scholarly journals Reconciliation Processes In Rwanda. The Importance of Tradition and Culture for Transitional Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 83-98
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Myl
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
Transitional Processes

In 1994, Rwanda suffered one of the worst genocides in history. It is estimated that up to 1,000,000 people were killed in the 100 days of mass slaughter. In 2019, 25 years after the atrocities, Rwanda and Rwandans are still involved in transitional processes aimed at rebuilding the country, handling the past crimes and, ultimately, achieving reconciliation. In the first part of the paper the significance of the reconciliation is elaborated. Reconciliation is often presumed to be one of the main goals for transitional justice and an essential element for rebuilding peace and security in post-conflict countries. It is also the process during which victims and perpetrators attain or restore a relationship and heal their trauma. In the second part of the paper, the importance of local tradition and cultures for transitional justice is discussed. The attention is paid to gacaca courts, reconciliation villages and umuganda, and to their roles in achieving reconciliation in Rwanda.

‘We have long memories in this area’: Ulster Defence Regiment place-memory along the Irish border

2020 ◽  
pp. 175069802092145
Author(s):  
Joseph S Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Political Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
Place Memory ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Time Away

A large body of literature assumes post-conflict societies can and should mediate public memory towards frames conducive to a reconciled future. However, this article argues that such a drive marginalises survivors of political violence who narrate the past as still-present wounds. The linear temporality of transitional justice presumes an idealised trajectory through time, away from violence and towards reconciliation. However, this idealised temporality renders anachronistic survivors who depend on the prolongation of traumatic pasts for the possibility of political change. Using the case of former Ulster Defence Regiment in Northern Ireland, this article examines this prolongation through the lens of Ulster Defence Regiment survivors’ resistant place-memory along the Southwest run of the Irish border. Through the performative retemporalisation of everyday places and landscapes, survivors demand that their resistant memories and narrative frames of past violence still belong and still have active political resonance in transitional political space.

scholarly journals Medijska konstrukcija kolektivnih sjećanja: Tretman prošlosti u polju novinarstva, s osvrtom na postdejtonsku Bosnu i Hercegovinu

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2 2013) ◽  
pp. 39-65
Author(s):  
Mirza Mahmutović
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Media

In this work we critically consider the practice of treating history in the area of journalism respectively media as an distinctive institutional arena of contemporary communities for establishment, maintenance and transformation of common frameworks of understanding and commemorating of certain episodes from the past. We intent to offer plausible explanations regarding the relations between ''culture of remembrances'' and ''culture of reporting''. Article suggests how to approach the often misunderstood history in informative activitiy, which in its field of action and by definition does not have the dimension of history but the dimension of social situation of contemporariness. We also form the key operations and strategies used in shaping the repertoire of journalistic reports on the past. Described practices we study on the example of post-Dayton BiH, analysing media treatment of conflict areas during the recent war history. Legitimisation of ethnic-national visions of the past through the discourse of reporting has been recognised as the dominant way of working in the ''media memory filed''. Two key paradoxes of these practices are highlighted: coexistence of opposite discourses of commemoration and codification of abjection experiences by the same group of significations which have initially inducted the war traumas. We point out at least two conditions which facilitate these paradoxes: ambiguity of the past, concpetion of time which is assumed by post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina as an inherently uncompleted/imperfect country and technologies of culturised steering of trauma, which is being used by regimes of therapeutic/transitional justice'' to cope with disturbing history in post-conflict communities.

Rule of Law, Security, and Transitional Justice in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Mihr ◽  
Chandra Sriram Lekha
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
The Many

States are expected to provide both security and justice for their citizens; one needs the other in order to work well. Yet when both are damaged or destroyed by war, state actors and outsiders alike tend to treat them as competing post-conflict priorities. Over the past twenty years, numerous processes have emerged to promote one or both, including “transitional justice”—from courts and truth commissions to community reconciliation—and programs to restore rule of law, reform the “security sector” (SSR) and disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate fighters into society (DDR). The many actors involved have just as many, sometimes competing, operational priorities, knowing that change is urgent, but necessarily long-term. This chapter examines the interaction of transitional justice, rule of law, SSR, and DDR, identifying key concepts, actors, processes, and challenges in pursuing change in each of these areas simultaneously.

Why Political Appointments to Truth Commissions Cause Difficulties for these Institutions: Using the Crisis in the Transitional Justice Process in Nepal to Understand How Matters of Legitimacy and Credibility Undermine Such Commissions

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 444-470
Author(s):  
Jeremy Sarkin ◽  
Ram Kumar Bhandari
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The World ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Political Appointments

Abstract Over five decades and with dozens of examples of truth commissions to look back on, an undeniable aspect of their legacy is that the world has become far more focused on dealing with the past and uncovering the truth about past atrocities. While there is typically a focus in the literature on the more widely publicized and famous truth commissions, scores of other processes have taken place, especially since the 1990s. Post-conflict or divided societies have designed institutions in ways that achieve specific objectives but at the same time conform to international standards, creating a reputation of being both democratic and accountable. Using the prism of Nepal, this article examines why the process to establish transitional justice mechanisms, and specifically truth commissions, needs to be legitimate and credible for them to be effective and be impactful. It specifically examines issues relating to appointments to such institutions and why such appointments need to be done independently and not overtly politically. It scrutinizes why appointment mechanisms and processes are so important to enhancing the legitimacy and independence of such bodies. The case of Nepal is used as an example to extrapolate conclusions about the problems that affected its processes, and the various crises that have emerged in those processes. The article argues that commissioners ought to be chosen on the basis of their impartiality, moral integrity, and known commitment to human rights and disclosure of the truth. This is essential to ensure that the process is seen to be independent and credible.

scholarly journals China’s Footprint in Africa’s Peace and Security: The Contending Views

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Oita Etyang ◽  
Simon Oswan Panyako
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Specific Country

Abstract China’s role in the global peace politics has been transformed in the past two decades. Apart from its dominance in the economic realm, China has placed issues of peace and security at the centre of its foreign policy. In Africa, China has actively engaged in Africa’s peace and security agenda from opening a military base in Djibouti to participating and contributing to peace talks in South Sudan. Based on the emerging trends, it would appear that the long-cherished non-interference principle is undergoing a deliberate transformation given the emerging realities in the global geo-politics. It is based on this “paradigmatic shift” that this paper interrogates China’s role in Africa’s peace and security. The paper argues that China’s interest in Africa’s peace and security agenda is driven by economic and geo-political interests. The paper further discusses the role that China has played in military cooperation, peacekeeping, conflict resolution and post conflict reconstruction in Africa using specific country case examples.

Examining the Use of Amnesties and Pardons as a Response to Internal Armed Conflict

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew G Reiter
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
The Past ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Lasting Peace ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

The use of amnesty for human rights violations has been heavily criticised on legal, ethical and political grounds. Yet amnesties have been the most popular transitional justice mechanisms over the past four decades, particularly in the context of internal armed conflict. States justify these amnesties by claiming they are important tools to secure peace. But how successful is amnesty in accomplishing these goals? This article seeks to answer this question by analysing the use and effectiveness of 236 amnesties used in internal armed conflicts worldwide since 1970. The article first creates a typology of the use of amnesty in the context of internal armed conflict. It then qualitatively examines the impact on peace of each type of amnesty. The article finds that most amnesties granted in the context of internal armed conflict have no demonstrable impact on peace and security. Yet amnesties granted as carrots to entice the surrender of armed actors occasionally succeed in bringing about the demobilisation of individual combatants or even entire armed groups. More importantly, amnesties extended as part of a peace process are effective in initiating negotiations, securing agreements, and building the foundation for long-lasting peace.

On demons and dreamers: Violence, silence and the politics of impunity in the Brazilian Truth Commission

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 316-333
Author(s):  
Henrique Furtado
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
Political Project ◽  
Brazilian Case

Measures towards post-conflict or post-authoritarian justice have historically relied on the merging of the concepts of silence, violence and impunity in order to create a single promise of justice. Scholars and practitioners in the field usually defend a trifold agenda of breaking the silence about violations of human rights, denouncing systematic violence in the past and fighting impunity as the only way of ensuring that violence never happens again. This trope was mobilized in Brazil in 2014, when the report of the country’s National Truth Commission (CNV) was released. However, in the Brazilian case, truth-seeking also produced its own form of ‘silence’. Whereas the CNV commendably denounced 377 perpetrators as the ‘demons’ responsible for implementing a state of terror during the last dictatorship (1964–1985), it also created a depoliticized and victimized idea of leftist militants as mere dreamers who fought for liberty and democracy in the past. By representing leftist militants as freedom fighters, the CNV silenced their fundamental ideas (and actions) regarding the concept of revolutionary violence and its radical programme of structural change. In this article, I provide an explanation that connects the CNV’s ‘silencing’ of this political project to the unreflective merging between the concepts of silence, violence and impunity in the literature. Via a narrative analysis of the CNV’s report and a critique of transitional justice debates, I argue that the silence on the political project of the radical left in Brazil echoes transitional justice’s silence about the complexities of violence in general.

Memories of the 1999 NATO Bombing in Belgrade, Serbia

Südosteuropa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Orli Fridman
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
International Intervention ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Yugoslav Wars ◽  
Nato Bombing ◽  
Transformation Processes

AbstractThis paper analyses the memories of Belgrade residents of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia (then part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). By focusing on the memories of this event, yet placing them in a broader context of the conflicts of the 1990s—the breakup of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav wars—this essay explores what international intervention has meant to respondents in Belgrade by documenting memories of international intervention among older and younger generations, as well as among active members of antiwar NGOs in Serbia and citizens who were not engaged in activism during the 1990s. The paper aims to expand the scope of the discussions on dealing with the past and on transitional justice in the Western Balkans and to place them in the context of social memory studies and the study of post-conflict transformation processes. Furthermore, by presenting the case study of Serbia, this text contributes to the analysis of local mnemonic batt les as part of the creation of collective memories of the 1990s in post-Milošević Serbia, and it sheds light on the memories of the bombing as related to the war in Kosovo and the subsequent effects on shaping postwar Serbia–Kosovo relations.

scholarly journals RECONCILIATION IN ZIMBABWE: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN A STATE-CENTRED AND PEOPLECENTRED APPROACH

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Murambadoro ◽  
Cori Wielenga
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Community Members ◽  
State Security ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
High Level ◽  
National Reconciliation

Reconciliation has become an integral part of the post-conflict peacebuilding process, and has come to be seen as an integral part of sustaining peace and security, particularly at the local level. The tension between a state security and human security approach to peacebuilding is particularly evident in national reconciliation and transitional justice processes. There is a continued emphasis on high-level reconciliation processes and the reconciliation of elite actors over processes that facilitate reconciliation at the  community level. This article explores this in the case of Zimbabwe, where the emphasis is on a state-based approach to resolving conflict, which fails to take into account or address the needs and issues that affect local communities. Drawing from fieldwork undertaken in Matabeleland in April, 2014, this article describes what community members identify as their central needs when it comes to reconciliation, within the context of the state-driven processes that have been implemented to date.

Should Transitional Justice Promote Forgiveness?

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Snyder ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Interpersonal Forgiveness ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Narrative Truth ◽  
The Government

Over the past thirty years, transitional justice scholars have grappled with whether, and to what extent, post-conflict societies should foster forgiveness. In response to this question, this article argues that forgiveness is a legitimate goal of transitional justice, but that interpersonal forgiveness cannot be mandated by the government. It will look to the example of Guatemala to demonstrate how the recovery of narrative truth through individual and communal acts of remembrance enabled forgiveness while at the same time affirmed the need for justice. The article proceeds in two parts. First, it explores the praxis of forgiveness and the role of narrative truth and the healing of memory as constitutive elements of forgiveness. Second, it argues that Guatemala’s Recovery of Historical Memory Project (REMHI) is an illustration of this praxis. Finally, this article argues against conceptions of forgiveness that promote forgetting the past and forgoing justice.

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