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Abstract
This paper examines the contestation over human rights norms between Acholi traditional authorities and everyday realities on the one hand, and international peacebuilding actors on the other. Within this contestation, the focus is on women’s and children’s rights. When implementing human rights programmes, some international peacebuilding actors presented culture and rights as conflictual and attributed human rights violations to culture. This created tension between Acholi traditional authorities and everyday realities on the one hand, and international peacebuilding actors on the other. The paper argues that Acholi traditional authorities responded to the ‘assault’ on Acholi cultural values by presenting alternative narratives of human rights violations, to show that culture and rights overlap and are not conflictual.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Low, “Dislocated Polity.”
2 Omara-Otunnu, “The Dynamics of Conflict in Uganda,” 224.
3 Collier and Reinikka, “Reconstruction and Liberalization: An Overview,” 15.
4 Republic of Uganda, Report of the Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs.
5 Pain, Bending of Spears.
6 Robert Gersony, Anguish of Northern Uganda.
7 Dolan and Hovil, Humanitarian Protection in Uganda.
8 Donnely, “Relative Universality of Human Rights,” 282; Pearce, “Human Rights and Sociology,” 48; Ake, “African Context of Human Rights,” 5.
9 Mutua, “Savages, Victims, and Saviours,” 205.
10 Cobbah, “African Values and Human Rights Debate.”
11 Ake, “African Context of Human Rights,” 5.
12 Panikkar, “Is the Concept of Human Rights a Western Concept?”
13 Pearce, “Human Rights and Sociology,” 49.
14 Cobbah, “African Values and Human Rights Debate,” 314.
15 Mutua, “Savages, Victims, and Saviours.”
16 Paris, At War’s End; Adebajo, UN Peacekeeping in Africa; Curtis, “Introduction. The Contested Politics of Peacebuilding.”
17 Boutros, An Agenda for Peace, 11.
18 Sabaratnam, Decolonizing Intervention. International Peacebuilding in Mozambique.
19 Paris, “Saving Liberal Peacebuilding”; Forman and Patrick, “Introduction”; Kumar, “Nature and Focus of International Assistance.”
20 Lund, “From Lessons to Action,” 165.
21 Paris, “Saving Liberal Peacebuilding”; Paris, At War’s End; Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars.
22 Sabaratnam, Decolonizing Intervention. International Peacebuilding in Mozambique, 4.
23 Geldenhuys, Foreign Political Engagement.
24 Schellhaas and Seegers, “Peacebuilding: Imperialism’s New Disguise?,” 3.
25 Paris, “International Peacebuilding and ‘Mission Civilisatrice’,” 368.
26 Comaroff, “Symposium Introduction: Colonialism, Culture and Law,” 306; Ndulo, “African Customary Law,” 95; Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 51.
27 Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition?”; Richmond, “Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism.”
28 Richmond, “Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism”; Richmond, “De-Romanticising the Local, Demystifying the International”; Roberts, “Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Liberal Irrelevance”; Pugh, “Local Agency and Political Economies of Peacebuilding”; Mac Ginty and Richmond, “Local Turn in Peace Building.”
29 Spear, “Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention”; Chanok, Law, Custom, and Social Order.
30 Comaroff, “Symposium Introduction: Colonialism, Culture and Law,” 306.
31 Petras, “NGOs: In the Service of Imperialism,” 434.
32 Parlevliet, “Human Rights and Peacebuilding”; Mani, Beyond Retribution.
33 Rosa and Sow, “Role of Colonialism in the Construction of Human Rights.”
34 De Coning, “Adaptive Peacebuilding.”
35 Call and Wyeth, Building States to Build Peace.
36 Gingyera-Pinycwa, “Conflicting Fingers within the Iron Fist,” 104.
37 Human Rights Watch, Abducted and Abused; Human Rights Watch, Uprooted and Forgotten.
38 World Health Organization, Health and Mortality Survey.
39 Human Rights Watch, Uprooted and Forgotten; Porter, “Justice and Rape on the Periphery.”
40 Tapscott, “Local Security and the (Un)Making of Public Authority”; Macdonald and Allen, “Social Accountability in War Zones”; Porter, “Justice and Rape on the Periphery.”
41 Hansen, Conflict and the Emerging Roles of NGOs; Republic of Uganda, Peace, Recovery and Development Plan.
2007; Omach, “Peace, Security and Elections in Northern Uganda,” 355.
42 Pain, Bending of Spears, 2.
43 Bradbury, Reflections on Peace Practice Project, 18; confidential interview with chiefs, Gulu, 2015.
44 Huyse and Salter, Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict, iii; Branch, Displacing Human Rights.
45 Allen, Trial Justice, 148.
46 Interview, Gulu, 2015.
47 Bere, “Land and Chieftaincy among the Acholi.”
48 Confidential interviews, Gulu, 2015.
49 Allen, Trial Justice, 149.
50 Atkinson, Roots of Ethnicity.
41 Gertzel, Party and Locality in Northern Uganda.
52 Allen, Trial Justice, 149; confidential interview, Gulu, 2015.
53 Al Jazeera, “Uganda War ‘Worst Forgotten Humanitarian Crisis’”; Human Rights Watch, Uprooted and Forgotten.
54 Dolan and Hovil, Humanitarian Protection in Uganda.
55 Tamale, “Right to Culture and the Culture of Rights.”
56 Branch, Displacing Human Rights, 130.
57 Confidential document, 2008.
58 Rose et al., “Operationalising Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.”
59 Interview, Gulu, 2014; see also Branch, Displacing Human Rights, 627.
60 Interview, Gulu, 2014.
61 Fuest, “Contested Inclusions.”
62 Schellhaas and Seegers, “Peacebuilding: Imperialism’s New Disguise?,” 3.
63 Wyrod, “Between Women’s Rights and Men’s Authority.”
64 Ker Kwaro Acholi, Increasing the Role of Women.
65 Ibid.
66 Grassroots Women for Development, Empowerment of Women for Durable Peace and Reconciliation.
67 Pearce, “Human Rights and Sociology.”
68 Panikkar, “Is the Concept of Human Rights a Western Concept?”
69 Ker Kwaro Acholi, Increasing the Role of Women.
70 Interview, Gulu, February 22, 2018.
71 Confidential interview with community services official, 2015.
72 Ndulo, “African Customary Law.”
73 Ibid., 97.
74 Ake, “African Context of Human Rights.”
75 Confidential interview, Gulu.
76 Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 124.
77 Confidential interview, Gulu, February 22, 2018.
78 p’Bitek, Song of Lawino, 44.
79 Confidential interview, Gulu.
80 Patel et al., “In the Face of Vulnerabilities”; Porter, “Justice and Rape on the Periphery.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Paul Omach
Paul Omach is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Makerere University. His main research interests include conflict, security and peacebuilding in Eastern Africa and the Great Lakes Region of Africa.