatisation as murderers, rapists and perpetrators of genocide.
For Museveni and the NRM/A, it suits them well for mato oput to give credence to their propaganda that the northern insurgency was nothing more than an internal Acholi brigandage by remnants of a former criminal state army dislodged from power, who resumed a life of violent robbery and murder among their own people, who in turn rejected them. According to Museveni and the NRM/A, insurgencies in Acholi were rebel retributions on the Acholi for their rejection by the population. Therefore, mato oput is the best way to reconcile these criminals with their own kith and kin whom they have victimised over the years. In other words, the NRM/A or the Ugandan state had no role in the destructive consequences of the war; the rationality being that the LRM/A was not fighting the Ugandan state or that the Ugandan state was not contested. Therefore, the state has no actions and behaviour to account for, and there is no role for international justice institutions for what has gone on in northern Uganda, because the LRM/A criminal activities can be competently handled by municipal laws, and also by the Acholi traditional jurisprudence of mato oput. However, international justice in the form of the ICC, is conveniently welcome to complement mato oput, as long as its focus is limited to non-state parties and the LRA.
The main purpose of such arguments is to deflect international focus away from the state’s own counter-insurgency strategies and tactics under the principles of jus in bello, and shield as well as absolve state elements from culpability and any role by action and behaviour of their troops and officials, in the perpetration of the northern Uganda genocide. But the history of this war tells a different story; a narrative that mato oput as a model is ill-equipped to grapple with.
Accordingly, stumbling blocks to a just peace and preventing future conflicts in Uganda stem from the following actions:
Adoption of mato oput as an exclusive or major plank for concluding peace and resolving the northern Uganda conflict;
Rejection of the ICC indictments of the LRA, and reluctance and refusal by the ICC to expand its investigations to cover all parties to the conflict; indict, try and punish both state and non-state parties convicted of their roles in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the northern Uganda genocide;
Scare-mongering that the ICC indictments are impeding resolution of the conflict and peace for northern Uganda; and speculations that the LRA will resume offensive stance should the Juba Peace talks fail.
There is no doubt that both the LRA and the Uganda government are afraid of the ICC indictments and the possibility of expanding its investigations to cover all belligerents in the northern Uganda conflict. An expanded ICC investigation would mean bringing the behaviour and actions of the UPDF and state officials under international scrutiny, expert examination of evidence and possible trial and cross examination of witnesses. This would not be welcome development by the regime in Kampala. Therefore, rather than acting as a setback, the ICC indictments of the LRA and possible indictments of Museveni and elements of the UPDF are a boon to the prospects for peace in northern Uganda. What may drive the LRA back into their trenches is not the ICC indictments, but their politicised, partial and selective applications that have cut holes through the net of international justice large enough for Museveni and his henchmen to wiggle through. Were there possibility of the ICC considering dragooning both Joseph Kony and Yoweri Museveni to the docks at the ICC, everyone around the table at the Juba peace talks would be at their best behaviour and none speaking out of turn.
In any case, the fears of a return to war by either party, particularly the LRA, are based on fanciful talks and speculations, rather than on any hard evidence of war preparations and credible intent. Nonetheless, were the subjects of these speculations even likely, the best means to dissuade a return to hot conflict is not through mato oput, but through international and national support for the ICC indictments of the LRA and the expansion of its investigations to include Museveni and his generals and let the evidence rather than political decisions, implicate and convict or inculpate them in the erection of the architecture and perpetration of genocide in northern Uganda. Failing that, an international tribunal for northern Uganda would be the best hope for a just peace.
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