Featured Dialogue: Truth and Reconciliation Processes: Aiding Community Healing through Addressing Impunity March 26 – April 1
Table of Contents
The following table of contents was developed to make the dialogue easier to navigate. Important themes and different discussions have been highlighted for archival purposes and for new users. The preferred method of viewing the comments is with "Thread list - expanded" option, which is explained here. Resources mentioned in the Dialogue can be found on this page.
Intro
New Tactics in Human Rights’ featured online discussion for March will focus on ways in which Truth and Reconciliation processes have and are being implemented to aid community healing.
Some fundamental concepts behind Truth and Reconcilation (TRC) processes include: 1) future reconciliation is necessary for there to be a peaceful co-existence in a country or community; 2) that reconciliation and peaceful coexistence rest upon knowing as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights that have been committed; and 3) there must be public recognition of the truth that had been hidden for so long by a multitude of falsehoods.
This dialogue seeks to share experiences transitional justice processes known as Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, instituted with the aim of exploring the truth hidden behind pasts characterized by gross abuses of human rights. The conflicts experienced in the countries and contexts of our resource people have unique and particular characteristics. However, we believe that the sharing of these experiences and those of the broader New Tactics community who take part in this dialogue will yield useful lessons for other contexts considering the use of TRC process. Because the effects that violence has on people are always devastating - rippling from the individual to the family to the community to the nation; they demand a treatment that is not only individual, but collective.
There are many questions of importance for our dialogue and we look forward to the many questions that will be raised by the participants. A foundational, and often contentious, question is "What do we mean by ‘truth’?" and as a result, "How do TRC processes deal with the unraveling of differing histories, truths and memories?"
Join our featured resource people and share your own experiences, insights and questions. (Click here for help on how to participate in the dialogue)
Our featured resource people include:
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Row1 L-R: Galuh Wandita, Jose Caetano Guterres, and Patrick Burgess (East Timor TRC); Jennifer Prestholdt, Ahmed K. Sirleaf II, and Laura Young (Liberia Diaspora Project Team) Row2 L-R: Sofia Macher (Peru TRC); Greensboro TRC process team; Glenda Wildschut, and Paul Haupt (South Africa TRC); Neneh Barry (Sierra Leone TRC) |
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Re: [New Tactics Dialogues: Truth and Reconciliation Processes:
30 March 2008 I would like to support the comments made by Galuh Wandita about the need for a stipulation within the TRC law that would have required that a mechanism be created after the Final Report of the CAVR was presented to the Timorese government to support the victims and in some way provide them some kind of assistance. I attended many of the public hearings that were organized by CAVR where vistims testified and told their stories of great suffering and humiliation and asked that they receive some form of justice for what had happened to them. Some of them also asked how would they be able to feed their children and send them to school when they could now no longer work because of the injuries they had suffered. These stories and pleas for assistance were repeated at all the hearings. What will be the response of the Timorese government and the international community to these cries for assistance? I strongly feel that this matter (from report to action) must be seriously considered and creative solutions must be found to implement the recommendations that especially concern the victims who bravely told their stories to the CAVR. Christine Vertucci, former Donor Liaison, CAVR