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Begin New Search Topic Justice Journal African Journal on Conflict Resolution

1. The role of traditional healers in conflict resolution in Zimbabwe, 1890‒1980

Author:
Takesure Taringana and Amos Zevure
Publication Date:
07-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
This paper analyses the historical role of traditional healers (n’anga/chiremba) in conflict resolution in Zimbabwe. Historically, traditional healers occupied a powerful position in Zimbabwean society. Not only were they healers but they also handled social problems and contributed to peace and reconciliation. However, colonial rule in Zimbabwe (1890‒1980) ushered in a spirited challenge to the authority of traditional healers. They were ridiculed as fraudsters who perpetuated unfounded superstitions. Colonial legal and justice systems replaced traditional conflict resolution institutions that had been manned by traditional healers. Nonetheless, traditional healers continued to exist underground. Notwithstanding that, their role and contribution to peacebuilding remains on the fringe of academic inquiry. The key question that this paper addresses is how and under what conditions traditional healers contributed to conflict resolution at the grassroots level. The paper focuses mostly on records of conflict and violence in court cases, underscoring how witnesses’ evidence brought attention to the role of traditional healers in reconciliation. It demonstrates the various contexts in which traditional healers’ interventions were alluded to but ignored in the state’s attempts to administer justice. By digging up obscured and misrepresented evidence of traditional healers’ practices in conflict resolution in the colonial archive and in-depth interviews, we unravel this understated but most crucial element in the process of conflict resolution in Zimbabwe since 1890.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Peace, Justice, Reconciliation, and Tradition
Political Geography:
Africa and Zimbabwe

2. Applying Restorative Justice in Resolving the Farmers-Herdsmen Conflict in Nigeria

Author:
Emmanuel Ikechi Onah and Bamidele Emmanuel Olajide
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Farmers-herdsmen conflict has become a recurring phenomenon in Nigeria. This article argues that the continuing occurrence of this conflict can be explained by the non-application of restorative justice procedures by government when dealing with such conflict. This has made the structures of traditional conflict resolution ineffective. The article concludes that the application of restorative justice as part of conflict resolution mechanisms will more sustainably resolve the farmers-herders conflict in the country, as well as enhance national security and development.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Conflict, Justice, and Farming
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

3. Celebrating the Centenary of Nelson Mandela’s Birth and his Nationalist Humanist Vision

Author:
Ndlovu-Gatshenim Sabelo J. and Busani Ngcaweni
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, charismatic and iconic, is a product of his time and can only be understood within the context of the social movements that he belonged to and led. Thus, this article locates Mandela within the local and global context in which he emerged while at the same time making sense of his instrumental interventions and nationalist humanist vision of life, peace and justice. This article situates Mandela’s political life within the broader context of the third humanist revolution, which was a response to the inimical processes of racism, enslavement and colonisation. In its centenary celebration of Mandela, the article re-articulates how he embodied alternative politics founded on the will to live as opposed to the will to power; the paradigm of peace as opposed to the paradigm of war; political justice as opposed to criminal justice; as well as pluriversality as opposed to tragic notions of racial separate development known as apartheid. What is fleshed out is a ‘Mandela phenomenon’ as founded on strong progressive politics albeit predicated on the unstable idea of the potential of advocates and victims of apartheid undergoing a radical metamorphosis amenable to the birth of a new pluriversal society.
Topic:
Nationalism, Leadership, Peace, and Justice
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

4. Towards Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Conflict Countries

Author:
Charles Mulinda Kabwete
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
This article contributes to the debates around concepts of truth, confession, forgiveness and reconciliation. The theoretical discussion shows to what extent these concepts are interconnected, and share a complex relation with justice and reconciliation. It argues that the knowledge about past violence is hardly a canonical truth. It is at best a negotiated truth. This knowledge is inevitably a combination of facts and interpretations. This knowledge is sought and used for understanding past violence but also for paving a way towards the reconstruction of post-conflict societies. The article argues that confession offers a twofold opportunity: it produces knowledge of past violence, and acknowledgement of victims’ pain through perpetrators’ expression of remorse, although in a limited manner. Forgiveness is also discussed in relation to its essential meaning, the actors involved, and its purposes. Finally, reconciliation is built on two pillars, firstly, the proclamation of a seemingly achieved reconciliation; and secondly, the experiencing of reconciliation in everyday interaction between perpetrators and victims.
Topic:
Conflict, Justice, Reconciliation, and Truth
Political Geography:
Africa

5. The International Criminal Court and the African Union

Author:
Westen K. Shilaho
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
There is a diplomatic impasse between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the African Union (AU) regarding accountability for mass atrocities committed in Africa. The AU accuses the ICC of bias against African rulers, in effect, ‘Africans’, while the ICC insists that as a permanent legal institution, it affords justice to all victims of egregious crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. And so Africans, victims of these crimes, deserve justice too. Since the indictment of the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, twice for crimes against humanity and then for genocide, the ICC has elicited antipathy from some African rulers and their supporters who perceive it as an adjunct of imperialism encroaching on Africa’s sovereignty. However, sovereignty entails responsibility to protect (R2P). The AU Constitutive Act of 2000 affirms this under the non-indifference principle. It is therefore counter-intuitive to accede to international norms and concurrently invoke ‘absolute sovereignty’ as some African rulers attempt to do. Africa’s conflicts are characterised by mass atrocities owing to weak states that are unable and often unwilling to protect citizens and dispense justice. In some cases these states are themselves perpetrators of heinous crimes, which necessitates intervention by the international community. Historically, realpolitik, self-preservation and geopolitics have marred international criminal justice, and Africa’s relationship with the West is steeped in humiliation making some African rulers suspicious of Western-dominated institutions. The perception that the ICC dispenses lopsided justice stems from this history. This paper argues that the choice between justice and peace is a false one since the two mutually reinforce each other, while impunity, if not checked, portends instability in Africa.
Topic:
International Cooperation, United Nations, Justice, International Criminal Court (ICC), and African Union
Political Geography:
Africa

6. Popular dispute resolution mechanisms in Ethiopia: Trends, opportunities, challenges and prospects

Author:
Gebreyesus Teklu Bahta
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
This article finds that high-ranking officials within the judiciary and executive, heads of some organisations, and certain researchers have acclaimed the harmonisation and application of the Popular Dispute Resolution Mechanisms (PDRMs) in Ethiopia’s justice system. To this effect, they have sponsored national and regional forums, conferences and workshops; established research institutions and centres as well as sponsored scholars who conduct research on this initiative. The positive attitude of these stakeholders towards PDRMs, the multiplicity and diversity of PDRMs, as well as the support of various institutions to such initiatives are considered to be good opportunities for the harmonisation and application of these practices in the country’s justice system. On the other hand, the absence of clear laws and policies related to the legitimacy of the informal justice systems, the level of administration to which they should be accountable, their interconnection with the formal courts and other state structures, the scope of application of their jurisdiction and their financial transactions are found to be serious challenges that demand immediate attention. Some of the hitherto existing research works are found to be scattered, poorly cross-referenced and out-of-the-reach of researchers and readers; while others are shallow in their investigative depth and limited in thematic and geographical coverage. In order to address these challenges and dilemmas, the article recommends the establishment of a new regulatory organ at macro level that has the capability and legitimacy to adapt and harmonise PDRMs in ways that can preserve the traditional African indigenous values and at the same time respect international human rights convention.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Religion, and Justice
Political Geography:
Africa and Ethiopia