Call, Charles T.

While the United Nations has extensive experience in helping to mediate the end to civil wars and implement peace agreements, its experience with non-civil-war transition crises is comparatively limited. This study examines the UN experience in five cases of unconstitutional changes in government between 2008-2011: Kenya, Mauritania, Guinea, Madagascar, and Kyrgyzstan.

The study examines some of the trends across these five cases, drawing lessons learned regarding transitional political arrangements and international mediation. The cases suggest that the use of power-sharing mechanisms to resolve either unconstitutional ousters of elected presidents or electoral disputes raises questions for legitimacy, democracy, and state-society relations. They also suggest that electoral disputes pose more risks for legitimation than unconstitutional ousters of duly-elected governments. Commissions of inquiry offer opportunities to facilitate the restoration of constitutional order without sacrificing justice. They facilitate mediation by “bracketing” the heated controversies over disputed events, removing them from the purview of immediate negotiations.

South, Ashley, Simon Harragin, Justin Corbett, et al.

The Local to Global Protection Project (L2GP) is an initiative to document and promote local perspectives on protection in major humanitarian crises. Based on research in Myanmar, Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe, L2GP explores how people living in areas affected by natural disaster and armed conflict understand ‘protection’ – what they value, and how they go about protecting themselves, their families and their communities. The research also examines how people view the roles of others, including the state, non-state actors, community-based organisations and national and international aid agencies.

The case studies also illustrate that, while self-protection strategies may be crucial for survival, they are rarely fully adequate. Local agency cannot be regarded as a substitute for the protection responsibilities of national authorities or international actors.

The paper suggests two distinct but complementary approaches to protection: strengthening local capacities for self-protection, and generating the political will to prevent or stop targeted attacks on civilians.

Kristoff, Madeline

Police reform in the Palestinian Territories has faced many challenges. Rebuilding the police force in a post-conflict environment is not an easy task, and must take into account the community’s needs in order to build legitimacy. In 2006, the European Union Police Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support was established to support the short-term objectives of the Palestinian Civil Police and provide longer-term transformational change assistance. This issue paper discusses a number of questions to address gaps in the evaluation of police reform efforts. It concludes with a series of recommendations, but maintains that building legitimate and sustainable institutions will not be possible without a credible Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

This report outlines the views and priorities of victims of serious violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law which resulted from the conflict between the Government of Uganda and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). It details the serious violations that victims and victim-focused civil society organisations (CSOs) believe should trigger their right to remedy and reparation. Their priorities for remedy focus primarily on truth-recovery and accountability for harms committed. Recognising that reparations constitute remedies, their priorities for reparation rights include: physical and mental health services, education services, assistance to recover housing, land and inheritance, rebuilding of livelihoods, empowering of youth, public acknowledgement of harm and apologies, information on the disappeared, and the proper treatment of the dead. The report incorporates a strong gender focus and analysis.

The report provides victims, CSOs, the Ugandan authorities, the United Nations, development partners, non-governmental organisations, and foreign agencies and specialists in transitional justice with a detailed outline of victims’ rights to remedy and reparation in international law. It also highlights the remedy and reparation principles and parameters outlined in the Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation, one of the five agreements (collectively known as the Juba Protocols) concluded in talks between the Government of Uganda and the LRA in Juba, Southern Sudan in 2006-2008.

The Agreement and its Annex 2 form the basis on which the Government of Uganda is drawing key principles to frame policies, legislation, and programmes to determine facts around the conflict (itself a form of remedy)and determine the parameters and modalities for reparation.

This report brings together the substantial body of evidence drawn from international legal instruments attesting to the right of victims in the Greater North of Uganda to remedy and reparation for serious violations suffered. The foundational tenet and obligation of reparation in international law is that it should directly benefit the victims of certain types of serious violations. It is increasingly accepted that genuine reparation is more than the outcome of formal judicial proceedings and must be situated within broader political processes in societies emerging from conflict.

Nindorera, Willy

The civil war sparked by the assassination of President-elect Melchior Ndadaye in October 1993 pitted a variety of mostly Hutu rebel movements - principally the National Council for the Defence of Democracy and the Forces for the Defence of Democracy [identified by its French acronym, CNDD-FDD] - against Burundi's regular army. The principal demands of the rebel groups were the return to constitutional law, the institution of democratic majority rule and, most especially, the reform of the Tutsi-dominated army that was viewed as the centre of power. Peace negotiations initiated in June 1998 led in August 2000 to a peace and reconciliation agreement without a ceasefire. A ceasefire agreement signed in November 2003 enabled peace to return to most of the territory - with the exception of the zones where the remaining rebel group, the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People and National Forces of Liberation [PALIPEHUTU-FNL], which was hostile to any peace agreement with the government, continued to operate.

This study analyses the process that pushed the CNDD-FDD rebels to abandon their armed struggle and adopt a non-violent strategy in pursuit of their political goals - as seen by their former and current leaders. The work at hand is part of a large research programme conducted by the Berghof Foundation about the choice of nonviolent or violent strategies by various rebellions around the world, the factors that influenced these options and how they have transformed these conflicts.

Kelly, Gráinne

The recent history of conflict in Northern Ireland has left its mark on the whole society and few would argue that quick fix solutions can be found to address its multiple legacies. Significant political progress has been achieved. Violence and the threat of violence have greatly reduced and there are indications that people are increasingly willing to break down the long held barriers of mistrust and fear between, and within, communities. Yet much work remains to be done. Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society, polarised along some of the most institutionalised and embedded of structures - housing, education, social and religious life, sporting and cultural activities - while the evidence points to the expressed desire of many that this were not this case.

The motivation for this qualitative research project is to make a practical contribution to the future planning of 'good relations' and 'reconciliation' policy, grantmaking and practice in the coming years through the identification of key themes and issues that require specific focus and attention. This research study takes place at a key juncture in the ongoing process of building peace in Northern Ireland with new policy priorities being developed by the Northern Ireland Executive and reviews being undertaken by some of the key internal and external funders of 'peace and reconciliation' work.

Odhiambo, Michael Ochieng, Fekadu Abate, M.J. Kimani, and Dennis Tuhairwe Bataringaya

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has commissioned a regional study on the impact of conflict on the resilience of pastoral communities and on their coping strategies, which is being undertaken through case studies of three 'pastoral conflict' sites in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia.

The study demonstrates how conflict impacts on the opportunistic use of pastures and other strategic pastoral resources, especially when it renders such resources inaccessible to some or all pastoral groups, denying communities the opportunity to use the specific resources thereby increasing pressures on other resources that are accessible, and which are then effectively overused and degraded - thereby engendering even more conflict.

The study also seeks to establish and analyze the ripple effects of primary conflict on other areas, resources and communities that support the population and their livestock once access to primary resources are hampered and/or restricted. It shall demonstrate and map the interrelated nature of conflict in the pastoral areas and its effects in the overall resilience of the said population, and make the case of a holistic approach in addressing the challenges to their livelihoods.

When Yemenis took to the streets in January 2011 to demand an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule, Taizz, 250 kilometers south of the capital, Sanaa, became a center of both peaceful and armed resistance – and the scene of numerous human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war. “No Safe Places” is based on more than 170 interviews with protesters, doctors, human rights defenders, and other witnesses to attacks in Taizz by state security forces and pro-Saleh gangs from February to December 2011.

This report, the result of Human Rights Watch’s research on abuses in Taizz conducted from February through December 2011, tells the storey of the Yemeni security forces’ repeated use of excessive and lethal force against largely peaceful protestors, and their apparently indiscriminate shelling of populated areas during attacks on opposition fighters. At least 120 civilians were killed in these attacks.

The decision in October 2011 to deploy thousands of troops in Somalia’s Juba Valley to wage war on Al-Shabaab is the biggest security gamble Kenya has taken since independence, a radical departure for a country that has never sent its soldiers abroad to fight. Operation Linda Nchi [Protect the Country] was given the go-ahead with what has shown itself to be inadequate political, diplomatic and military preparation; the potential for getting bogged down is high; the risks of an Al-Shabaab retaliatory terror campaign are real; and the prospects for a viable, extremist-free and stable polity emerging in the Juba Valley are slim. The government is unlikely to heed any calls for a troop pullout: it has invested too much, and pride is at stake. Financial and logistical pressures will ease once its force becomes part of the African Union mission in Somalia. But it should avoid prolonged “occupation” of southern Somalia, lest it turn local Somali opinion against the intervention and galvanise an armed resistance that could be co-opted by Al-Shabaab, much as happened to Ethiopia during its 2006-2009 intervention.

The intervention was hastily approved, after a string of cross-border kidnappings, by a small group without sufficient consideration of the consequences, at home as well as in Somalia. Military leaders were apparently convinced it would be a quick campaign, but the Kenyan Defence Forces promptly ran into difficulties on the unfamiliar terrain. Somali allies failed to deliver and began squabbling, while Al-Shabaab, rather than confront Kenyan tanks and armoured personnel carriers head-on, predictably reverted to guerrilla warfare – something the KDF was poorly trained and equipped to fight. Irrespective of whether its troops are “rehatted” into AMISOM, there is a real prospect Kenya will find itself with undependable allies, enmeshed in a protracted counter-insurgency campaign against a resilient and experienced enemy.

Owen, Taylor, and Alexandre Grigsby

While one of the least developed countries in the Caribbean region, Guyana’s problems with armed violence are not as severe as many of its neighbours. In 2009 Guyana’s homicide rate was 15 deaths per 100,000, while Jamaica, for example, had a homicide rate of 62 deaths per 100,000. However, left unchecked Guyana’s situation has the potential to continue to worsen.

In Transit: Gangs and Criminal Networks in Guyana, a new Working Paper from the Small Arms Survey, examines the nature of Guyanese gangs and criminal networks and sheds light on some of their activities.

Lamb, Guy, Nelson Alusala, Gregory Mthembu-Salter, and Jean-Marie Gasana

Th e eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is poised on the edge of a machete blade. Despite the achievement of considerable peace-building successes throughout much of this central African state in recent years, the current activities of armed groups and the Congolese armed forces in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri, have the potential to further destabilise the eastern provinces, and possibly even neighbouring countries.

Former combatants are prominent in the security and stability equation in the eastern DRC. The reason is that if this section of society has not been effectively disarmed, demobilised and reintegrated into civilian life, then they have the potential to return to arms. In this region, over 100,000 ex-combatants have been demobilised over the past decade in successive waves of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) interventions.

This report is comprised of five sections. The first section provides an overview of the various armed conflicts that have occurred in the DRC since independence, and subsequent peace-building processes. There is a general assessment of DDR programming to date in the second section. In the third section, the current security environment in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri is assessed. The fourth section interrogates the manner in which the socio-economic reintegration of ex-combatants has unfolded in the eastern DRC. The final section outlines possible recommendations for future action.

About 400 people are displaced every day in Afghanistan. With the conflict intensifying in recent years, entire communities have fled their homes in search of greater security – and their numbers are rising. Tens of thousands of people have sought shelter in slums in the capital, Kabul, as well as other cities. Working with international donors, Afghanistan must take decisive action to provide displaced people with adequate housing, protect them against forced eviction, and ensure that their rights to food, water, health, and education are fulfilled.

This report is based on research gathered during five fact-finding missions between November 2008 and June 2011, each three to five weeks in length, as well as additional information obtained by Amnesty International researchers in follow-up communications from London between July 2011 and January 2012. During its field research, Amnesty International conducted private interviews with more than 100 internally displaced persons and returning refugees in 12 slum communities in and around Herat, Kabul, and Mazar-e-Sharif.