CHAPTER 4 AMNESTY
4.2 Policy arguments in favour of foreign amnesties
4.2.1 Amnesty for ending a rebellion
One of the responsibilities of a government is to protect its citizens against violence and atrocities.1036 Thus, for many years, amnesties have been used as incentives to quell
1027 See 4.2 hereunder.
1028 See 4.3 hereunder.
1029 See 4.4 hereunder.
1030 See 4.6 hereunder.
1031 Rakate The Duty to Prosecute and the Status of Amnesties 120.
1032 O’Shea Amnesty 83.
1033 See 4.2.1 hereunder.
1034 See 4.2.2 hereunder.
1035 See 4.2.3 hereunder.
1036 Stigen The Principle of Complementarity 421.
rebellions by encouraging combatants to leave their organizations and end war.1037 Examples of these amnesties can be found in Algeria and Uganda, to name just two.
4.2.1.1 Algeria
Between 1992 and 1999 Algeria experienced a civil war between government forces and the banned Islamist movement, the Front Islamiste du Salut (FIS). The violence started in 1992 after the country's first democratic multi-party elections to elect a Parliament.1038 Preliminary reports from the election indicated that the FIS, an Islamic party that had declared its opposition to democracy, was set to win a majority of seats in Parliament. The military annulled the elections, declared martial law, established a transitional government and banned the FIS from all political participation.1039 A bloody civil war ensued in which between 100,000 and 200,000 people died.1040
In July 1999, in an attempt to bring the rebellion to an end, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika passed the Civil Concord Law1041 which granted amnesty to perpetrators of the acts of rebellion against the government on condition that they surrender and hand over their weapons to the government within a specified period.1042 However, since the amnesty provision of this law did not apply to those who had committed acts of murder, rape, grievous bodily injuries resulting in permanent infirmity and those who had used explosives in public places, the amnesty offer was seen as insufficient by most insurgents and only a very few of them surrendered themselves to the government.1043 As a response, a presidential decree of 12 January 2000 extended the amnesty to all combatants, regardless of the nature of the crimes they had committed.1044 Subsequent
1037 UN ESC “Study on Amnesty Laws and their Role in the Safeguard and Promotion of Human Rights” 11; Rakate The Duty to Prosecute and the Status of Amnesties 41 and Reisman 1996 Law and Contemporary Problems 78.
1038 Trumbull 2007 Berkeley Journal of International Law 327.
1039 Trumbull 2007 Berkeley Journal of International Law 327.
1040 Algeria-Watch 2006 http://www.algeria-watch.org/en/articles/2006/algerian_amnesty.htm 1041 Art 3 Loi no 99-08 du 29 Rabie El Aouel 1420 Correspondant au 13 juillet 1999 Relative au
Rétablissement de la Concorde Civile (Official Journal of the Republic of Algeria No 46 of 13 July 1999).
1042 Art 3. See also Rakate The Duty to Prosecute and the Status of Amnesties 42-43.
1043 Algeria-Watch 2001 http://www.algeria-watch.de/farticle/kettani.htm
1044 Articles 1 and 2 Décret Présidentiel no 2000-03 du 4 Chaoual 1420 Correspondant au 10 Janvier 2000 Portant Grace Amnistiante (Official Journal of the Republic of Algeria No of 12 January 2000).
to the promulgation of this amnesty decree, the vast majority of militants laid down their weapons and Algeria is now a stable State.1045
This experience of Algeria shows that where insisting on prosecuting the perpetrators of past crimes may prolong the suffering to the local populations and cause more crimes, the State should prioritise the safety of the citizens and forego criminal justice.1046 A 2000 amnesty legislation in Uganda provides a further illustration of amnesty being used as a method of quelling an internal rebellion.
4.2.1.2 Uganda
In 2000, Uganda enacted an amnesty law1047 which was aimed at ending the war between Government forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army which had been ravaging the Northern part of Uganda for more than two decades.1048
During this war, which started in 1987, an estimated 100,000 civilians were killed and nearly two million people were displaced from their homes.1049 The LRA fighters mutilated thousands of people, including hacking off of their lips.1050 Thousands of children were also abducted to serve as porters, soldiers, and sexual slaves or domestic servants for the rebel. Some of these children were as old as seven years and eight years old.1051
The Amnesty Act of 2000 has been credited with weakening the LRA from which more than 13,000 fighters have defected since 2000 to obtain amnesty.1052 As of May 2013, the LRA was believed to have as few as 250 combatants and 250 civilian-dependants, including abducted women.1053
1045 Perspective Monde Date Unknown
http://perspective.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/servlet/BMEve?codeEve=932 1046 Stigen The Principle of Complementarity 421.
1047 Amnesty Act 2000.
1048 O’Shea Amnesty 39. For a more detailed account of this war, see Pensky 2008 Ethics and Global Politics 3-4.
1049 Lamunu 2012 http://iwpr.net/report-news/no-more-amnesty-ugandas-lra 1050 Pensky 2008 Ethics and Global Politics 3.
1051 Pham, Vinck and Stover “Abducted: The Lord’s Resistance Army and Forced Conscription in Northern Uganda” 5.
1052 Lamunu 2012 http://iwpr.net/report-news/no-more-amnesty-ugandas-lra 1053 Nguyen 2013 http://allafrica.com/stories/201308050032.html
The Ugandan experience shows that amnesties can play a big role in weakening rebel organisations by offering to combatants a safe exit from the bush to normal life. From a policy point of view, no one can seriously argue that the Ugandan Parliament erred in passing the 2000 amnesty law as this has helped materially to stabilize the northern part of the country and allow the people of that region to live without the fear of death and atrocities.
Insisting on criminal accountability for the crimes committed by the LRA fighters would have prolonged the agony and suffering of innocent civilians. No responsible government can take that option. Criminal justice, as important as it may be, must be secondary to the search for peace.1054As one commentator has remarked:
the quest for justice for yesterday's victims of atrocities should not be pursued in such a manner that it makes today's living the dead of tomorrow.1055