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Barahona de Brito, Alexandra. Passion, Constraint, Law and Fortuna: The Human Rights Challenge to Chilean Democracy

Alexandra Barahona de Brito characterizes the Chilean response to past human rights violations under the regime of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in terms of four qualities or aspects: passion; constraint; law; and fortuna. There has been a passion to uncover and confront the past, but this passion has been constrained by the political and constitutional setting and by caution about the balance of power in Chile. To some extent, approaches to reconciliation and democratization have obstructed, rather than reinforced, each other. At the same time, law (a rigid and codified factor) and fortuna (an unpredictable and uncontrollable phenomenon) have challenged the approach toward reconciliation and the forces of constraint. Law and fortuna have in turn led to a wider sense of truth and justice as well as a new impetus toward democratization. Barahona de Briton chronicles the back and forth dynamics of these characteristics over two phases – first, under the Aylwin government from 1990 to 1994; second, under the Frei government from 1994 to 2000 – as Chileans sought to confront and deal with human rights violations under the Pinochet regime. Along with this, she also looks at reconciliation versus democratization through the lens of the Pinochet arrest and consequent legal and political maneuverings in the late 1990s.

Elster, Jon. Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy

The contributions in this volume offer a comprehensive analysis of transitional justice from 1945 to the present. They focus on retribution against the leaders and agents of autocratic regimes preceding democratic transitions, and on reparation to victims. Part I contains general theoretical discussions of retribution and reparation. The essays in Part II survey transitional justice in the wake of World War II, covering Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Norway. In Part III, the contributors discuss more recent transitions in Argentina, Chile, Eastern Europe, the former German Democratic Republic, and South Africa, with a chapter on the reparation of injustice in some of these situations. The editor provides a general introduction, a brief introduction to each part, and a conclusion that looks beyond regime transitions to vroader issues of rectifying historical injustice. (Publisher’s description)

Garcia-Godos, Jemima. Victim Reparations in the Peruvian Truth Commission and the Challenge of Historical Interpretation.

The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR)) has been praised for challenging positivist approaches to truth by focusing on victims and narrative interpretation. In this article, I argue that such a focus is not as problem-free as widely assumed. In spite of its normative human rights base, the CVR underestimated the issue of historical and political recognition of particular actors during the Peruvian armed conflict – an issue that bears practical and tangible consequences for the actors involved. I use the case of peasant self-defense groups and their treatment regarding potential reparations benefits to explore the challenges involved in combining a human rights agenda with issues of historical interpretation. (author's abstract)

Guembe, Maria Jose. Economic Reparations for Grave Human Rights Violations: The Argentinean Experience

"Since its return to democracy, Argentina has made great efforts to address the legacy of the last military dictatorship. This chapter presents a complete overview of the Argentinean policy of economic reparations for the victims of human rights violations committed between 1975 and 1983, including the beneficiaries, the crimes for which victims received reparations, the amounts paid, and the forms of payment. The study also analyzes the motivations for redressing the victims, from both national and international perspectives. It identifies the positions adopted by the different actors involved in the measures, especially the State and human rights organizations. The latter gained undeniable legitimacy by representing the victims and had consolidated into a group that has become the main actor on economic, legal, and political questions that have arisen during the process of designing and implementing the reparations policy." (excerpt)

Handy, Jim. Reimagining Guatemala: Reconciliation and the Indigenous Accords.

In this discussion, I explore both why this alteration [in Guatemala conceptions of society] is necessary and suggest why it is so difficult. To do the former, I explore briefly the history of marginalization of the Maya in Guatemala and how the marginalization was central to the non-Maya conception of the Guatemalan nation. I will then turn to a discussion of the ways in which the marginalization was challenged in the latter half of the twentieth century and how that challenge helped precipitate the worst period of violence. This will be followed by a discussion of the ways in which Mayan revitalization after 1985 helped lead to the ending of the civil war and the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996. I will examine the conflicts that have emerged in Guatemala concerning indigenous rights. Finally, I will explore briefly the disappointing history of what has been done since the signing of the accords, focusing on the recent failed attempt to constitutional change. (excerpt)

Humphrey, Michael and Valverde, Estela. Human Rights Politics and Injustice: Transitional Justice in Argentina and South Africa.

Transitional justice is about the recovery of the rule of law and justice after mass violence. In the recent history of Argentina and South Africa, human rights politics have played an important role in the transition from repression to democracy as a discourse of resistance to state repression and as a framework and methodology for the successor state to manage demands for justice and promote reconciliation. Post-transition, they have provided a standard for the accountability of state institutions and evaluation of the democratic government's performance. In this article, we explore the roles of victims, survivors and relatives in the expansion of human rights politics. We argue that victims represent their suffering as embodied injustice and make their victim identity the focus of efforts to recover a moral contract between state and citizens. The expansion of human rights politics to include social and economic rights is an expression of the limits of transitional justice in recovering full citizenship in the context of the neo-liberal democratic project in Argentina and South Africa. (author's abstract)

Jantzi, Vernon and King, Tracey. Peacemaking to Peacebuilding: Restorative Justice and Local Peace Commissions in Nicaragua

During the final stages of the Contra War in Nicaragua in the mid and late 1980s, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission promoted the formation of peace commissions in villages and towns in the most conflicted areas. CEPAD, the development agency of the Nicaraguan Protestant churches, actively worked to form Peace Commissions in the Nueva Guinea region in the southeastern part of the country. The local seven-person Peace Commissions were trained to work in conflict resolution so they could do peacemaking at the grassroots in support of efforts by the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission and other groups to carry forward the national peace processes. After official peace accords were signed the Commissions continued to work on the transition to national peace by helping to facilitate the reintegration of demobilized combatants into their respective communities as part of the post war reconstruction. This rebuilding has taken many years. The Commissions' work has been increasingly valued as their numbers and scope has grown. Today some 140 local peace commissions continue to function, but now their challenge is to work with community problems, some of which might be best addressed with restorative justice informed responses. With decades of war now behind them, their work has shifted from peacemaking and the reintegration of ex-combatants to peacebuilding and the challenges posed by social disorganization and crime in their communities. As the Peace Commissions now work to strengthen civil society in an extended period of social reconstruction, how might, or do, they reframe or reconceptualize their work in peacemaking to also include restorative justice so they can build more peaceful and stronger communities? This paper will explore how this reframing is taking place and the challenges it represents. Abstract courtesy of the Centre for Justice and Peace Development, Massey University, http://justpeace.massey.ac.nz.

Laplante, Lisa J.. The Peruvian Truth Commission's Historical Memory Project: Empowering Truth-Tellers to Confront Truth Deniers.

This article examines the role memory recuperation projects play in responding to and preventing periods of state repression and abuse. In particular, the author discusses the case of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that worked for two years to produce its 2003 Final Report. Investigating its internal armed conflict (1980-2000), the TRC sought to engage victims-survivors in testimony taking in order to write a new official version of the violence between the various parties to the conflict, including state armed forces, paramilitaries, insurgent groups, and local defense committees. The author proposes that it is not just the memory product that has potential for curative and preventive purposes but also the process of empowering the formerly silenced to become protagonists in a human rights movement that holds the government accountable. Moreover, by helping to break down entrenched habits of fear and distrust, and nurturing the democratic value of free expression, the Peruvian TRC encouraged victims-survivors to participate in new grassroots movements to pursue their justice claims. However, she argues that the TRC provided only the first step in Peru's effort to reveal the truth about its tragic past, and that victims-survivors are beginning to reject passive telling to third-party authors and instead are appropriating their own agency in disseminating memory. The article concludes with a discussion on how it is the change in personal and political status as truth-tellers, and not just the content of this truth, that makes memory projects important endeavors.(author's abstract)

Lean, Sharon F. Is truth enough? Reparations and reconciliation in Latin America

Many Latin American countries in the last two decades have undergone transitions from military rule or dictatorship to democracy, often through violence and then negotiation. In these countries it has been very challenging to promote national reconciliation in the wake of severe human rights violations. As Sharon Lean observes, the issues of reparation and reconciliation have become very prominent because of the gravity of the harms done by authoritarian regimes and by the realities of everyday life (where, after the fact, victims and perpetrators might see each other regularly because of small populations and concentrated centers of population). While truth commissions and truth-telling have been valuable, they are not enough in themselves, claims Lean, to deal satisfactorily with past injustices. With the incidence of claims for reparations growing n Latin America, Lean surveys reparations politics in Latin America. She begins by defining key terms, then summarizing the pertinent human rights violations. This leads to comparisons of bases for claims, mechanisms for managing claims, and reparations that have been made. Next she discusses the emerging issue of transnational reparations claims, and finally she reflects on the potential of reparations to repair the injustices of Latin America's recent past.

Maier, Charles S. Doing history, doing justice: The narrative of the historian and of the truth commission.

Maier investigates the intersection of the roles of the historian and truth commissions or formal court proceedings in the aftermath of large-scale abuses. The focus is on parallels in those roles in establishing, explaining, and interpreting a narrative of political violence. Examples come from post-World War II war-crimes trials, Chile, Argentina, Germany (after unification with East Germany), and South Africa. In this context, Maier points to the need for the historian to “interrogate" the historical record developed by commissions and courts, as well as the need for the historian to study the investigating body itself (commissions and courts) and its work. This leads to discussion of the similarities and differences in historical narratives established by the historian and by commissions and courts, as well as discussion of the significance of narrative itself.

Payne, Leigh A. Confessions of Torturers: Reflections from Argentina

As Leigh Payne notes, truth-telling has become a widespread means of settling accounts with past repressive regimes. Within a variety of forms - from government-mandated truth commissions to NGO-sponsored historical memory projects to individual testimonials - victims of repression have broken the silence imposed on them by authoritarian regimes. However, many difficult practical and moral issues exist in such processes. In this vein, Payne explores a very complex and difficult issue for truth-telling as a way to deal with past injustice: namely, confessions by those who have tortured others. Payne discusses the logic behind including torturers' confessions in truth and reconciliation processes, critiques that logic, and then proposes conditions under which such confessions might advance truth and reconciliation despite inherent moral ambiguity in the process. To illustrate all of this, examples from four Argentine confessions are included.

Rojas Mendoza, Dionisio. 2006. Design of a Restorative Justice Process: Inter-Sectoral Commission for Life and Human RIghts. Barrancabermeja (Colombia). Eastern Mennonite University. Conflict Transformation Program.

This article discusses the possible design of a restorative response to mass violence in Colombia.

Seils, Paul F.. "Reconciliation in Guatemala: The Role of Intelligent Justice"

"The Guatemalan experience has been a mixed one. While the report was enthusiastically received by civil society, it is hard to deny that, in practical terms, much of the fruit has withered on the political vine. The Guatemalan truth commission did not see itself as the embodiment of reconciliation but as an instrument in reconstruction. The truth it told was crucial, but only part of the process. The disappointing, if foreseeable, reactions of those who rejected the CHC’s conclusions and recommendations vindicate the realism shown by the commission." (excerpt)

Sriram, Chandra Lekha. Confronting past human rights violations: justice vs. peace in times of transition.

This book examines what makes accountability for previous abuses more or less possible for transitional regimes to achieve. It closely examines the other vital goals of such regimes against which accountability is often balanced. The options available are not simply prosecution or pardon, as the most heated polemics of the debate over transitional justice suggest, but a range of options, from complete amnesty through truth commissions and lustration or purification to prosecution. The question then is not whether accountability can be achieved, but what degree of accountability can be achieved by a given country. This book examines five countries’ experiences in detail – El Salvador, Honduras, Argentina, South Africa, and Sri Lanka – and offers a comparative survey of nearly 30 countries’ experiences. (publisher’s abstract)

Valji, Nahla. Race, Citizenship and Violence in Transitioning Societies: A Guatemalan case study

The CSVR Race and Citizenship in Transition Series has set out to examine the ways in which ordinary citizens engage with issues of race and citizenship in a post-transitional society, ten years into the country's democracy. The goal of the project is to understand the long-term impact of structures, in particular truth commissions, as well as the model or type of transition and democracy, in order to examine the impact these elements have on violence and racial identity during times of transition. In addition to looking at South Africa's own experience (cf. reports in the Race and Citizenship in Transition Series), the series incorporates an in-depth examination of these same elements during the course of Guatemala's transition to democracy. The following paper focuses on race, and the nature of negotiated transitions, as well as the thin line between political and social conflict; a line which is often blurred during democratic transitions. In many ways, Guatemala reflects important similarities with South Africa. (excerpt)

Waging Peace in Nicaragua.

In the 1980s, a small group of pastors decided to work toward ending the civil war engulfing their country. Since that time, the work of these peace commissions has adapted as the needs of their local communities changes. This includes providing reintegration services for ex-combatants in the post-war period and their current work of resolving conflicts and responding to crime. The remaining peace commissioners are now looking to restorative justice theory to inform their work. Tracey King, a student in the Conflict Transformation Programme at Eastern Mennonite University, provides an overview of the work undertaken by the peace commissions since their inception.

Walling, Carrie Booth and Sikkink, Kathryn. Argentina's Contribution to Global Trends in Transitional Justice

"In addition to discussing the case of Argentina, we will also sketch out some broad international and regional trends in the area of transitional justice. These trends make clear that dramatic changes have occured in the world with regard to accountability for past human rights abuses. This trend is what Lutz and Sikkink have called "The Justice Cascade" -a rapid shift towards new norms and practices of providing more accountability for human rights violations. The case of Argentina is particularly interesting because far from being a passive participant in or recipient of this justice cascade, Argentina was very often an instigator of particular new mechanisms within the cascade. The case illlustrates the potential for global human rights protagonism at the periphery of the system. The Argentine case also supports the general thesis of the volume that multiple transitional justice mechanisms are frequently used in a single case." (exceprt)

Young, Paula. The Promise of Restorative Justice: Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Issues its Final Report

In the aftermath of a long war between the government and insurgent groups in the 1980s and into the 1990s, Peru established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to investigate the circumstances and effects of this brutal conflict. In this article, Paula Young outlines the findings of the Peruvian TRC’s final report, issued at the end of August 2003. She provides background to the Peruvian TRC’s approach and recommendations by discussing restorative justice principles and practices at the individual level and at the national level. Furthermore, Young compares the Peruvian TRC with the efforts of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.