Weaving Peace: Essays on Peace, Governance and Conflict Transformation in the Great Lakes Region of Africa

Copyright 2012 Samuel Kale Ewusi.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

isbn: 978-1-4669-5419-9 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-5418-2 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-5417-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012915348

Trafford rev. 08/21/2012

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A publication of the Great Lakes Programme of the United Nations Mandated—University for Peace made possible through the generous financial support of the government of Netherlands.

Contents

Acknowledgment

Dedication

Contributors

Preface Dr. Jean Bosco Butera

Part 1 Defining the Region

Chapter One

Achieving Peace, Promoting Good Governance, and Transforming Conflicts in the Great Lakes of Africa: A Contextual Introduction

Chapter Two

The Great Lakes Region after Five Decades of Political Independence: Challenges and Future Prospects

Chapter Three

Memory and Historical Realities in Shaping Politics and Armed Conflicts in Rwanda

Part 2 Peace Education

Chapter Four

Educating for the Twenty-First Century: Peace Education for the Postgenocide Rwanda

Chapter Five

Fundamental Pillars of Culture of Peace in the Great Lakes Region: A Case Study of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Part 3 Conflict Resolution and Transformation

Chapter Six

Rwanda’s Social Transformation Process: Leader or Leadership

Chapter Seven

Traditional Mechanisms of Conflict Resolution in the Great Lakes Region

Chapter Eight

Temporality and Timescale in Dialogue Discourse: A Discursive Reconstruction of Conventional Frame of Dialogue

Chapter Nine

Postconflict Gender Challenges and Implications in the Great Lake Regions: Case Study of Northern Uganda

Part 4 Governance

Chapter Ten

Governing Conflict: The Case of the Rright to Asylum and Security Concerns of Uganda in the Wake of Global Terrorism

Acknowledgment

The compilation and editing of this anthology involved more people than we could possibly thank here. It represents the contributions and ideas of many more persons than those whose names are mentioned as authors.

First and foremost, we wish to note that this book is one of the outcomes of the capacity-building project of the Great Lakes Program. It would not have been possible without the generous grants from the government of the Netherlands. We remain eternally grateful to them.

The initial idea of this book as part of the Great Lakes project came from Mr. Thomas Klompmaker, head of Project Management at the Office of the Vice Rector. His sense of innovation and dedication to this project finally crystallized into this book. We would also like to thank his lieutenants at the Project Management Office in Costa Rica—Mayeni Aguilar and Laurel Gaylor.

Throughout this process, we were assisted in numerous ways by the academic team of the Great Lakes Program who gave useful advice in different areas. We are grateful for the constructive input of Dr. Tony Karbo on the initial budget and process during the conceptual phase and Prof. Anne Robert for her input on peace education pedagogy.

We are immensely grateful for the work of Ms. Catherine Nelson, currently doctoral candidate at Yale University in the United States, and Ms. Golda Keng of the Institute for Security Studies for their editorial assistance.

We also would like to express our appreciation to the team at the Addis Ababa Office—Mr. Tewodros Assefa (logistics officer), Rahel Getachew (finance officer), Tsega Desta (IT), and Tsion Abebe (instructor). You all contributed one way or the other to make this project come to fruition.

Our interest in this project goes beyond mere scholarship, pedagogy, or even our (presumably) enlightened self-interest as world citizens. We are individually and collectively committed to the social and political goals of peace and conflict transformation in the Great Lakes region and Africa in general. We also acknowledge that—to our chagrin—a scholarly account of such material as poverty, environmental threats, denial of human rights, terrorism, and especially, war necessarily involves a degree of detached writing that can never capture the vitality of the subject matter, not to mention the ineffable horrors and terror of violence and war. We can only plead that herein we have done our bit.

Thank you.

Samuel Kale Ewusi

Dedication

To the evergreen memories of our late colleagues, Professors Elias Cheboud and Mahmoud Hamid. You were brave soldiers of peace who died doing what you loved doing – Making the world a better place.

Contributors

The Editors

Dr. Samuel Kale Ewusi (University for Peace, Costa Rica/Ethiopia) is currently assistant professor of peace and conflict studies at the United Nations—mandated University for Peace (Upeace) where he teaches political economy of peace and conflict at the main campus in Costa Rica. He is primarily based at the Upeace Africa Program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he coordinates the research component of the Great Lakes Program (GLP) with the ten partner institutions in the Great Lakes of Africa. Within the context of the program, he has taught at the Center for Conflict Management at the National University of Rwanda, the Center for Justice and Ethics of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (Kenya), the UNESCO Chair in Education for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Burundi, the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies at Gulu University in Uganda, and the Université Libres des Pays des Grands Lacs, in Goma, DR Congo. Dr. Ewusi holds a PhD in peace studies and international relations from North-West University, South Africa, a master of science in international relations from University of Maiduguri, Nigeria, and a bachelor of law from University of Yaoundé II, Cameroon. He is the author of Burundi’s Negative Peace: Shadow of a Broken Continent in the Era of the New Partnership for African Development, published by Trafford Publishers, BC, Canada.

Contributors

Dr. Jean Bosco Butera is currently director of the Africa Program of the University for Peace (UPEACE). Before joining UPEACE, he was Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the National University of Rwanda, with the responsibility of rebuilding the teaching and research capacity of the university after the 1994 genocide. During this period, he cofounded and was national director of the Center for Conflict Management, 1999 to 2002. He was a patron of a youth association working toward human rights and development (AJPRODHO) and is a patron of the local chapter of Never Again International, a collaborative network that aims to prevent violent conflict and remedy its effects. He has published work on conflict issues in Africa, Education for Peace, Governance and Development, and Capacity building. He holds a PhD in parasitology from the University of Ghent, Belgium, in 1991.

Mr. Mathew K. Banda (Copperbelt University, Zambia) resides in Kitwe, Zambia. He is a certified business consultant and academician. Until 1994, he was manager of Corporate Planning at ZCCM Head Office, Lusaka. He joined the Copperbelt University in 1998 where he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in management theory and practice, organizational behavior, human resource management, entrepreneurship, industrial psychology, trade unionism, human resource development, industrial sociology, and project management. He has also conducted research work in peace and conflict studies. He has attended several conferences in education and environmental protection. He has presented several papers at conferences. In addition, he has completed over twenty-five consultancy assignments in Zambia for corporations and UN agencies.

Dr. Maximiano Ngabirano (Uganda Martyrs University, Uganda) is an associate professor and head of the Department of Good Governance and Peace Studies at Uganda Martyrs University, Uganda. He holds a PhD from the Catholic University of Leuven—Belgium. He is the author of Conflict and Peace Building: Theological and Ethical Foundations for the Political Reconstruction of the Great Lakes Region of Africa, published by Uganda Martyrs Book Series. He teaches ethics, peace education, and religion He is involved in various research fields including anthropology of war and is currently in a research team conducting research on diversity, marginalization, and pluralism in Uganda. This chapter is coauthored with David N. Tshimba who is a graduate student of sustainable peace and conflict management in the Department of Good Governance and Peace Studies, East African School of Diplomacy, and good governance and international studies at Uganda Martyrs University.

Mr. Jean Bosco Habyarimana (National University of Rwanda, Rwanda) is a Rwanda Research fellow and deputy director of the Center for Conflict Management at the National University of Rwanda. He got his MA in peace education in 2009 from the United Nations—mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. Prior to that, Jean-Bosco completed his bachelor of education at the National University of Rwanda, where he started teaching English and French at the School for Foundation Language Skills of the same university. He joined the Center for Conflict Management in 2009 upon completion of his MA studies. Since then, Mr. Habyarimana has played a tremendous role in developing this center, which has now become a strong academic unit of the largest university in the country. Indeed, the Center for Conflict Management is now made of three departments—namely, Department of Research, Department of Teaching, and Department of Community Outreach. The center carries out research in three units, and Jean-Bosco is part of the research unit known as Peace, Conflict, Governance, and Security Studies in the Great Lakes region. The Department of Teaching runs two master of arts programs: MA in genocide studies and prevention and MA in peace studies and conflict transformation. In his academic career, Mr. Jean-Bosco Habyarimana works in domains that include conflict transformation, civic and peace education, curriculum development, and entrepreneurship in the social sector. His studies are focused on the role played by intellectuals in the transformation of communities in and for which they are called to operate. Mr. Habyarimana has published several articles and book chapters. His recent publication is a book entitled Peace Education at the National University of Rwanda: A Capacity Building Workshop Proposal to Empower Academics for the Promotion of Social Cohesion after the 1994 Genocide. Since 2010, Jean-Bosco has been working on a voluntary basis as president and legal representative of the Rwanda Environmental Conservation Organization (RECOR), a local nonprofit organization that advocates and educates in the sustainable management of the environment. This helps him to link his academic work to the life outside the university

Dr. Vincent Muderwha (ULPGL, Democratic Republic of Congo). The reverend doctor is the current director of the African Center for Research and Peace Education and Democracy (CAREPD/ULPGL). He sojourned at the University for Peace in Costa Rica for a three-week training in February 2011. He has attended many fora, workshops, and colloquium in Africa. He is advocating for the integration of the course of peace education into the educational system of the DR Congo from the primary school to the tertiary levels. He is one of the professors of the Postgraduate Program of Peace and Conflict Studies of ULPGL—Goma. His current expertise and research is in peace education and conflict transformation. After receiving his master’s degree in the New Testament at the University of South Africa on 2005, Vincent Muderhwa sojourned as visiting doctoral researcher in Geneva, Switzerland, from October 2005 to August 2006. He completed his doctoral thesis in 2008 at the University of South Africa. Vincent Muderhwa is currently professor of New Testament at the Faculty of Theology at the Université Libre des Pays des Grands Lacs in Goma and Bukavu (DR Congo). He also serves as visiting professor in Rwanda. He has published several articles, and in March 2012, one of his articles on the Gospel of John was published by an international journal of theological studies in South Africa—namely, HTS (Theological Studies).

Mr. Eugene Ruzidana (Rwanda Peace Academy, Rwanda) works in academia on a part-time basis. He was involved in good governance and leadership policies for years. He is currently director of training in Rwanda Peace Academy, a center of excellence currently under Rwanda Ministry of Defense. He is involved in training related to peace-building, postconflict, conflict prevention, and security sector reform. His expertise is peace and conflict studies, emphasizing in international law and settlement of disputes.

Dr. Jacob Mwitwa (Copperbelt University, Zambia) has worked in academia for seventeen years, two years in WWF and thirteen years as a civil servant. He has published a book on copper mining and governance of forests in Zambia and DR Congo and written articles on mining and communal bundle of rights as well as reports on environmental resources management and journal articles in international journals. His expertise and research is in environmental resources management. His chapter is coauthored with Ignatius Mukomto of the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation in Zambia and Jean Bosco Habyarimana of the National University of Rwanda

Mr. Komakech Daniel (Gulu University, Uganda) lectures at the Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies, Gulu University, Uganda. His areas of research interest are peace epistemology, Afrikology, traditional justice, and governance. He is the director of the Center for Africa Studies and chair of the Victoria International School of Diplomacy, Gulu, Uganda. He has been the director of the Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies, Gulu University, and formerly taught in the Department of Philosophy, Makerere University. He has also been a visiting scholar with Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda. His recent publications are Reinventing and Validating the Cosmology and Ontology of Restorative Justice, a chapter in the book African Perspectives on Tradition and Justice, published by Intersentia Publishers. He coauthored the articles Domestic Violence in Gulu, Northern Uganda—an article in the East and Central Africa Journal of Surgery, volume 17(1), published by COSECSA/ASEA; Open-Ended Epistemology: Hermeneutics and Knowledge Generation—an article published in Gulu University Journal, volume 1, number 1; and Conflict Framing Narratives: Beyond Traditions to Analytics—an article published in LUGUSI magazine.

Mrs. Laloyo Stella Omona (Gulu University, Uganda) is a specialist in gender and currently lectures at the Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies, Gulu University. She has had rich experience working during the armed conflict and postconflict phase in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan. She is now a doctoral student at the University of Bradford and Gulu University, working on Gendering Postconflict Transformation in Northern Uganda. She also supports local women’s groups in mentorship and does gender-outreach in secondary schools. She is also involved in several gender networks like the GREAT project, GBV Prevention projects, and others all operating in Northern Uganda.

Omaada S. Esibo (Uganda Martyrs University) is a lecturer of research methods, ethics of war and peace, and gender and development in the Institute of Ethics and Development Studies and in the Department of Good Governance and Peace Studies of Uganda Martyrs University. He has done research and published in conflict-, peace-, security-, and governance-related issues. He was born and raised up in Kenya; he did undergraduate studies in University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, and graduate studies in Makerere University, Uganda.

Preface

Dr. Jean Bosco Butera

The United Nations—mandated University for Peace (UPEACE) established its Africa Program with a specific mission to stimulate and strengthen capacities in Africa to teach, research, and conduct service to communities on issues of peace, conflict, and development in Africa. In pursuit of this goal, UPEACE received in 2009 funding from the government of Netherlands for an intensive three-year capacity-building program in peace and conflict studies for the Great Lakes region of Africa. Through this program, partner universities and a peace academy in the Great Lakes region (Africa) were identified to start or strengthen existing MA programs in the field of peace and conflict studies. UPEACE has supported the development of these MA frameworks and course curriculums and trained junior and senior faculty members as well as civil society representatives in order to ensure sustainability in the delivery of the program. Through this capacity-building program, a core group of faculty and members of civil society organizations in the Great Lakes region have had the opportunity to attend an MA program in peace and conflict studies at UPEACE.

In addition, pursuant to UPEACE, Africa’s preeminent role of capacity building and the development and distribution of pedagogic materials in the areas of peace and conflict studies in the continent, the GLP project included a research component that entailed the training of senior fellows from partner universities in pedagogy and research for the purposes of coteaching and the contribution of chapters for a Great Lakes—focused book in peace, governance, and conflict transformation. This endeavor was corroborated during the implementation of the GLP program, where a formidable challenge was the chronic shortage of not only study materials in peace and conflict at the various partner institutions but also the lack of context-specific research written by academics from the region. With this in mind, the trained senior fellows were invited to contribute chapters in areas of peace, governance, and conflict transformation from their vantage point as academics from the region. The result of this effort is this collection of essays titled Wisdom from the Source: Essays on Peace, Governance, and Conflict Transformation in the Great Lakes.

Wisdom from the Source is based on the adage that if you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it, and most times, the contextual flavor will be wanting. No one is better placed to offer that perspective than practitioners and academics from the region. This premise is discharged through the selection of the contributors—in this case, the senior GLP fellows who all happen to be nationals of the countries of the Great Lakes region working in the areas of peace and conflict studies. Their personal experiences, some of whom grew up and lived through the carnage inherent in the conflicts and bring in the contextual and passionate fresh air usually absent in write-ups by authors foreign to the region. The authors constitute a core group of people through whom the implementation of this concept and the pursuit of education for peace, governance, and conflict transformation can be developed and implemented.

As we engage in this journey of developing and strengthening capacity in research and teaching in peace and conflict studies in the region, we are aware that the region has become synonymous with devastating wars, poverty, and refugees. At the time of compiling this volume, fighting is again raging in the eastern part of Congo with refugees flooding into neighboring countries, mostly Rwanda and Uganda. These events evoke memories of the apocalyptic genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and the massive flow of refugees across the borders of neighboring countries.

The essays contributed in this volume touch on the very core of the various challenges faced in resolving existing conflicts in the region and efforts at transforming postconflict societies in the Great Lakes. Particular aspects of the book resonate with the general African conflict experience and help to explain the dynamics of this very conflict-prone region. The mimetic and contagious nature of violence in the region is corroborated by the way in which the conflicts have contaminated the attitude of people and countries of the region and especially those who have been systematically victimized, making them more violent. This violence has become the primary method of individual and communal reaction to exclusion, suspicion, or dissent.

The selected themes of this book under which the essays are categorized capture the very essence of what needs to be done, what is being done, and what must be done, for all the countries in the Great Lakes to dream of some modicum of peace.

In order to properly understand the purport of this book, perhaps it is important to state what this book is not. It is not a comprehensive compilation of essays in peace, governance, and conflict transformation from the Great Lakes region. If it was, there would be much more divergent contributions and perspectives on the themes, considering the lack of universal agreement on the themes in relation to the region. Secondly, the essays are not an equitable representative of all the countries in the region or all the institutions that participated in the Great Lakes Program.

Another very interesting dynamics in this book is that, although most contributors wrote on issues related to their countries, there is the case of Dr. Ngabirano who wrote on memory and historical realities in shaping politics and armed conflict in Rwanda. This therefore increases the number of contributions on Rwanda.

Generally, there are four parts in this book. The first part is devoted to setting the scene by illustrating a contextual interpretation of the events that have characterized the conflict history of the region. This is well articulated by Mathew Banda as he examines the sociopolitical and economic challenges and prospects of the region after five decades of political independence. His assessment is that of a mixed baggage of successes and monumental failures in some instances. He, however, concludes that there is a paradigm shift taking place in the region where some countries are taking great strides toward democratization and socioeconomic development while others have knowingly or inadvertently sown seeds for future political upheavals.

The second part is focused on the concept of peace in the region. Two contributors—Jean Bosco Habyrimana and Vincent Muderwha—explore the mutually enforceable concepts of peace education and the foundations of a culture of peace, respectively. While the former contributor examines the importance of education for peace in the twenty-first century, the latter situates a culture of peace within the domain of reconciliation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These two areas are critical in the work UPEACE is undertaking in Africa, especially within the context of the Great Lakes Program (GLP).

The third part deals with the issues of conflict resolution and transformation. It examines the themes of transformative leadership as a basis for sustainable socioeconomic transformation, traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution, and postconflict gender challenges in postconflict situations. It is common knowledge that traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution have been applied in Rwanda (Gacaca) and Uganda (Mato Oput). These traditional mechanisms have often come under scrutiny and criticism from those who believe that the western methods of conflict resolution and justice are superior. This contribution in the area of traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution and transformation aims at reinforcing and increasing the literature on the subject with a view to enhancing its comprehension and acceptability.

The fourth part focuses on governance where Amaada Esibo examines the right of asylum and security concerns of Uganda within the context of terrorism. He tries to find a balance between the need for the respect for human rights through the asylum process and the concerns about terrorism.

As indicated earlier this is by far not an exhaustive compilation but a compilation from some of those who took part in the Great Lakes Program. We believe that every little contribution that enhances an understanding of the permutations of the Great Lakes’ conflict peace and conflict situation is worthwhile the effort.

We do hope that this publication will trigger more reflections and urge for further research to deepen our understanding of the violence and sufferings that have marked the