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The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) assists countries pursuing accountability for past mass atrocity or human rights abuse. More
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Transitions
TJ News and Analysis from around the World
Under the Lens
DRC: "Living with Fear" Gives Voice to Victims
On August 19, ICTJ and the Berkeley-Tulane Initiative on Vulnerable Populations published Living with Fear, based on a groundbreaking survey of 2,620 individuals in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 1,133 individuals in Kinshasa and Kisangani. The report analyzes the perceptions and attitudes of the Congolese population towards peace, justice and social reconstruction.
Nearly half the people surveyed in eastern Congo said they had faced death threats, suffered beatings or been enslaved by armed groups. One-third had been abducted and held captive for more than a week, and 80 percent had been forcibly displaced from their homes either permanently or temporarily during the conflict.
In spite of that violence, an overwhelming majority of the population of eastern DRC expects the Congolese government to be able to deliver peace and security. And in a sharp rebuke to those who portray peace and justice as mutually exclusive, 82 percent said that accountability for war crimes was a necessary step toward securing peace.
Living with Fear was launched at a panel discussion in conjunction with the Central Africa Policy Forum at the United Nations Church Center in New York. Suliman Baldo, Africa Director at ICTJ, presented an overview of the ongoing conflict dynamics in the DRC. Patrick Vinck, Director of the Berkeley-Tulane Initiative--which led the survey in the DRC--presented the results of the survey. Mirna Adjami, ICTJ's Head of Office in Kinshasa, discussed the policy implications of the results for transitional justice options for the DRC in the future.
Baldo, Vinck, and Adjami held an additional launch event for Living with Fear in Washington, DC on August 21, 2008, at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. A video of the presentation is available online.
Additional presentations of the report's findings will be held in London on September 24 and in Brussels on September 25. Baldo and Vinck will be joining Adjami in Kinshasa the week of October 6 for a series of roundtable discussions with the Congolese government, Congolese civil society actors, representatives of the United Nations mission MONUC and other international diplomatic missions and non-governmental organizations.
The report gained wide media attention in Africa, Europe and the U.S., and an op-ed article by Suliman Baldo based on the report, "Justice or Peace? War Victims Speak," was published at allAfrica.
Transitional Justice and Development
Transitional justice is often pursued in developing countries suffering from widespread poverty, scarce resources and weak and corrupt institutions--countries that face many competing needs. In such situations, what are the particular challenges and opportunities that transitional justice faces? How can transitional justice and development actors in post-conflict countries coordinate their efforts? Is it wise for justice actors to directly address development issues, and for development actors to involve themselves in justice work?
These are among the questions being asked by ICTJ's Research Unit as part of its research project on the relationship between transitional justice and development, an effort funded by the governments of Germany and Switzerland. Building on the premise that transitional justice shares many of the same long-term goals and concerns as development--such as respect for human rights, the rule of law, sustainable peace and democratic and trustworthy institutions--the project focuses on how best to maximize the return on the investment that is made by both justice and development initiatives.
Bringing together researchers and practitioners from the two fields, the project examines the contributions each can make to the other. Are there, for example, developmental preconditions for the pursuit of justice for past abuses through criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations and institutional reform? Are there developmental consequences of such measures? Are there ways in which transitional justice can contribute to the achievement of development goals such as poverty reduction, providing equal access to natural resources and promoting a healthy civil society?
By helping to make transitional justice and development practitioners aware of connections between their work and by promoting productive coordination of their efforts, ICTJ hopes to make a contribution to more coherent transitional and peacebuilding programs.
Nepal: Status of TJ issues
I express sincere tribute and respect to those martyrs, disappeared and the wounded fighters of the People's War, People's Movement and Madhesi Movement who contributed to ushering in Federal Democratic Republic in the country, shattering all forms of oppression and exploitation - and I pledge to work for materializing their dreams in line with continued revolution and struggle.
These are the words of Nepal's newly elected prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (popularly known by his nom-de-guerre Prachanda, "the fierce one"), in his first public address after taking office. He announced that family members of the martyrs, the disappeared and the injured would receive compensation.
Dahal, the leader of the former rebels turned political party, became prime minister after nearly four months of negotiations, following elections in which the Maoists emerged as the largest party in the Constituent Assembly. The CA has authority to rewrite the country's constitution. Among its first acts was to formally transform Nepal into a secular republic, abolishing the 240-year old Hindu monarchy.
Nepal's decade-long conflict cost an estimated 12,000 lives and displaced 100,000 people; both government forces and rebels routinely used torture. The Maoists now express a commitment to transitional justice, through proposals for a truth and reconciliation commission, a disappearance commission and a reparations program for conflict victims.
But there has been little progress on those proposals. A revised bill for a truth and reconciliation commission has received significant public criticism for including a broad amnesty provision and an apparent requirement of reconciliation before payment of reparations. ICTJ submitted comments on the draft legislation in August. A draft bill for a disappearance commission has meanwhile not been made public.
In August, the government announced relief programs for conflict-victims, paid for by the World Bank. ICTJ, in its formal comments on the proposals, noted the limited definition of victims in the guidelines, the focus on financial compensation and the complex process proposed for the identification of those eligible.
Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images.
Peru: "State of Fear" in Quechua
State of Fear, the documentary film that chronicles the costs of Peru's epic 20-year conflict with Shining Path, has been mesmerizing audiences since its August 28 release in a new, Quechua-language version that premiered in the Andean cities of Ayacucho, Hunata, Socos and Abancay, with support from ICTJ.
A crowd of more than 300 people packed into the Ayacucho Cultural Center for the viewing there, while the public square in Socos was filled with spectators at a special outdoor screening. The release of the film, the first feature-length documentary to be translated into the Quechua language, helps mark the fifth anniversary of the final report of Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which estimated that 70% of the more than 69,000 people who died in the violence were Quechua speakers in the Andes.
"Documentary films can help a country uncover its own history," said Mariclarie Acosta, director of the ICTJ Americas Program, which has a history of assisting democracy-building efforts in Peru. "Peru's human rights record from the 1980s and 1990s is a story that needed to be uncovered and told."
Produced by Skylight Pictures, State of Fear has been broadcast in 157 countries and translated into 48 languages. It has won numerous awards including the 2006 Overseas Press Club Award for Best Reporting in Any Medium about Latin America. Peruvian human rights organizations will use the film in a national drive to establish an official Register of Victims (Registro Único de Víctimas) that will have access to the government's Integral Reparations Plan (Plan Integral de Reparaciones).
Release of the film in Quechuan coincides with the ongoing trial of former President Alberto Fujimori, who is charged with responsibility for actions by an army unit that killed suspected members of Shining Path as well as political opponents of the government.
Also marking the fifth anniversary of the Peruvian TRC report was a forum co-hosted by the Human Rights Institute of the Catholic University in Lima and the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos think tank, where ICTJ President Juan E. Méndez called the report "a mirror in which Peruvians must examine themselves."
"It doesn't surprise me that there is great controversy over the report five years later," Méndez told the Catholic News Service on the sidelines of the forum. The human rights agenda "is long and will not go away just because some politicians try to ignore it."
Transitional Justice in The News
The US and Libya are set to renew diplomatic relations after signing a deal to compensate all victims of bombings involving the two countries, including the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco, the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and US attacks on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and Benghazi in 1986.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights asks the International Criminal Court to investigate the involvement of government ministers and members of Parliament in the post-election violence.
The families of "disappeared" victims of the 1991 Santa Cruz Cemetery join international forensic experts in searching for the remains of those killed, but excavations at two sites west of the East Timor capital, Dili, fail to reveal evidence of human remains.
US authorities deport Juan Rivera Rondon to Peru to face charges of participating in the massacre of 69 civilians in the peasant village of Accomarca.
President Iajuddin Ahmed appoint a three-member Truth and Accountability Commission that will allow corrupt businessmen and politicians to avoid jail if they confess and refund money obtained illegally.
Radovan Karadzic refuses to enter a plea to charges of war crimes during his second appearance at the United Nations tribunal in The Hague, leading a tribunal judge to enter a plea of not guilty to all charges on his behalf.
The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission announces a preliminary conclusion that the US military indiscriminately killed large groups of South Korean civilians during the Korean War in the early 1950s.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signs an agreement to pay Libya $5 billion in a deal to resolve colonial-era disputes, making Libya the first African country to be compensated by a former colonial power.
Egypt's interior ministry agrees to pay compensation totaling 10 million Egyptian pounds (1.87 million dollars) to around 1,000 Islamists detained without trial or kept in jail during the 1990s despite release orders.
The Nepali government receives Rs 3.035 billion ($40 million) from the World Bank's Emergency Peace Support Program to provide Rs 100,000 ($5,000) relief to the families of each person killed during the decade-long Maoist insurgency.
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