War Crimes and Mercy

I haven't heard much in the mainstream media about the civil war happening in northern Uganda. It's been going on for 20 years. Last year, peace talks began and the fighting started to wind down, but a lot of issues have gone unresolved, and the fighting hasn't totally stopped. During this war, soldiers have done some atrocious things like rape, murder, and kidnapping children and forcing them to become soldiers. So one big question is, what do they do with the people who've committed these atrocities? Here are a couple of articles by people who don't think there should be big war crimes trials in this situation:

Why the ICC Must Stop Impeding Juba Process

Truth and Reconciliation, Ugandan Style

I wasn't actually planning to say much about Christianity in this post, but as a Christian, articles like this sometimes get me thinking about parallels between this situation and Christian teachings. Christianity teaches that we have all rebelled against God, but God decided it was better to offer reconciliation than to make sure our punishment fit the crime. God's grace allows us to leave behind our lives that were opposed to him and be welcomed into his family, like a former child soldier brought back into a community where he raped and killed people. The crime happened and it can't be undone, but dealing with these problems more through grace than punishment gives more hope for a peaceful future. And I am impressed that the Acholi people have their own way of dealing with these situations graciously. They probably have grace "figured out" better than most Christians, including myself. For one thing, they have experienced it in more concrete terms than most of us in the developed world. Imagine if the whole world could make peace like this.

And now I'm going to quote the Bible:
"If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!"
--Romans 5:10-11 (The Message)