After 33 years in the relentless pursuit of truth and accountability the family of anti-apartheid activist Nokuthula Simelane will finally see justice done. On 8 February 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced that it will charge four former apartheid security policemen with her murder and kidnapping.

Although the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommended that more than 300 cases should be prosecuted, this is the first prosecution of apartheid-era perpetrators since the 2007 plea bargain agreement was struck with former police minister, Adriaan Vlok and four senior police officers.

Nokuthula Simelane was abducted, tortured and forcibly disappeared by members of the Security Branch of the former South African Police in 1983. She was a 23 year old university graduate and acted as a courier for Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress, moving between Swaziland and South Africa. Her remains have never been found. The family has been denied the right to bury their daughter with the dignity she deserves.

In 1996, a police docket was opened and in 2001 the Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) granted some of the perpetrators amnesty for Nokuthula’s abduction, including certain police officers who the Committee found had lied about her brutal torture. None of the perpetrators applied for amnesty for her murder. Simelane family’s pleas for an inquest were denied and requests to institute criminal proceedings against the suspects who did not apply for amnesty were refused.

In the last ditch attempt, Thembi Nkadimeng, sister of Nokuthula filed an application before the the High Court seeking to compel the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) to make a decision in respect of Nokuthula’s disappearance. The application, which included supporting affidavits from former NDPP, Vusi Pikoli and a senior prosecutor, disclosed how the Simelane case, as well the other cases recommended by the TRC, were suppressed as a result of direct political interference.

ICTJ’s Howard Varney has been working on this application and representing Simelane’s family from the beginning. In the conversation with ICTJ’s Communication Director, Refik Hodzic, Varney describes the details of this fascinating struggle for justice and the implications of the High Court’s decision.

Like nothing before it, Nokuthula Simelane’s case has revealed the difficult truth about pervasive impunity in the country which has long been seen as something of a poster child for transitional justice, with the celebrated “truth for amnesty” mechanism as its center piece.

“Given that innovative approach, South Africans and victims in particular, expected some consequences to follow [for those who did not apply for amnesty], investigations and, where appropriate, prosecutions to proceed. But, less than a handful cases were taken forward from around 400 cases that the TRC handed over,” says Varney.

Victims groups and human rights activists long speculated that there might have been political interference and pressure on the public prosecutors to abandon investigations into apartheid-era crimes. The information Varney gathered in preparing the High Court petition confirmed this was in fact the case.

“I approached the former director of NPA, Vusi Pikoli, as well as the senior prosecutor who was in charge of the unit that handled TRC cases and they confirmed to me in sworn affidavits that these investigations were closed down, that they were unable to take them further because of the political obstructionism. Pikoli described how he would be taken to various meetings, sometimes at night, at the home of cabinet ministers and simply told that these cases could not proceed as they would be opening up a can of worms. The message was that if prosecutors went against the former police officers, it would open the door to investigations into the ruling party members, possibly even sitting government ministers,” explains Varney.

The evidence of political interference in Simelane’s and other TRC cases has ignited a public debate about the government’s failure to implement TRC’s recommendation. After the High Court’s decision, the TRC’s chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was clear about the TRC’s “unfinished business”.

“The tardy and limited payments of reparations to victims of human rights violations eroded the very dignity that the commission sought to build. The fact that the government did not prosecute those who were refused amnesty or failed to apply for amnesty, undermined those who did. The proposal of a once-off wealth tax as a vehicle for those who had benefited from the past to contribute to the future was stillborn.

I maintain that healing is a process. How we deal with the truth after its telling defines the success of the process. And this is where South Africa has fallen tragically short. By choosing not to follow through on the commission’s recommendations, government not only compromised the commission’s contribution to the process, but the very process itself,” says Tutu in his statement.

It remains to be seen what comes out of the public debate about the eroding legacy of the TRC in South Africa, if indeed the society has the strength to see the process through twenty years after the closure of its celebrated Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Whatever happens, one thing is certain: on February 26, four members of the Security Branch of the SA police - Msebenzi Timothy Vastrap Radebe, Anton Pretorius, Frederick Barnard Mong and Willem Helm Johanes Coetze – will face justice for the murder of Nokuthula Simelane. After 33 years of struggle, Simelane’s mother, sister and two brothers will see her killers in the dock. Howard Varney will be by the family’s side.

“This is just one milestone, there is a whole journey ahead. We must ensure that the prosecution is supported, that it is a coherent prosecution and that justice is done in due course. We will see to that.”

PHOTO: Ernestina Simelane, Nokuthula's mother, wants to bury her daughter 'with the dignity she deserves'. (MOELETSI MABE)

Public apologies can be the most direct and explicit way of acknowledging the harms suffered by victims of human rights violation. In a transitional justice context, when delivered in a meaningful way, they can provide momentum for more justice and vindication of victims’ rights.

More Than Words: Apologies as a Form of Reparation, a new report from ICTJ, uses a question-and-answer format to discuss what makes apologies meaningful in transitional justice processes. To further illuminate the ideas presented in the report, ICTJ Communications Associate Dan Verderosa spoke with Ruben Carranza, co-author of the report and director of ICTJ’s Reparative Justice program.

Carranza stresses that the relationship between apologies and material reparations is crucial. He says that apologies should not be given instead of material reparations, such as monetary compensation or healthcare, but rather should complement them.

In an example of such positive practice, Chilean President Patricio Aylwin apologized in 1991 for abuses committed by the state under the Pinochet regime, and also committed to a comprehensive reparations program that included healthcare, pensions, and memorials.

“There is always a relationship that has to be balanced between simply acknowledging symbolically through words and materially acknowledging through services, through compensation, through rehabilitation survivors, as well as families of victims,” says Carranza

When asked to assess Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 2014 apology for past wrongs committed by the Kenyan state, Carranza noted that the apology crucially was accompanied by a promise to establish a restorative justice fund to provide reparations to victims. However, he criticized Kenyatta for essentially ruling out criminal prosecutions for crimes committed during the 2007 post-election violence in the same speech.

“It is important not to rely on apology as a way of ending accountability but instead to rely on it as a way of opening up spaces for accountability,” Carranza says.

Carranza also acknowledged that apologies can be misused. For example, he cites the recent Japanese apology to South Korean victims of sexual slavery during World War II as one that was politically motivated, where the acknowledgement of victims and survivors was secondary to furthering the interests of the Japanese, South Korean, and United States governments.

Apologies can also be misused when they are given in exchange for promises of reconciliation or amnesty, rather than as a sincere expression of regret, Carranza says.

Victims and their families, Carranza asserts, should be a part of the apology process, and should be consulted regarding the language used, timing, and location where an apology is delivered. In Guatemala, for example, victims of government atrocities were consulted and as a result, an apology was delivered locally, at the places where the abuses occurred.

“An apology is not a unilateral statement,” says Carranza. “It is a begging of forgiveness.”

PHOTO: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologizes for government programs that took children from Aboriginal families, the “stolen generations,” in a speech broadcast live to the nation in 2008. (Virginia Murdoch/Flickr)

December 16 marks the 10-year anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, which recognizes the rights of victims of mass atrocities to seek and receive reparations and provides states with a guide to planning and implementing them.

On this occasion, ICTJ Communications Associate Dan Verderosa spoke with Cristián Correa, Senior Associate in ICTJ’s Reparative Justice program, who says that ICTJ’s work in Côte d’Ivoire demonstrates that engaging victims in the making of reparations policy is crucial to ensuring that reparations are impactful and address the true needs of victims.

This past year, Correa has been working with victims of post-election violence in Côte d’Ivoire to promote their participation in the reparations process and to ensure that measures formulated by the government address the various harms they have suffered. With ICTJ’s assistance, victims presented proposals and recommendations to the National Commission for Reconciliation and Compensation for Victims (CONARIV), a government body tasked with producing a single list of victims and proposing reparations measures for their benefit.

“I felt so encouraged by victims being able to speak so clearly, so strongly, and with even more knowledge than the authorities had on these issues,” says Correa.

Reflecting on his experience in Côte d’Ivoire, Correa argues that transitional justice experts and practitioners cannot just apply the UN principles on reparations to any situation; they need to adapt them to the unique context of each individual country and to each victim. He contends that the best way to do this is to listen to the concerns of victims and take their recommendations seriously.

Says Correa: “Victims are the best for telling you what might work and what might not.”

Correa also notes that including victims in the reparations process can help them to reassert their dignity.

“Part of being victims is an experience of being passive, of not being strong enough,” says Correa. “Part of a reparations process is to strengthen the capacity of victims to be agents.”

Beyond this personal benefit, Correa emphasizes the political dimension of victims’ participation, which can help “to establish a political process that is respectful of people as citizens and not just as recipients of charity.”

Correa says that a key aspect of his work in Côte d’Ivoire was involving victims from the more rural, remote areas of the country where many of the most serious crimes occurred. Much of the violence that occurred prior to the disputed 2010 election – including the 2002 civil war – occurred outside the capital of Abidjan. The violence that occurred in these regions also reflects ethnic tensions and disputes that don’t exist in Abidjan. Including victims from these areas in the reparations process, according to Correa, is crucial to addressing the particular needs of these communities.

PHOTO: Women victims at a meet in Bouaké to discuss proposals and recommendations for Côte d’Ivoire's reparations policy. (ICTJ)

In Nepal, several missteps in the establishment of its Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission of Inquiry on Disappearances (CoID), notably the lack of civil society involvement in the selection of commissioners, has left victims and activists distrustful of the process. One of the country’s largest victims' groups is waiting for the commissions to act on a series of recommendations it issued as a prerequisite to full participation in the truth-seeking process.

In this podcast, ICTJ Communications Associate Dan Verderosa speaks with Deputy Program Director Anna Myriam Roccatello upon her return from Nepal, where she and other ICTJ staff conducted an intensive workshop with the CoID and met with civil society and victims' groups, as well as representatives of political parties and the TRC.

The process by which Nepal’s commissions were created was problematic, but Roccatello is optimistic about the commissioners themselves.

"They all came across as deeply committed with a fairly good grasp of the issues that they have to tackle and the need to conduct their work in a victim-centered fashion," says Roccatello.

From her meetings with members of the TRC, Roccatello says that commissioners are mindful of the tension between their two mandates: to seek out the truth but also to seek reconciliation.

"Ultimately, they are to vindicate and uphold the rights of victims, but their mandate is also based on an attempt to achieve reconciliation," says Roccatello. "That's a dilemma that they quite clearly outlined to us."

Hanging over the truth-seeking process is the government's failure to implement a Supreme Court ruling nullifying amnesty provisions in the 2014 law establishing the TRC. Roccatello reports that the government has asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling, but it is unknown whether and when that will occur. The chairperson of the TRC told Roccatello that the commission will treat the ruling as law unless it is overturned.

However the amnesty issue is resolved, Roccatello sees the distrust between the commissions and victims and civil society as the main issue affecting the transitional justice agenda in Nepal.

While victims' groups do not fully trust the commissions, she reports that they are determined to make the process work: "They recognize that at the end of the day, it took so long to have these two commissions, it would be a wasted opportunity not to engage with them and try to make out a meaningful process."

In the wake of Nepal's decade-long civil war, the country has sought to implement a number of transitional justice measures to address a wide range of atrocities committed during the conflict, including the deaths of over 13,000 people and the forced disappearance of at least 1,300 others.

In 2014, the Commission on Investigation into Disappeared Persons, Truth and Reconciliation Act (CoID-TR Act) was enacted. However, the two commissions it created – the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Inquiry on Disappearances – were established without consulting victims or civil society. In 2015, after a suit brought by victims, the Supreme Court annulled the CoID-TR Act's amnesty provisions.

For more information, visit our Nepal webpage.

PHOTO: Nepalese human rights activists and relatives point to photographs of disappeared persons. At least 1,300 people disappeared during Nepal's civil war. (Niranjan Shrestha/Associated Press)

In countries emerging from conflict or dictatorship, the risk of recurrence of violence is real. The way in which societies learn about and remember the past – how and why mass atrocity occurred – can enlarge or reduce this risk. Because of this cyclical dynamic across generations, education can play a very important role in transitional justice processes. Despite the evident significance of education in transitional societies, how it intertwines with transitional justice has not yet been researched in depth.

To gain a stronger understanding of how education can help countries dealing with legacies of conflict and mass atrocities, ICTJ partnered with UNICEF on an ambitious research project examining the connections between education and transitional justice in peacebuilding contexts.

After over two and a half years of work examining experiences in nine countries and covering a myriad of themes, ICTJ and UNICEF launch “Education and Transitional Justice: Opportunities and Challenges for Peacebuilding,” a report that highlights the main findings of the extensive research and provides policymakers and practitioners with practical guidance for linking education to the development of transitional justice measures.

Over the coming months, several further outcomes of this research will be published, including an op-ed by ICTJ's Vice President Paul Seils, three thematic papers on the matter, and a series of analysis pieces examining specific countries, culminating with the launch of a book, "Transitional Justice and Education: Learning Peace," in spring 2016.

To explore the findings that emerged from the project, ICTJ's Marta Martinez spoke with ICTJ Senior Research Associate Roger Duthie, former Senior Research Associate Clara Ramírez-Barat, and Friedrich Affolter, Peacebuilding Program Manager at UNICEF.

One major finding of the project highlighted by Ramírez-Barat is that educational systems are more entangled in conflict than is often thought. “There is not only the idea that education can help to portray a new message of change,” said Ramírez-Barat. “In itself education is an institution or a part of the social construct that needs to be changed.”

For example, during the armed conflict in Peru in the 1980s the Shining Path insurgent group often recruited children from schools in marginalized rural areas. In cases like this, there is a need for deep reforms, including to school culture, curriculum, and teachers.

“The study forces us to look at education from a different angle and to appreciate how education can be misused and how it can play a constructive role,” said Affolter.

Drawing from UNICEF’s position as a provider of education in crisis countries, Affolter notes that education can sometimes be used to address grievances. He points to the project’s study of Chile, where scholarships were given to torture victims and their descendants as a means of redress.

But while education can contribute much to transitional justice, the report reveals that there are challenges to overcome. Duthie cites implementation as a chief obstacle.

“Very often, truth commissions make recommendations about change in the education sector, but these go only partially implemented or ignored completely,” said Duthie.

Duthie says that the constraints on implementation often fall into two categories. In post-conflict countries, capacity and resources for reform are often insufficient. In Sierra Leone, for example, the connecting education reform to the transitional justice process was hampered because the country’s education infrastructure was deeply damaged by war.

Political constraints also affect the implementation of education-based measures. National and local governments may be uninterested, or schools themselves may be reluctant to deal with divisive issues in the classroom.

“The communities and the parents of students may also oppose measures,” said Duthie, pointing to Bosnia and Northern Ireland as examples of countries where divisions within society make education reform difficult.

While the research project uncovered serious challenges in responding to the past through education, Duthie stresses that limited change can still be important. "You can still help victims try to overcome real obstacles to accessing education even with all the challenges,” he added.

Affolter cautions that practitioners should be realistic about what education can and cannot accomplish.

“We have to ask ourselves how we are presenting topics, how we are discussing histories, in a way that there’s an impact,” said Affolter. “Because just presenting something in a classroom setting may not have the consequences and the impact that we hope to achieve.”

In the long term, Ramírez-Barat says, their research has revealed many challenges, but also many opportunities for adopting transitional justice frameworks when thinking about education reform. But this project is just an initial foray into an under-researched field. There is much work left to be done to strengthen the role of education in transitional justice and to build societies that can better prevent recurrence of violence.

Learn more about ICTJ and UNICEF's research project on "Transitional Justice, Education, and Peacebuilding" on the project webpage.

PHOTO: Young people participate in student outreach program organized by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2009 in Kosovo. (ICTY)

In this podcast, ICTJ Communications Associate Dan Verderosa speaks with Refik Hodzic, ICTJ’s Director of Communications, who has just returned from a mission to Tunisia, about the latest developments in the transitional justice process in the country and the efforts of the Truth and Dignity Commission (TDC) to develop an effective communications strategy.

In the conversation, Hodzic explains that although the majority of Tunisians want to see the TDC deliver on its mandate to investigate abuses committed during decades of dictatorship, the current government’s effort to pass a “reconciliation law” offering amnesty to those who profited from the corruption and abuses of the previous regime threatens to undermine the process.

“If this law is passed, there is a danger that the mandate of the TDC would get so limited that the substance of its mission would effectively be sucked out,” said Hodzic.

In that context, the TDC is being challenged by efforts to politicize and hamper its work. The effects on the public discourse are apparent: much of the media coverage of the TDC has turned away from the real story – truth and accountability for past abuses - towards politically driven discussions of commissioners’ personalities, the commission’s budget, and speculation about internal conflicts.

Hodzic met with commissioners and communications staff, as well as activists and members of the media – who he calls the TDC’s “natural allies” – to help them to strategize ways to bring public discourse on the commission back to the substance of its work.

“The fact that the commission has collected already 17 and a half thousand statements from victims and what these stories are is not at all being discussed in the public,” said Hodzic. “The mission of the commission is far above daily politics in its potential for affecting Tunisian society.”

The TDC must clearly communicate its mandate to the public, and others invested in its success – victims, activists, youth – must actively engage in the process. If they do not, Hodzic explains, the commission’s impact will be very limited and the process susceptible to subversion by political forces interested in its failure.

Following Tunisia’s 2011 revolution in the midst of the “Arab Spring”, the country began a transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. The country also embarked on a dynamic transitional justice process to reckon with past government abuses, including oppressive security policies, the arbitrary detention of over 10,000 people, and allegations of torture by state security forces.

Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly passed a Transitional Justice Law in 2013, which established a Truth and Dignity Commission to investigate the widespread human rights violations dating back to at least 1955. However, a proposed ‘economic reconciliation’ law threatens to undermine the process by offering amnesty to those who profited from corruption and abuses under the regime of former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

Read more on our Tunisia webpage.

PHOTO: ICTJ Communications Director Refik Hodzic meets with commissioners and staff of the Truth and Dignity Commission in Tunisia. (Instance Vérité & Dignité/Facebook)

On September 12, a memorial to those killed and tortured during Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising was unveiled in Nairobi. The memorial is a symbolic reparation addressing the harm suffered by the Mau Mau while fighting against British colonial rule, and was funded by the United Kingdom as part of a settlement between the UK government and Mau Mau veterans.

In 1952, groups of mostly ethnic-Kikuyu Kenyans, facing increasing economic marginalization due to colonial policies that included the expropriation of land and forced wage labor, took arms against British colonial authorities. By the end of the rebellion in 1960, around 90,000 people were killed, tortured or maimed, according to the Kenya Human Rights Commission. At least 160,000 were detained in inhumane conditions.

The establishment of the memorial, which features two Mau Mau fighters—a man and a woman—exchanging bread, is an important development in Kenya’s transitional justice process, representing an acknowledgement of some of the injustices suffered by Kenyans under British colonial rule.

To learn more about the memorial and its significance, we spoke with Ruben Carranza, director of ICTJ’s Reparative Justice Program. In this podcast, Carranza discusses how the memorial’s design was agreed upon, the importance of the UK’s involvement, other reparations included in the Mau Mau settlement, and what it means for transitional justice not only in Kenya, but in other countries around the world that were subject to colonialism.

Carranza notes that the memorial and its inscription is a testament to the violations perpetrated during the Mau Mau rebellion. “It captures what the case was about and perhaps introduces those who look at it to the larger history of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya,” says Carranza.

The fact that the memorial was funded by the UK government is particularly important, Carranza stresses, because “it is a clear acknowledgement of state responsibility, and it reflects how reparations and transitional justice approaches the question of responsibility—that it is the perpetrator of violations that should take responsibility for repairing the harm done and in this case, if the state is involved, it should be the state who must acknowledge the violations that were committed.”

Carranza says the settlement—which also included compensation for over 5,000 victims—marks a stepping stone for the Kenyan government to acknowledge its treatment of Mau Mau fighters, who were banned under Kenyan law until 2003. “The settlement, while it reflects specific points of agreement, opens the door to the past and allows Kenya to re-examine this part of its history,” says ICTJ’s Reparative Justice Director.

While the memorial and other reparations measures represent an important step in Kenya’s transitional justice process, Carranza notes that the Kenyan government should take other actions to go beyond the case of the Mau Mau and address other injustices endured by Kenyans. “This example tells the government that it can be done and it should be done before victims die, before victims grow old, before stories that have not been told cannot be told anymore, and before justice that has not happened may not be possible because the victims have died,” says Carranza.

The settlement could also have implications beyond Kenya. Carranza says that the memorial “represents a door that has been opened not just for Kenya, but for other countries in the Global South that went through the same experience of colonial abuse, the same experience of human rights violations under occupation.” One such country is Tunisia, whose truth commission’s mandate covers the period just after French colonial rule.

PHOTO: The memorial to Mau Mau fighters at its unveiling in Nairobi, Kenya. (nKiirũ Photography/Flickr)

Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina resigned from office on Wednesday night, September 2, after the country’s Prosecutor’s Office issued a warrant for his arrest on charges related to a multi-million dollar corruption scandal. The day before, in a unanimous decision, Guatemala’s Congress voted to strip him of immunity from prosecution. The International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), a hybrid body established in 2007 with UN support, has led the investigative effort and lent great support to the country’s justice institutions in this process.

Pérez Molina is accused of directing a customs scam, referred to as “La Linea,” or “The Line,” in which importers used a phone hotline to pay bribes in order to avoid being charged full import duties to the customs agency. More than 40 people have been charged in connection with the scandal, including Vice President Roxana Baldetti, who is now in prison.

Since April when the first charges were filed, for weeks, thousands of Guatemalans have taken to the streets to protest, calling for an end to impunity and corruption. In this podcast, ICTJ’s Marta Martinez speaks with Director of Programs Marcie Mersky about these important steps forward in the fight against impunity at the highest levels and about the political and social turmoil currently facing Guatemala, as the country prepares for presidential elections this Sunday, September 6.

Mersky stresses that it was years of joint work by the CICIG and the Prosecutor’s Office that allowed the investigation on the corruption network to move forward and prove how “organized crime within the state was able to penetrate so deeply.”

CICIG’s main contribution were technical resources that were vital in building the case, such as the over 80,000 legal wiretaps that have been analyzed, says Mersky, “and especially the political weight that CICIG –as an internationally supported body– brought to the process as well.”

A key ingredient to this success, Mersky underscores, is the “massive civic citizen mobilization in support of the justice system.” For 20 consecutive weeks, thousands of Guatemalans have been demonstrating peacefully both in the capital and the main regional cities calling for the president’s resignation and to put an end to impunity and corruption. “Without that civic energy, especially of young people, perhaps the prosecutorial effort wouldn’t have had the results it’s had so far with the resignation of the president,” says ICTJ’s Director of Programs.

Mersky points at the country’s civil war as the root cause for such entrenched corruption within the Guatelaman executive branch’s power. “The State has been seen as a source of enrichment for emerging sectors, including the military, going back to the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s,” Mersky explains. Corruption crimes were often overlooked during those years while grave human rights violations such as enforced disappearances or killings were terrorizing the population. Pérez Molina himself is a retired Army general and was deployed in one of the regions that most suffered the violence during the conflict.

“The oligarchy has such a tight hold on the country’s wealth –mostly natural resources but now also the financial institutions–that for emerging sectors the State became a place to loot,” says Mersky.

Those corrupt structures within the State remained ensconced, Mersky says, and now the judicial institutions are exposing how those structures maintain a “strong hand in corruption, drug trafficking, and all kinds of illicit operations.”

“We are now seeing the fruits of eight very difficult years for CICIG, similarly difficult years for the Attorney General’s Office, but enormous advances in the commitment to justice, the technical skills to bring that commitment to life, and the political force in the citizenry of the country that’s willing to fight for these things,” says Mersky.

As the country prepares for presidential elections this Sunday, September 6, Mersky is not optimistic about the upcoming president, but is hopeful about long-term change in the country. “The parties who are strongest have the same belief in using the State as a source of wealth, so I think the outcome will be very complicated, no matter what it is, and certainly whoever is elected will not have a lot of legitimacy,” says Mersky.

Deep institutional reform is needed in Guatemala, she insists, and that includes measures involving the judiciary, political party financing, and electoral reform among others. “I am hopeful that some important reforms will come out of this and that there will be a sense among prosecutors and judges that the society is willing and happy to reward honest officials who defend their rights,” Mersky says.

PHOTO: A boy waves a Guatemala national flag during a vigil in front of the Supreme Court in Guatemala City, Wednesday, July 22, 2015. (Luis Soto/AP Photo)

After eight years of paralysis, the beginning of this year saw a revival of Nepal’s efforts to reckon with the lingering legacy of the civil war, in which some 13,000 people died and more than 1,300 were forcibly disappeared.

Following the appointment of commissioners and the Supreme Court’s decision in February on the government’s “Transitional Justice Act,” which clarified the mandate of two commissions—the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission for Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons—, it seemed that victims could finally hope to see the state deliver on the obligation to provide truth and justice.

And then in April a devastating earthquake struck the country, inflicting a great loss of life and destruction on 14 of Nepal’s 75 districts. The country’s immediate needs were for humanitarian assistance to people affected by the damage, including the victims of the conflict who lived in the affected areas. The two commissions did not escape the effects of the earthquake; the TRC’s building was destroyed and the whole process was significantly delayed. Now, more than three months later, as the humanitarian effort continues, the work on addressing the long-term effects of the conflict gathers pace again.

For a detailed overview of where the process stands at the moment and the major challenges facing the two commissions, we spoke to Jan Borgen, head of ICTJ’s office in Kathmandu. In this podcast, Borgen describes how the earthquake affected the victims of the conflict and the two truth-seeking bodies, and speaks of their immediate priorities six months into the mandate.

Borgen points to the need to have the internal regulations and administrative framework adopted as soon as possible in order for the commissions to function effectively, but points to some work being done by the TRC already as they make field visits to Nepal’s districts. “They visited some 25 districts so far and this is very important as such visits give them direct experience of what the victims needs are, “says Borgen.

He points out that the TRC faces a huge challenge in winning the victims’ trust, as the eight years of political wrangling and paralysis have severely eroded victims’ confidence in the political establishment and question whether it is genuine in its commitment to justice.

In such a heavily politicized environment where political will is lacking, it is difficult to envisage how any possible criminal trials of the most serious perpetrators would unfold, explains Borgen. He predicts a long fight ahead.

In the podcast Borgen presents his insights on what victims see as main priorities at this time, reflects on the need for a comprehensive reparations program by the government, and speaks about the ICTJ’s plans in the country for the near future.

PHOTO: A Nepalese woman participates in a candle light vigil for victims of last week's earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, May 2, 2015. The magnitude-7.8 earthquake killed thousands of people and the U.N. has estimated the quake affected 8.1 million people, more than a fourth of Nepal's population of 27.8 million. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

In this edition of ICTJ Dispatch, Ruben Carranza, Director of ICTJ’s Reparations Program, reports on his recent mission to Myanmar. The country, slowly transitioning from a military dictatorship to a civil democracy, has failed to live up to many of the expectations for change and reform. Transitional justice measures, in particular, have failed to materialize, despite some initial steps to hold the government, the military, and elites accountable.

In this interview with ICTJ’s Communications Director Refik Hodzic, Carranza describes his reading of the current situation facing political prisoners, civil society organizations, and ethnic groups in the country; touches on ceasefire discussions between the government and armed groups; and looks ahead to the 2015 elections.

During his time in Myanmar, Carranza met with the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) and civil society organizations from ethnic areas. He participated in workshops on transitional justice measures, stressing the importance of their being designed to meet local demands and needs. “It is important when we frame the discussion of transitional justice in Myanmar to not only focus on the violence that has taken place in the country since military dictatorship was established there, but also to look at why violence in happening and why it continues to happen in ethnic areas for example.”

Finally, Carranza relates the difficulty of talking openly and optimistically about justice, reform, and accountability in Myanmar, as he walks listeners through some of the country’s most pressing justice issues: the lack of reparations for freed political prisoners, land confiscation, human rights violations against ethnic minorities, and the military’s continuing hold on power.

PHOTO: Burmese peasants who say their land was misappropriated by the Burmese army march in central Yangon, Myanmar, on June 7, 2014. (Jack Kurtz)