Of Justice and the Grave: The Role of the Dead in Post-conflict Uganda

Abstract

In the aftermath of war, survivors’ definitions of justice are often in tension with those of governments and international actors. While post-war northern Uganda has been the site of high-profile prosecutions of Lord’s Resistance Army rebels, our research in rural Acholiland highlights how survivors define justice largely in terms of material compensation for both the living and the dead. These priorities are linked to the omnipresence of improperly buried human remains as evidence of physical and structural violence. Mass graves, burials in former displacement camps, and unidentified remains become focal points around which survivors articulate ongoing socioeconomic suffering and demands for redress. A ‘thanatological approach’ that centres the role of the dead and critically explores the possibilities presented by forensic science in a transitional justice context reveals survivors’ prioritisation of reparative and restorative justice despite the international and national focus on retributive justice through institutions like the icc.

“Justice Futures”: Forensic Investigation and the Potential for Transformation in Eritrea

“…For a variety of reasons, some of them logistical, others political or cultural, not all categories of Eritrea's dead and disappeared might be recoverable -let alone identifi ableaccording to forensic scientifi c methods, a limitation that must be realistically communicated to survivors. But forensic investigations in other contexts have also illustrated the particular potency of both the process and the evidence for addressing issues ranging from accountability to reparations (see Horsti 2018; Kim and Redeker Hepner 2019;Koc-Menard 2014;Walker 2010). Can the very anticipation of forensic investigation into some of the specifi c incidents discussed here shape Eritrea's "justice futures" and, if so, how?…”

“…In Rwanda, offi cial narratives of truth and memory, forged during gacaca and other trials, have themselves turned limiting and repressive (Bouwknegt 2016;Th omson 2013). And in northern Uganda, survivors of the decades-long war between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda look with increasingly bitter scepticism on the national Draft Transitional Justice Policy as it remains unimplemented under the more than three decades' reign of President Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Army that perpetrated so much physical and structural violence (Kim and Redeker Hepner 2019).…”

“…Ugandan survivor communities have explored with researchers whether the opening of graves and the identifi cation of remains would or would not help them address the paramount issue of economic recovery, which they see as central to justice and reconciliation, given the loss of infrastructure, livestock and land due to war, displacement, and the presence of graves (Kim and Redeker Hepner 2019). Th e researchers have also located and documented graves or atrocity sites using basic archaeological mapping techniques and discussed with survivors how this could provide leverage to demand reparations under the National Draft Transitional Justice Policy by transforming intangible experience and memory into tangible evidence (Elgerud and Kim 2021).…”

Gaining Community Entry with Survivors for Forensic Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention

“…Estimates from the 1986—2006 conflict range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of deaths and missing [ 24 , 25 ]. Decades of war and internal displacement created a geography of mass, unmarked, and otherwise problematic graves [ 26 , 27 ]. For the last 10 years, a team of anthropologists has been working with rural community members of the most impacted of Uganda’s over 50 ethnic groups—the Acholi—Ugandan government officials, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to assess the desire, feasibility, and implementation of forensic capacity building and intervention [ 28 ].…”

“…In this context, current President Yoweri Museveni remains in power after governing during the war with the LRA. A number of mass graves and civilian deaths have been attributed to the National Resistance Army and its successor, the Uganda People’s Defence Force, complicating the potential for forensic intervention [ 20 , 23 , 27 ].…”