Conference on Trauma and Transitional Justice
I've been here at the Airlie House Conference Center in Virginia at a conference on Trauma and Transitional Justice in Divided Societies since Saturday night. It has been extremely "busy", and has dealt with many very important issues.
Sat. night we got to see a pre-premiere showing of Anne Aghion's great new film about Rwanda, called "In Rwanda we say... " Apparently it, and her earlier film about Rwanda, "Gacaca", will both be shown in the US on the Sundance Channel on, I think, April 5.
Anne was also here, and answered questions after the showing, which was really great. I've admired her work for a while now, so it was good to meet her.
Two of the highlights of yesterday's very full program were presentations made by South Africans: Judge Richard Goldstone, who'd been the first prosecutor of the UN tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwand and a member of South Africa's Constitutional Cour; and Paul Van Zyl, who was the Executive Secretary of the TRC in SA and now works for the NY-based International Center for Transitional Justice...
I don't have time to recount most of the really interesting things they said. Goldstone gave some interesting background on the political-negotiation background to the formation of the TRC in SA-- more, I think, than I'd heard from him when I interviewed him in Johannesburg in 2001.
The most interesting thing that Van Zyl said was that he didn't see any necessary connection between a retelling by violence survivors of the human rights violations of the past, and personal healing. He noted that while there had been thousands of instances of that apparently having happened during the work of the TRC, there were also many instances in which the experiences that survivors had at and with the TRC had been "literally heartbreaking for them"; and he recounted a particularly poignant example of that.
"There are many good reasons to have truth commissions," he said. "But you cannot really claim that you're doing so in order to heal the wounds of victims of violence."
Well, on the general theme of how the needs of victims/survivors of atrocious violence are indeed to be met, we also heard some sobering news from Harvey Weinstein from the Med School at UC Berkeley, who's done some interesting studies on the relationship between the work of the ICTY and ICTR and the prevalence of psychological trauma in those societies.
Remember that in the Security Council resolutions establishing those two courts, the SC members solemnly expressed their desire that the courts contribute to the national reconciliation within the affected societies...
Weinstein said he found "no direct link" between the holding of criminal trials and reconciliation in either society. (He actually had a lot more detailed data than that, from broad epidemiological studies he and his team had carried out in both places. His own professional background is as both an MD and an MPH.)
He also found that for survivors of violence, "justice" was defined in much broader terms than merely the prosecutorial sense.
Finaly, we did also have a bunch of presentations from people doing "trauma-healing" work in Rwanda and elsewhere. These were interesting but a little problematic, for reasons I don't have time to go into here.
Heck, today the conference ends. So within the next hour I need to get dressed, pack, check out, and have breakfast. Then be organized and perky enough to undergo another 5.5 hours of conferencing.
Hi Helena,
do you have any news about Prof. Juan Cole(yankeedoodle) many readers of his post including me are worried.he did not post anything since the 24th of march without any notice to his readers , its not like him ,pls let us know if you hear from him.
thanks.
Saeb
Saeb, he is back now... It's upsetting for readers when he takes a few days off. But I totally know how hard it is to do all the things one needs to do in life plus get time to do anything decent on the blog...
(In my life right now, I am trying to attend to final editing on two projects re Palestine/Israel and one re Rwanda, plus write a big book chapter on Mozambique. The blog gets sidelined a little at times like this. I suspect Yankee has a life, too!)
Also, I highly doubt that he actually is the same person as Prof. Juan Cole!
The most interesting thing that Van Zyl said was that he didn't see any necessary connection between a retelling by violence survivors of the human rights violations of the past, and personal healing. He noted that while there had been thousands of instances of that apparently having happened during the work of the TRC, there were also many instances in which the experiences that survivors had at and with the TRC had been "literally heartbreaking for them"; and he recounted a particularly poignant example of that.
Interesting. The obvious analogy is to survivors of rape or domestic violence testifying at trial; for some, this experience is a catharsis but for others it is equivalent to reliving the crime. The proper modality for individual therapy varies from person to person, so it isn't surprising that survivors of atrocities react differently to appearing before truth commissions.
In any event, individual therapy isn't part of the role of a TRC-type commission. Such bodies are meant to provide therapy on a national scale by creating a historical record and affording recognition to the victims of atrocities. Individual healing is also important, but that would seem to be a task for the survivors' families, communities and doctors. Maybe international aid packages in post-atrocity situations should include some provision for individual therapy.
Weinstein said he found "no direct link" between the holding of criminal trials and reconciliation in either society.
This doesn't surprise me either. The purpose of a criminal trial (at least in common-law systems or the common-law-derived hybrid systems that underlie most international tribunals) is to determine and punish the defendant's crimes rather than to reconcile the parties. Criminal trials are fundamentally about the defendant rather than the victims. A TRC-type body set up to perform functions that explicitly include national reconciliation would logically do a better job, and the literature I've read seems to confirm this at least provisionally.
Helena, thank you, both of your efford highly appreciated.