Kansas City Kansas Community College

Transitional Justice

Ewa Unoke

Transitional Justice

(How societies and governments deal with the past)

“Dr. Unoke…Do you think there are inherently evil people in the world? ... People who can’t be pacified on any level? Example, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, etc…How would you deal with a person like Osama Bin Laden to achieve a peaceful solution to his hatred of all things non-fundamentalist Muslim? Could you have made peace with the Taliban and still advanced human rights in Afghanistan? I respect your desire for world peace. Sometimes peace has to be won by violent means…How would Michael Berg win the peace? Thanks,” R J

How do societies and governments deal with the injustices of the past? Should perpetrators of such injustices be punished or forgiven and forgotten? If so how? These questions become especially more important for societies making the transition from dictatorship to democracy or from conflict to post-conflict situation: Germany following Nazism, South Africa after Apartheid, Africa after colonial dispossession, African-American society after slavery, Africanworld reparation for historical injustices, democratization in Latin America and East-Central Europe, for example. We, at the GPCTJ, promote reparative justice. We help to repair the long-damaged, long-forgotten and long-silenced human society. We help societies, governments and victims in coming to terms with their not-so-pleasant past. We help to facilitate, to mediate, to research, to recommend and to utilize various TJ post-conflict models as cornerstones for seeking reconciliation and inclusion within the post-conflict society. Transitional justice is an emerging conflict-resolution model within the Comparative Politics and International Relations sub-fields of the Political Science discipline.

The central concerns of the post-conflict society are basically that of political exclusion, justice, reconciliation and representation. In the 21st century, transitional justice has become a more reliable alternative in promoting durable and more sustainable peace and security in post-conflict societies. African transitional justice models interrogate the efficacy of the dominant Euro-American conflict-resolution models and theories which failed to predict WWI, WWII, Iraqi and the Balkan wars. These old and trite doctrines have failed to offer commonsense settlement strategies to the protracted Middle Eastern conflict, African civil wars, Latin American poverty, global insecurity, global terror and violence.

What is the place of Transitional Justice in the International system?

How do you deal with the victims of oppressive regimes? On the global-macro level, how can the moralworld help to resolve the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict? On the national-micro level, is reparation to the African and African-American societies a finished or an unfinished business? How far, how many generations can demand this justice? How far can we pursue justice? Did colonial dispossession through slavery and colonization create any historic wrongs? Has the occupation of the West Bank by Israel created any social injustice? Old and dominant theories suggest that we cannot remedy the injustices of history. If so, can religion be considered a remedy for past injustices?

In Republican regimes, you get ahead by public speaking. Europe, more than any other continent is the home of authoritarian regimes. For many centuries, European communities witnessed wars, defeats, decadence, extreme resentment of Queens and Kings, extreme hatred for the monarchy, effeminism, despotism, blood guilt and religious hatred. Today, the Third World, especially Africa remains caught-up in this primitive, postcolonial atrophy.

Reparation

1. In dealing with reparative justice we examine its 4 critical juridical compass:
2. Religious Justice
3. Legal Justice
4. Transitional/Natural Justice

Every civilization has its own warrior culture. In authoritative regimes, people get ahead by conforming, by whispering, by intrigues, by back-stabbing or by alliances. But, what happens to those people who oppose such authoritarian or totalitarian regime types? What about the long-silenced voices and victims of political exclusion who have no representation? The margins?

“May there be freedom, equality and brotherhood among all men. May there be morality in the relations among nations. May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us”-Ralph Bunche

Sufiya Huseini, 35, poverty stricken, illiterate and voiceless will soon face the ultimate punishment - death by stoning. According to The New York Times Magazine (01-27-02), in June 2001, an Islamic court in Sokoto, Nigeria acting under the color of Sharia law sentenced Sufiya to death by stoning for allegedly committing adultery. However, Sufiya’s execution has been suspended until her baby is weaned from breast-feeding.

Sharia law is strict Islamic rule of law enforced by severe punishments for those who are perceived to violate Islamic beliefs of what is right and wrong. In the case of Nigeria, Sharia law has been implemented in ten of the twelve Northern Islamic states, while the rest of the non-Islamic states are ruled under secular law. The Islamic groups in Nigeria - Hausa and Fulani - refuse to abide by the secular form of government even though the Constitution of Nigeria expressly forbids any religious types of government. It is under this Sharia law that Sufiya has been arbitrarily sentenced to death by stoning.

Sufiya, is a member of the Islamic Hausa ethnic group of Northern Nigeria. She lives in abject poverty in the town of Tungar Tundu, and divorced her husband in 2001 for his inability to support her as mandated by Islamic law. After her divorce, Sufiya and her two children moved into her father’s home. It was at that time that 60-year-old Yakubu Abubakar took an interest in Sufiya. According to Sufiya, Abubakar raped her on four separate occasions and she consequently became pregnant. Once her pregnancy became apparent, she and Abubakar were arrested and interrogated by the local police. During her interrogation, both confessed to having sex, but Sufiya did not reveal then that she had been raped. Under pre-sharia law, Abubakar would have had to support Sufiya and her child once it was born and that would have been the end of the mater. However, the consequences of Sufiya’s rape and subsequent pregnancy are given a harsher treatment under Sharia law - death by stoning.

Sufiya was tried in a sharia court. Her judge and jury consisted of one man, Judge Muhammed Bello Sanyinlawal, who decided that her pregnancy - though it took place after she was divorced and was the result of rape - was proof of her guilt. Under Sharia law, even becoming pregnant after a divorce by another man other than one’s ex-husband rises to the level of adultery. According to the Attorney General of Sokoto state, Aliya Abubakar, “Sufiya deserves to die,” he insists. He further argues that “adultery is more serious than murder, society is injured by Sufiya’s act and I would be happy to cast the first stone.”

As for Abubakar, he denied raping Sufiya and was acquitted of the rape charge not because there was lack of evidence, but because four Islamic men did not witness the rape, which is necessary to substantiate a charge of rape under Sharia law. In addition, no adultery charge was ever brought against Abubakar.

CONTRACT WITH AFRICA is circulating a worldwide petition to save the life of Sufiya Huseini, a human being, whose fundamental Human Rights have been denied. We invite all Howard University Students and Community to join the campaign as we petition the UN, US Government, Amnesty International, Trans Africa, NGOs, Human Rights Watch, and Women’s Organizations Worldwide to prevail on the transitional government of Nigeria to stop he execution of Sufiya by stoning and dismiss the charges against her Immediately. We urge you to take a stand for social Justice and Peace. THERE IS VICTORY IN OUR CAUSE!

Ewa Unoke, Nigerian from Ebonyi State, Ph.D. Student of Political Science, Howard University, formerly, Nation and World Editor of The Hilltop is the Founder and Co-ordinator of the Contract With Africa Global Campaign 0013 to save the lie of Sufiya. You can contact him through is Mail Box: Room 112 Douglas Hall or email: Dr. Ewa Unoke or cell 202-612-9280. Postal Address: Contract With Africa, MSC590274, 2400 6th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20059.