For some, justice is negotiable. For victims of rape and torture, it is not.
The culture of impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has a regrettably long history. This shaped the two peace processes during the First and Second Congolese Civil Wars. The 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement and the 2002 Inter-Congolese Dialogue failed to enforce the criminal accountability of the Congolese rebel groups for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The DRC is a country where Gabriel Amisi, a former insurgent who allegedly spearheaded the Kisangani massacre in May 2002 can become a brigadier-general of the national army. This is where the pursuit of justice defies the gravity of law. In the eyes of victims, the government favours short-term stability over justice. The appointment of four rebel leaders as vice presidents at the expense of retributive justice is not “rational.”
The apparent trade-off between peace and justice is a recurring pattern in peace agreements; seemingly orchestrated only to provide a stamp of legitimacy for belligerents in the conflict. The power-sharing deal of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue secured the political survivability of rebel groups by forsaking the interests of the Congolese citizenry.
Although the dialogue included the ill-fated resolution on a “Truth and Reconciliation” Commission, it had the power to grant amnesty to any persons who confessed their crimes. Instead of insisting on the stringent enforcement of criminal justice, the Congolese government yielded to the interests of rebels by declaring any guilt for acts of war absolved in the cases of rebels who participated in the dialogue.
The debate in the Canadian House of Commons on March 22, 2000 reveals the dynamics of negotiation that prevailed in the Lusaka Ceasefire Accord. As Jean Augustine, a former Liberal Member of Parliament says:
“I’m still grappling with the whole notion of the dialogue. If the people want peace, if those involved in the war say they want peace, what is the problem here? I don’t fully understand that.”
The problem is the absence of sincerity among the negotiators. What is worse is the international community’s self-induced deception that the peace agreements, like the Lusaka Accord, are an effective lever to halt the maelstrom of war. As it turned out, the Lusaka Accord was a mere “pause” in the spiral of violence that continued until 2003.
The admission of a lack of political will by Sir Ketumile Masire, UN-appointed facilitator in the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, is not constructive in reputing the false dichotomy between peace and justice. Negotiators should not succumb to an all or nothing mentality about promoting either peace or justice. The lessons of the Congolese peace processes attest to the need to employ various instruments of justice, such as military tribunals and community-level reconciliation, to achieve lasting peace.
Canadian’s contribution to upholding the rule of law has been meager. Out of the 20,509 military personnel attached to the UN mission in the DRC (known as MONUC), there are only 12 officers from the Canadian Forces who are helping to bring justice to those who witnessed the atrocities of the conflict. The Department of National Defense has dispatched 140 soldiers since the beginning of the MONUC in 1999. This thin record of cooperation in a strategic periphery is not enough to justify Canada’s virtually tokenistic involvement.
For Canada, the path it must choose at this crossroad between peace and justice is clear. It must hark back to the bygone era of being a moral superpower and exert its soft power as an honest broker in the dialogue of just peace.
Canada’s leadership by example in funding multilateral initiatives such the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region is laudable. It must render continual diplomatic support by reappointing the Special Envoy to the DRC and the Great Lakes Region.
At home, it starts with a small step – overcoming compassion fatigue by humanizing the people whose justice has been denied.
