Allen - Trial Justice: the International Criminal Court and the Lords Resistance Army

Critical praise for this book

This is an important contribution to the current debate on the relationship between peace and international justice I enjoyed reading it and learnt much from it an excellent work. JUSTICE RICHARD GOLDSTONE, former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (The Hague Tribunal) and chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo.

An important and revealing account of efforts to resolve a bitter, exploitative, and under reported conflict that the international community should, and could have ended many, many years ago. Tim Allen has provided an early insight into the problems of resorting to the International Criminal Court in so challenging a circumstance. If the ICC cannot work to resolve a twenty year conflict with the lives of thousands of vulnerable young children at its core, when can it work? JON SNOW, broadcaster

Presents powerful and empirical support for the relevance of the ICC in one of the worlds worst humanitarian disasters. DAVID KEEN, author of Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone and The Benefits of Famine

Trial Justice is a timely and important contribution to a critical and often contentious debate about the role of international criminal justice in times of war and peace. ERIC STOVER, author of The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague, and Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Critical praise for this book

Tim Allen has written a gripping and affirmative account of the complex encounter between international criminal law and African realities. MARY KALDOR, author of New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance

A seminal work that carefully evaluates the conflict that has raged in the region for nearly twenty years. Allen is an anthropologist who has been working in Northern Uganda for some time. His work, therefore, is of significant value. He is one of a handful of authors whose writing is supported by a deep knowledge and clear understanding of both the social complexities and the political realities of the region. JOANNA QUINN, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, commenting on a draft of the book in Transitional Justice Forum (http://tj-forum.org/archives/001506.html)

Tim Allen has written a provocative and illuminating analysis of the emerging practice of a new and potentially significant player in international affairs: the ICC. JENNY KUPER, author of International Law Concerning Child Civilians in Armed Conflict and Military Training and Children: Law, Policy and Practice

About the author

Dr Tim Allen is Reader in Development Studies at the London School of Economics. He has carried out long-term field research in Sudan and Uganda, and has also researched in other African countries, including Botswana, Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe. He has written extensively on issues of healing and suffering in Africa, on war-damaged populations, on aid programmes and on wider issues of international development. His publications include the bestselling textbook, Poverty and Development (edited with Alan Thomas, OUP), Divided Europeans (edited with John Eade, Kluwer), The Media of Conflict (edited with Jean Seaton, Zed Books), Culture and Global Change (edited with Tracey Skelton, Routledge), and two books on the repatriation and homecoming of African refugees.

His most recent work includes articles on HIV/AIDS policies in Uganda and Botswana. He is also a broadcaster and has presented or contributed to numerous radio programmes for the Open University and the BBC, including a series of eight programmes about Uganda for the World Service (broadcast in 2002). In 2001 he was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences for contributions in the application of anthropology to development issues.

TIM ALLEN

Trial justice

The International Criminal Court and the Lords Resistance Army

Zed Books

LONDON | NEW YORK

in association with

International African Institute

Trial justice: the International Criminal Court and the Lords Resistance Army was first published in 2006 by

in Southern Africa: David Philip (an imprint of New Africa Books) 99 Garfield Road, Claremont 7700, South Africa

in the rest of the world: Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

This ebook edition was first published in 2013

in association with the International African Institute, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG, UK

Paperback edition published in 2011

Copyright Tim Allen, 2006

The right of Tim Allen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Cover designed by Andrew Corbett
Set in Arnhem and Futura Bold by Ewan Smith, London
index: <>

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library US CIP data are available from the Library of Congress

All rights reserved

ISBN 978 1 84813 793 6

Contents

and healing

Illustrations

The massacre at Pagak in Gulu district, May 2004

Does justice dissipate the call for revenge? A survivor from an LRA attack in Lira district

Father Carlos Rodriguez (on the left) and other Christian leaders have been among those who have tried to keep talks going with the LRA

LRA soldiers posing with their guns: the youth squatting had just been abducted

LRA combatant and his wife posing in the bush

LRA soldiers in the bush at night: note that those on the right are wearing Arab dress

Trying on a new LRA uniform in Juba, Sudan

The LRA have been included in the Terrorist Exclusion List of the USA Patriot Act of 2001: an LRA soldier, probably photographed in Sudan, posing with an Osama bin Laden T-shirt

LRA soldiers meeting with an informant. The rebels rely heavily on such intelligence-gathering in some areas

Awere IDP camp on the border between Gulu and Pader districts. The picture shows the concentration of settlement in the camps. Fires are a constant threat

Pagak camp after it had been set on fire in 2004

Pigs scavenging around overflowing pit latrines at Agweng IDP camp in Lira district. It is hardly surprising that the mortality rate in the camp is so high

Waiting for the water pump to be turned on at Atiak IDP camp in Gulu district. Collecting a full container can take hours. The alternative is a filthy stream

Aid agency vehicles, some of them armour plated, make forays out to the IDP camps. Relief operations keep the whole system going. But is this really the best strategy?

A picture drawn by one of the people staying at the Rachele reception centre for those formerly abducted by the LRA in Lira town. The artist claimed to have witnessed or been made to participate in each of the acts depicted

An amnesty card: after returning from the LRA some people are issued with documents under the Amnesty Act

Mothers and their children were hacked to death at Pagak in May 2004. People at the camp had welcomed home a group of LRA soldiers. This was how the LRA responded