20 July-8 August, 2013

 JOHANNESBURG & CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
 
INVITATION TO NATIONALS FROM SOUTH SUDAN, ZIMBABWE, KENYA, UGANDA AND BURUNDI

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) is pleased to announce the convening of a three week intensive Transitional Justice in Africa Fellowship Programme. This is a residential programme which will be held in Johannesburg and Cape Town from 20 July to 8 August 2013. This year’s Fellowship Programme will be open to applicants from South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi. We are now inviting qualified individuals to apply to this esteemed programme.

Background to IJR

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation was established in 2000 in the wake of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to promote reconciliation, transitional justice and democratic nation-building in Africa by means of research, analysis and selective intervention. Located at the interface between civil society and academia, it contributes to the building of fair, democratic and inclusive societies in countries undergoing political transition including: South Africa, Burundi, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

The Fellowship Programme will be organized by and hosted within the Justice and Reconciliation in Africa Programme (JRA) which is one of three IJR programmes. The other two programmes are the Building an Inclusive Society Programme (BIS) and the Policy and Analysis Programme (PA). The JRA works at three complimentary and mutually supportive levels with African societies in transition, namely: engaged research and analysis, capacity building, and collaborative political intervention. The Institute seeks to achieve a creative balance between justice and reconciliation, development and human security, as well as contributing to the reconstruction of countries ravaged by war and oppression.

Background to the Fellowship Programme

The IJR has been hosting fellows from countries in political transition since 2000. The programme was designed to attract and bring together scholars and practitioners in the field of transitional justice to compare, reflect, research and write on their experiences and lessons learned from activities, projects and programmes in their respective countries. Each Fellowship Programme invites candidates from specific countries in which the Institute is currently working. This year 5 Fellows will be invited from South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi.

A rigorous selection process will ensure the targeting of professionals working with affected communities in the field of transitional justice in South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi and who are in positions to influence policy processes and disseminate their Fellowship Programme experience through practical activities when they return home.  The programmes’ purpose is to enhance participants’ skills and knowledge, with a particular focus on issues related to reconciliation and social cohesion within the context of transitional justice.  Accordingly, the Fellowship Programme will engage with some of the key literature, themes, and mechanisms and will supplement teachings with practical experiences, interaction with local organisations working in related fields and guided visits to historically significant sites.

Through informal classes with local experts, dialogues with practitioners, daily contact with IJR staff and visits to relevant museums and memorials in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the programme aims to more effectively equip participants to address challenges specific to democratic transitions by exposing them to various transitional justice tools.  A collaborative environment will foster information exchange and dialogue among participants, IJR staff and IJR partners while self-study will be undertaken through research. It is hoped that participants will deepen their familiarity with the growing field of transitional justice theory and then apply this theoretical framework to the practical challenges currently facing their country.

Fellows’ are strongly encouraged to document their reflections in the form of newspaper articles, policy briefs and/or working papers during and after the fellowship.

The IJR will cover all travel and accommodation costs for the duration of the fellowship and will provide a modest stipend for daily expenses.

For information related to this programme, visit http://www.ijr.org.za/justice-and-reconciliation-in-africa-fellowship.php.

Application requirements

To be considered eligible for this fellowship, you should meet the following criteria:

• A post-graduate degree in a discipline broadly related to Transitional Justice
• 4 to 5 years of relevant work experience in the realm of justice, reconciliation and/or social cohesion, social justice
• Good written and spoken English. This will be necessary to research and publish the assigned paper as well as to participate in group discussions.

If you are interested in applying for admission to this program, please submit to us the following documents in English:

• A detailed resume or Curriculum Vitae of no more than 4 pages.
• The full contact details of 2 contactable references
• A 1-2 page letter of motivation indicating why you wish to participate in this program

The closing date for applications is the 31 May 2013.  Telephonic interviews will be conducted in the week commencing 10 June and successful candidates will be notified no later than by the 17^th of June 2013.

NB Please email your complete application to Ms Anthea Flink on aflink@ijr.org.za with ‘Application to 2013 Fellowship: your name’ in the email subject line.

Only complete applications will be considered and only shortlisted candidates will be notified of the status of their application.

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) hereby expresses deep concern regarding the scale of violence occurring in Jonglei state, South Sudan, and condemns the recent killing of UN peacekeepers, SPLA troops, members of David Yau Yau’s armed group, and civilians.

Reports suggest that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and armed Nuer youth are poised to confront Murle civilians along the Nanaam River, with the potential outcome of casualties on all sides. In the words of an official in Juba, who cannot be named for security reasons, “I fear civilians in Nanaam river will be massacred all. Yes, nobody will survive when SPLA will attack from one side while Lou Nuer armed youth attack from the other side.”

The SPLA have suffered great losses from a battle with David Yau Yau’s armed group at Kong Kong River south east of Pibor town. Nuer armed youth are reportedly mobilising from Akobo, in retaliation for an attack on Nuer civilians by Yau Yau’s armed group, which took place in February, in which over 100 civilians were killed.[1] An escalation of the crisis is therefore imminent.

The violence appears to be affecting women and children, echoing concerns from the 2011-2012 violence that massacres are intended to “wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth,”  as said in the press statement released by the Nuer youth White Army, “as the only solution to guarantee long-term security of Nuer’s cattle. There is no other way to resolve Murle problem other than wiping them out through the barrel of the gun.”[2], and according to Genocide Watch, the ethnic massacres constitute a “Genocide Emergency” that has reached the level of “extermination”.[3]

According to a high level contact who has just travelled through Jonglei to Juba, “when the soldiers retreated from the battle ground on their way to Nanaam, they intercepted women and children who were traveling from Gummuruk to Pibor. The soldiers opened fire on these women and children, killing nine of them. Among the dead was the wife of the Pibor County Education Director Mr. Nyabok Ngali.” According to a security brief presented to the RSS Parliament last week, SPLA soldiers have killed civilians in Gumuruk and surrounding areas, including multiple children.

A Troika composed of the United Kingdom, United States and Norway, as well as France, Canada and the Netherlands has called on all leaders within the Government of the Republic of South Sudan (GRSS), its organised forces, faith and ethnic groups to urge their people to stop the violence, to move back from confrontation and return to the agreed resolutions of the All Jonglei Peace Conference and urgently implement the measures therein.  The Troika reiterated the Government’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions on the protection of civilians, and its commitment at the Jonglei Conference to address grievances, including to conduct investigations into alleged abuses by SPLA and others and promote peaceful dialogue.[4]

In an 8 April press release, UNMISS called upon the country’s authorities to take all necessary steps to protect civilians during military operations in Jonglei State, stating “all communities and state bodies in Jonglei need to take urgent measures to prevent the mobilisation of armed youth to carry out retaliatory attacks that would trigger another deadly cycle of inter-communal violence.”[5]

“It is vital that the SPLA does its utmost to distinguish between combatants and civilians,” said Hilde F. Johnson – the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan. “People who are not taking any active part in hostilities must not be harmed,” she said. “Women, children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable and need protection.”

Yau Yau’s movement/armed group, the South Sudan Democratic Movement/Army (SSDM/A), has released the Jebel Boma Declaration, calling for “swift action to resolve the tribal disputes by peaceful means.”[6]

In the spirit of solidarity, the IJR and the Sudan Advocacy Action Forum thus echo the concerns expressed by the Troika and in the UNMISS press release and strongly urge the Government of the Republic of South Sudan to ensure the protection of all its’ citizens, to condemn in the strongest form, any ethnic-cleansing related rhetoric and engage all stakeholders, particularly the youth, in an earnest and committed peace process able to bring reconciliation to Jonglei.

Eager to see the development of a prosperous and democratic future for South Sudan, we thus appeal to the GRSS to re-engage in negotiations with David Yau Yau’s SSDM for an immediate ceasefire to prevent the death of more civilians, and to put pressure on General James Hoth to allow humanitarian aid to reach the Murle people.

For media enquiries, please contact IJR Communications Officer, Zyaan Davids – zdavids@ijr.org.za or 021 763 7128.

[1] “Greater Akobo MPs condemn the killing of innocent civilians, urge peaceful coexistence, and call on the central government to do more”, Press Statement By Greater Akobo MPs, 11 February 2013, accessed at http://www.southsudannewsagency.com/news/press-releases/greater-akobo-mps-condemn-the-killing-of-innocent-civilians-urge-peaceful-coexistence

[2] Lou and Jikany White Army, Press Statement: ‘Nuer Youth Have Captured Lolkuangole And Are Advancing To Capture All Murleland’, South Sudan News Agency, 25 December 2011, accessed at http://www.southsudannewsagency.com/news/press-releases/nuer-youth-have-captured-lolkuangole-and-are-advancing-to-capture-all-murleland.

[3] Genocide Watch, South Sudan Country Profile: The Birth of a New Nation, International Alliance to End Genocide, 2012, http://www.genocidewatch.org/southsudan.html

[4] Press Release: ‘Troika’ concerned about Jonglei, accessed at http://radiotamazuj.org/en/article/press-release-%E2%80%98troika%E2%80%99-concerned-about-jonglei

[5] Press Release “UNMISS calls on South Sudan authorities to safeguard civilians in Jonglei”, accessed at http://unmiss.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZmjYmCoPN1A%3d&tabid=3483&mid=9133&language=en-US

[6] “The Jebel Boma Declaration,” South Sudan Democratic Movement/Army, 28 March – 2 April 2013, accessed at http://www.sudaneseonline.com/news/7160-the-jebel-boma-declaration.html.

To access the SA Reconciliation Barometer survey data, please click here.

I look forward to hearing about the new analysis, findings and theory that emerge from open access to this critical public opinion resource, from an important time in South Africa’s history.

*The SA Reconciliation Barometer was conducted twice in 2003 (Rounds 1 & 2) and twice in 2004 (Rounds 3 & 4), and thereafter once annually.

A moratorium on ‘reconciliation’? Charles Villa-Vicencio

Illegitimate policing practices in a democratic state Natalie Jaynes

Crisis in Tunisia Fanie du Toit

Arms deal losses: theft from the poor Terry Crawford-Browne

Social cohesion: a critical reflection Annsilla Nyar

South African civil society – quo vadis? Juzaida Swain

Our much-vaunted “middle road” sought to avoid a peace that would be built on cover-ups and cosy elite deals that locked the majority out. By the same token, it also steered away from large-scale purges, prosecutions and holier-than-thou crusades against those perceived to be perpetrators, collaborators and beneficiaries of the previous regime.

For this approach the country won international acclaim. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), arguably more so than any other transitional institution, embodied this careful balancing act. Far from perfect, the TRC helped South Africa cross a “historic bridge” from a divided past to a place where the country’s most pressing concerns – those of poverty, inequality and racism – could be addressed in a concerted and effective manner.

That this had not happened to the extent that we had hoped for cannot be blamed on the TRC. The integrity of this process, which was firmly established in 1998, is under threat, largely because of the government’s lack of enthusiasm to honour its side of the bargain.

In 1998, the TRC presented then president Nelson Mandela with 45 pages of recommendations to guide the reparation process for the 21000 victims of gross human rights violations that it had identified. For years no response, other than statements that it awaited the conclusion of the amnesty process to conclude, emanated from the government.

Then, five years later – on Human Rights Day in 2003, the TRC handed the final two installments of its report to then president Thabo Mbeki in Parliament. The volumes addressed many challenges that had arisen after 1998 when the TRC ceased to operate except for some outstanding amnesty-related cases that dragged on for another five years.

When Mbeki’s response came in April 2003, about a month after the final report had been received, the victim community responded with profound disappointment. Mbeki indicated that individuals would receive only once-off payments of R30000 for each individual, instead of the TRC’s recommendation of a pension for six years, premised on the minimum wage at the time. This would have been an amount approximately six to seven times more than what the government was offering.

To those who had lost the ability to work, sacrificed a breadwinner or loved one, or who continued to suffer psychological trauma, R30000 was more an insult than a relief.

Timeous and generous reparations would have been the right thing to do. It would have kept our promise to those who paid the highest price for our freedom. We have failed that test. Not only does this jeopardise the legacy of one of the world’s most potent political achievements, but it leaves a gaping hole in our nation-building project.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, at an event of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) some time ago, remarked that Mbeki “hated the TRC”, hence the lukewarm response from his government. Today most of the TRC recommendations, including the 300 names that it handed over for prosecution, have virtually been forgotten.

Ten years after Mbeki’s announcement, and 15 years after victims made their statements to the TRC, 16397 beneficiaries had finally been paid, with 44 cases still remaining.

In the interim, the Justice Department, where the government located its TRC unit, also oversaw a limited number of exhumations of the remains of activists which were returned to the families for a proper burial and, hopefully, closure.

The Justice Department is awaiting feedback from its counterparts in the Health and Education departments to finalise regulations for assistance to victims. Infrastructural assistance (probably some form of housing grants) and broader community rehabilitation (repair of health clinics, community recreation and conflict-resolution centres, schools, as well as electricity and water supply) are also still being considered for communities identified by the TRC as those who bore the brunt of apartheid’s excesses.

Such a comprehensive approach is to be welcomed but may amount to too little, too late.

The passage of time has seen a steady increase of victims coming forwarded, due to what Khulumani Support Group describes as inadequate outreach by the TRC. For this reason, it argues, the government ought to find ways to include those who, for whatever reason, could or did not participate in the original process. After all, it was willing to afford perpetrators a second go at amnesty. The government, in turn, has refused to entertain the demand and there is little hope for it to do so now. The response opens the door to a fresh round of challenges and unhappiness, once final reparations are paid.

Reparations are meant to bring closure to a hurtful past. In our case, it seems to have achieved the opposite.

On Human Rights Day it is worth remembering that reparations are an established international human right, enforceable by international law and building a steady international case-load as more and more countries embark on reparation programmes. Only recently the International Criminal Court made its first ruling on the right to reparations for victims of international crimes.

International law, furthermore, holds individual states primarily responsible for reparations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This means that the ANC’s reluctance to pay for apartheid-era abuses is not excusable. The South African state enjoyed legal continuity throughout the political transition. Regardless of who occupies the Union Buildings, the South African state owes reparations to those who suffered under its hands before 1994, and its administrators should find the means to do so, not least in a relatively wealthy country such as ours. After all, we regularly find billions to host international sporting events.

South African citizens are concerned about police brutality, excessive levels of violence against women and children, organised crime, a struggling economy and a generation of young people being denied adequate education. In such a context, you can see how apartheid-era reparations can seem like a quaint non-priority, and how politicians today, can dismiss this agenda as largely irrelevant in the bigger scheme of the national development agenda.

But they would be dead wrong to do so.

South Africans, more than most, know how potent a force political symbolism can be. Apartheid symbolism destroyed our collective confidence. Mandela’s symbolism pulled us from the abyss and set us on a different course. Apart from the concrete material assistance, reparations carry massive symbolism. It is the symbol of restoring the dignity of those most helpless under a previous order, of saying never again, and of a human-centred democracy.

This part, at least, we seemed to have gotten wrong. It would perhaps be an overstatement to say this was fatal to national reconciliation, but this omission did compromise what could have been a far more meaningful process. Although it is too late to undo all the damage, a comprehensive and well-run reparations programme, even as late as this, could be a powerful antidote to the unravelling of our hard-won peace.

Fanie du Toit is the executive director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. A version of this article first appeared in The Star here.

The first two briefings will take place in Johannesburg on 19 March 2013.

A morning briefing, conducted together with the Southern African German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will be held at the Sunnyside Park Hotel (Princess of Wales Terrace, Parktown) from 10h00 for 10h30 –12h00, followed by a light lunch. Please RSVP to Mr. Otto Makgabo, otto.makgabo@kas.de / (011) 214 2900, by 15th March 2013. Full details are available here.

An evening briefing will be held at Wits University, and will be co-hosted by the Wits Transformation Office and School of Social Sciences, and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. The briefing will take place in the Graduate Seminar Room (Room 10) on the Ground Floor of the Southwest Engineering Building, East Campus, at 17h00 for 17h30 – 19h00. A discussion will be chaired by Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Finance, Professor Tawana Kupe,with responses from Professor Ruksana Osman and Dr. Sarah Mosoetsa. Light refreshments will follow. For this evening event, please RSVP to Grant Davis, grant.davis@wits.ac.za / (011) 717 1405, by 15th March 2013. The full invitation for this event can be viewed here.

Read the full statement here.

Episodes of ‘Truth Commission Special Report’ can now be viewed online here, and I have posted the link to the first episode below. What do you think? Is South Africa, as SAHA and the SABC suggest on the site, ‘in danger of forgetting the work of the TRC’?

On 16 August 2012 the South African Police Service (SAPS) made international headlines when police opened fire on striking miners, killing some 34 and wounding 78 at the Lonmin-owned Marikana mine. It is an open question as to whether the SAPS will ever fully recover from the massive loss in public confidence following the Lonmin/Marikana incident. What, if anything, does it mean for reconciliation when those mandated to play a role in preventing and reducing crime and violence lose legitimacy?

Is there a relationship between reconciliation and police legitimacy? The South African Reconciliation Barometer suggests that there is. The Barometer employs six hypotheses to understand reconciliation. These hypotheses help to unpack the concept of reconciliation into measurable indicators. One of the hypotheses relates specifically to political legitimacy and suggests that legitimacy and accountability are good for reconciliation, and that their absence is damaging for reconciliation. If we apply this hypothesis to the current public sentiment towards SAPS then it suggests that the actions of SAPS matter for reconciliation. If we continue the logic of this hypothesis then it could be argued that to the extent that SAPS lose legitimacy and are not held sufficiently accountable for their actions, we will run the risk of weakening an already fragile reconciliation.

Even if reconciliation is not weakened, it is fair to suggest that some public good is jeopardised by diminished police legitimacy. The drafters of the TRC Report acknowledged this by making clear recommendations about the need to improve public confidence and trust in the police, particularly given the role of the police in propping up the apartheid state. Interestingly, the very issues that the TRC Report identifies as being central to regaining police legitimacy are the issues that continue to plague the SAPS, nearly 20 years into the country’s democracy.

While the 1994–99 period saw a strong push to institutionalize democratic policing practices, this momentum has not been sustained, and some have argued that positive efforts have even been reversed since 1999. Two broad areas are highlighted below – police use of force and weak SAPS leadership.

Use of force

Because apartheid-era policing was marked by the excessive use of force with little to no accountability or oversight, reform efforts placed a premium on establishing legislative obligations to control and limit police use of force and improve police oversight and accountability for abuses. In post-apartheid South Africa, police use of force and firearms is governed by the SAPS Act (No. 68 of 1995), the Firearms Control Act (FCA), and the Criminal Procedure Act (No. 51 of 1977). This legal framework places an obligation on the state and on police to protect citizens and exercise caution and restraint when using force. The SAPS Act articulates this obligation clearly: ‘Where a member who performs an official duty is authorised by law to use force, he or she may only use the minimum force which is reasonable in the circumstances’ (SAPS, 1995, s. 13(3)(b)). In addition, particular legislative provisions concern safe storage of firearms and types of weapon and ammunition to be used, all with the intention of limiting irresponsible use of firearms and unnecessary use of force (RSA, 2000, s. 120(3)(a–b); Operational Response Services, 2004; State President’s Office, 1994, s. 9(2)).

For example, the Criminal Procedure Act governs the use of force in effecting an arrest. Following an incident in 1999 in which a civilian shot and killed a fleeing burglary suspect, the law was challenged in the courts and was eventually found to fall short of constitutional muster (CCSA, 2002). The Constitutional Court ruled that the Criminal Procedure Act needed to be amended to reflect more clearly the principles of proportionality and least degree of force possible in effecting arrests. The proposed amendments were debated in Parliament and ultimately included in the Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill (B26-2012).

Since 2011, the SAPS has come under growing public scrutiny of its use of force and firearms. In April 2011, for instance, police beat and shot a schoolteacher during a protest march in Ficksburg in the Free State Province; the teacher subsequently died. The public outcry following the Ficksburg shooting led the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to investigate. In November 2012, the Commission released its report, which concludes that the SAPS had used excessive force, had violated the applicable legislative prescriptions, and had failed to deploy sufficiently trained and equipped members. The report recommends that the SAPS improve training of its members in the management of public gatherings. The findings of the SAHRC take on a particularly ironic and tragic hue given that the Marikana incident took place a few weeks before the SAHRC report was released.

In addition to incidents of excessive use of police force on duty, there are also growing concerns about off-duty police officers using their service firearms in domestic violence and murder–suicide. In fact, these kinds of incidents became so frequent as to lead to an official investigation in 2009. The results show that, in 80 per cent of the cases investigated, the murder weapon was a SAPS member’s service firearm. The study attributes the high prevalence of femicides committed by SAPS members to the high stress levels involved in their day-to-day working conditions and notes the lack of psychosocial support available for SAPS members. The report singles out the easy access to firearms as ‘the most worrying factor in femicides committed by SAPS members’ (ICD, 2009, p. 39).

SAPS leadership crises

At the leadership level, two of the four post-apartheid national police commissioners were found guilty of fraud and corruption between 2009 and 2011. In addition, the head of SAPS Crime Intelligence was suspended in 2011 after being charged with murder and fraud. There are also criminal investigations underway into the activities of an elite unit within the SAPS known as the ‘Cato Manor Hit Squad’.

A disconnect has also been apparent between the legislative commitments to democratic policing and statements by police and other government leaders. In 2008 Deputy Minister of Safety and Security Susan Shabangu made headlines when she addressed an anti-crime summit and instructed police, ‘You must kill the bastards [criminals] if they threaten you or the community’.

The current minister of police, Nathi Mthethwa, and former national police commissioner Bheki Cele have also used inflammatory language. Soon after taking office, Mthethwa called on police to ‘teach those people a lesson—to fight fire with fire’. Cele gained notoriety when he entered office and suggested that the laws governing police use of force be changed and made more lax. In addition to introducing ‘shoot to kill’ rhetoric, Mthethwa and Cele also reinstituted the military ranking system, which had been a marker of the apartheid-era police. This behaviour suggests that the old mentality and approach to policing remain ingrained.

While the SAPS should be central in crime and violence prevention efforts, its ability to serve this function has been constrained by a range of serious internal problems. Apartheid-era policing practices have been suppressed but not fully transformed, and significant work remains to ensure that the SAPS serves to reduce, rather than exacerbate, levels of violence. Whereas other sectors such as health and education are actively monitored through civil society activism, the policing sector remains in need of a strong, vocal and fiercely independent civil society watchdog body. Without sustained external pressure from civil society it is likely that policing in South Africa will continue to erode rather than bolster public goods like reconciliation.

Natalie Jaynes is a researcher at Small Arms Survey.

I am happy to announce that, together with the Southern African German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, our first briefing of the year will take place in Johannesburg on 19 March 2013. Full details are as follows:

Date: 19 March 2013

Time: 10h00 for 10h30 –12h00, followed by a light lunch

Venue: Sunnyside Park Hotel, Princess of Wales Terrace, Parktown, Johannesburg

RSVP: Mr. Otto Makgabo, otto.makgabo@kas.de / (011) 214 2900, by 15th March 2013