Ivory Coast dialogue may ease political tensions

Significance Of three recent dialogue attempts, this is the first that occurs in an environment that appears conducive to reconciliation. This follows more than a decade of acrimonious relations between major parties, underscored by a fraught 2020 election in which 85 people died as President Alassane Ouattara secured a controversial third presidential term. Impacts The political dialogue will see the return of more political exiles. Ouattara will likely agree to the release of more low-profile political prisoners. Next year’s municipal and regional elections will likely be relatively peaceful.

The ex-PKI Political Prisoners Motive to Produce the Memories of 1965/66 Mass Violence in West Sumatra

This article analyses ex-PKI political prisoners' motive to produce their memory about mass violence and detention in 1965/66. They joined the YPKP (Yayasan Penelitian Korban Pembunuhan/Institute for Research on the victims 1965/65). In this organization, they expect justice for what they experienced in 1965. This article uses qualitative research. We acquire the data by interview and literature study. There are six interviewers –five of them are ex-PKI political prisoners, and one is the chairman of the YPKP branch in West Sumatra. Besides the interview, we also use relevant books, articles, newspapers, archives, and web pages. We employ the social memory approach to analyse this subject. The ex-PKI political prisoners' memory of violence had shaped the same vision between them to produce the memories of what they have experienced during 1965/66. Therefore, the old ex-political prisoners expected to straighten history to reconcile the government and the victims. They attempt to counter the state narration that mentions they had a part in the 30 September 1965 Movement to hold the coup and prove that the state victimized them for decades. Along with the straightened history, there are two primary purposes in this reconciliation they are fighting for; 1) Confession of the state that human rights violations had taken place; 2) Recovery and rehabilitation for those who had become the victim of human rights violations.

The ransom of high-ranking captives, tributary relationships and the practice of diplomacy in northern Syria 448-522/1050-1128

This article examines how the introduction of western European crusaders and settlers to northern Syria from 490/1097 onwards impacted upon two important mechanisms of regional diplomacy; the ransom of prominent political prisoners and tributary relationships. Discussion begins with a comparison of the capture and ransom of high-ranking captives in northern Syria between 442-522/1050-1128, where it is argued that the establishment of the crusader states led to an increase in both the rate at which prisoners of elite status were ransomed and the financial sums involved in these interactions. This is followed by a reassessment of the various peace treaties, tributary arrangements and condominia or munāṣafa agreements concluded between the rulers of Antioch and Aleppo during the late fifth/eleventh and early sixth/twelfth centuries. Ultimately, this article seeks to place key features of northern Syrian diplomacy from the early crusading period within the context of regional norms in the decades preceding the crusaders’ arrival.

Reforma Agraria sebagai Jalan menuju Perdamaian yang Berkelanjutan di Aceh

The signing of the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2005 marked the end of the Indonesian government's decades-long conflict with the Free Aceh Movement. One of the deals in the Helsinki MoU is to provide farming land to former combatants, amnestied political prisoners, and conflict victims as a form of reintegration and livelihood restoration. However, this activity did not run effectively for a dozen years after the peace deal due to the absence of regulations and authorities in its implementation. Based on this background, this paper examines the role of Agrarian Reform on the policy of agricultural land provision to the people related to the Aceh conflict. This research used a qualitative approach, and relied on observational data and literature review. Agrarian Reform can be an alternative strategy for post-conflict peacebuilding. The concept of asset reform and access reform offered in the Agrarian Reform can be adopted to realize the allocation of agricultural land by the mandate of the Helsinki MoU. The main problems found so far are that there is no regulation regarding the granting of land rights in the law, authority, and several obstacles in its implementation. This paper also provides a crucial lesson that proper agrarian policy contributes to the prevention of recurring conflicts that have the potential to cause national disintegration. Keywords: Agrarian Reform, Free Aceh Movement, Helsinki MoU, Land Redistribution, Peacebuilding Intisari : Penandatanganan Momerandum of Understanding (MoU) Helsinki pada tahun 2005 menandai berakhirnya konflik pemerintah Indonesia dengan Gerakan Aceh Merdeka selama beberapa dekade. Salah satu kesepakatan di dalam MoU Helsinki adalah menyediakan tanah pertanian kepada mantan kombatan, tahanan politik yang memperoleh amnesti, dan korban konflik sebagai bentuk reintegrasi dan pemulihan penghidupan. Namun, kegiatan ini tidak berjalan secara efektif selama belasan tahun setelah perjanjian damai karena belum adanya regulasi dan kewenangan dalam pelaksanaannya. Berdasarkan latar belakang tersebut, tulisan ini mengkaji peran Reforma Agraria terhadap kebijakan penyediaan tanah pertanian untuk masyarakat yang berkaitan dengan konflik Aceh. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif, serta mengandalkan data observasi dan tinjauan literatur. Reforma Agraria dapat menjadi strategi alternatif pembangunan perdamaian pasca-konflik. Konsep penataan aset dan penataan akses yang ditawarkan di dalam Reforma Agraria dapat diadopsi untuk merealisasikan alokasi tanah pertanian sesuai amanah MoU Helsinki. Permasalahan-permasalahan utama yang ditemukan selama ini adalah belum adanya pengaturan mengenai pemberian hak atas tanah tersebut di dalam peraturan perundang-undangan, kewenangan, dan sejumlah hambatan dalam pelaksanaannya. Tulisan ini juga memberikan pelajaran penting bahwa kebijakan agraria yang tepat dapat berkontribusi terhadap pencegahan konflik berulang yang dapat berpotensi menyebabkan disintegrasi bangsa. Kata Kunci: Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, MoU Helsinki, Pembangunan Perdamaian, Redistribusi Tanah, Reforma Agraria

My Own Liberator: A South African Story

Dikgang Moseneke was born in Pretoria, South Africa in December 1947. He was imprisoned on Robben Island, where most political prisoners were kept, off the coast of Cape Town for 10 years as a young man for his political activity. While in prison, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Political Science and later completed a Bachelor of Laws degree. After his release from prison, he was admitted as an attorney in 1978 and in 1983 was called to the Pretoria Bar as a Senior Counsel. During the 1980s he worked underground for the Pan-African Congress and became its deputy president when it was unbanned in 1990. Moseneke also served on the technical committee that drafted the interim South African constitution of 1993. After a corporate career between 1995 and 2001, President Thabo Mbeki appointed him to the High Court in Pretoria and in 2002 as a judge in the Constitutional Court. In June 2005, he became the Court’s Deputy Chief Justice, a position from which he retired in May 2016. In this essay, he chronicles his years of protest, political activity, and imprisonment as a young man. The essay is an excerpt from his memoir, My Own Liberator, which is published by Picador Africa (2018), and is available online and at all good bookstores.

Making Sense of Human Rights Diplomacy: Evidence from a US Campaign to Free Political Prisoners

Scholarship on human rights diplomacy (HRD)—efforts by government officials to engage publicly and privately with their foreign counterparts—often focuses on actions taken to “name and shame” target countries because private diplomatic activities are unobservable. To understand how HRD works in practice, we explore a campaign coordinated by the US government to free twenty female political prisoners. We compare release rates of the featured women to two comparable groups: a longer list of women considered by the State Department for the campaign; and other women imprisoned simultaneously in countries targeted by the campaign. Both approaches suggest that the campaign was highly effective. We consider two possible mechanisms through which expressive public HRD works: by imposing reputational costs and by mobilizing foreign actors. However, in-depth interviews with US officials and an analysis of media coverage find little evidence of these mechanisms. Instead, we argue that public pressure resolved deadlock within the foreign policy bureaucracy, enabling private diplomacy and specific inducements to secure the release of political prisoners. Entrepreneurial bureaucrats leveraged the spotlight on human rights abuses to overcome competing equities that prevent government-led coercive diplomacy on these issues. Our research highlights the importance of understanding the intersection of public and private diplomacy before drawing inferences about the effectiveness of HRD.

‘Jáchymov’s Hell’: Trekking in the Memoryscape of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Forced Labour Camps

This article treks through the timeworn remnants of Czechoslovakia’s Communist forced and correctional labour uranium camps in the Ore Mountains in the northwest Bohemian region of Jáchymov. These camps held tens of thousands of detainees, largely political prisoners convicted in sham trials or individuals sent there for re-education. Conditions were deplorable. Throughout the 1950s, the young Czechoslovak Communist regime compelled detainees to hard, life threatening labour and subjected them to maltreatment and arbitrary violence. This article traces some of the visible, invisible or overgrown artefacts of the former camps, as well as public as private memories about what happened there. It reflects on the current memoryscape of these forgotten places of human suffering and describes the aesthetics of these aging sites of atrocity.

The Indiscipline of Reading

This chapter deals with the experiences and perceptions of reading within the nineteenth-century criminal system, with particular emphasis on Australian-bound transportees. It shows how attempts on the part of the authorities often fell short of their expectations, as prisoners themselves asserted their insubordination through acts of reading and writing. In particularly harsh regimes such a Norfolk Island, literacy and reading became sources of conflict among the authorities. Many took a prohibitive view of reading provision while others, like Thomas Maconachie, took a liberal attitude towards the encouragement of literacy. From transportation earlier in the period, a certain number of transportation prisoners were highly educated and often skilled in other ways. The final wave of transportation in the 1860s coincided with increased Fenian unrest in Ireland. Political prisoners in particular included a high proportion of well qualified individuals, some of them popular celebrities. Their highly literate use of reading and writing earned them the name of ‘Specials’.