In 1983, 23-year-old South African university grad and anti-apartheid activist Nokuthula Simelane was forcibly abducted, tortured and disappeared by members of the Security Branch of the South African police. Her body has never been found. Thirty-two years later, her family continues to fight for justice and to bring closure to her case. Last week, Simelane’s sister Thembi Nkadimeng filed an application calling on the National Director of Public Prosecutions and the Minister of Justice to refer the case to a formal inquest before the Pretoria High Court.

The Simelane case has enormous significance for hundreds of South African families who still wait for justice in the murders of their loved ones—particularly those whose cases were recommended for prosecution by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In this podcast, ICTJ Director of Communications Refik Hodzic speaks with Senior Program Advisor Howard Varney, who also works with the Southern Africa Litigation Centre and is one of the lawyers assisting the Simelane family with their case.

In the conversation with Hodzic, Varney explains that the Simelane case compels South African authorities to face up to their responsibilities following the amnesty provisions that formed a part of the country’s ground-breaking transitional justice process. While many of those who came forward during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to speak their truth were given amnesty, those who did not apply or were denied amnesty were meant to be held accountable for their crimes.

Unfortunately, South African authorities have not pursued their obligations to prosecute those who were not granted amnesty. “In this case, those obligations are both legal and moral. The obligations must in fact be met, because a failure to do so not only disrespects the legacy of South Africa’s transition, but it also deeply undermines the human dignity of the families of these victims,”says Varney.

The Simelane case, however, is not an isolated case. Upon its closing, the TRC recommended investigations and possible prosecutions in up to 400 cases, and turned over the files on more than 500 missing persons. According to Varney, the majority of these cases have not been pursued—and not for lack of evidence. Many have speculated that the possibility of political interference is to blame.

“It is by no means an accident that the TRC cases have not seen the light of day,” says Varney. In the recent past, the government took the position that the cases should not be pursued, and placed obstacles in the paths of the National Director and the prosecutors. No cases have been taken since September of 2007.

Meanwhile, the Simelane family is pushing for a judicial inquest before the High Court so that their lawyers will be able to subpoena and cross-examine the perpetrators as a means to discovering the truth. Depending on the outcome, the Director of Public Prosecutions may then decide whether or not to prosecute those the court finds responsible. The family also seeks a declaration of their rights under the South African constitution, which upholds the right to human dignity, equality and the rule of law.

PHOTO: Statue of anti-apartheid activist Nokuthula Simelane, who was tortured and disappeared in 1983 by Security Police, in her home town of Bethal, South Africa. (South Africa House of Memory)

On April 8, 2015, a US immigration court deported former Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova after he was found guilty of committing serious human rights abuses in his position as defense ministers during El Salvador’s civil war, a conflict which embroiled the country between 1979-1992. Vides Casanova was forcibly removed from the US and is back in El Salvador; it’s still unclear whether he’ll face justice or be protected under existing amnesty laws.

Also on April 8, in a separate case, US courts ordered Salvadoran Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano Morales was ordered to Spain to face charges in the 1989 killings of five Spanish Jesuit priests in San Salvador.

Both General Vides Casanova and Colonel Montano Morales had been living in the US for decades; the recent rulings against them were a clear signal that perpetrators of atrocities abroad would not be shielded by the US.

In this ICTJ podcast, ICTJ Director of Communications Refik Hodzic interviews Patty Blum, Senior Legal Advisor at the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), who has worked closely with Salvadoran victims in US courts to hold perpetrators accountable for crimes committed during the war.

In her discussion with Hodzic, Blum describes the progression and challenges of the multi-year processes against the two former Salvadoran generals, and explains why the decisions mark an important victory for human rights and justice in the US and beyond.

The forcible removal of Vides Casanova from the United States is significant, Patty Blum says, because he was not removed because of a lie on his application for permanent residence, but for the human rights abuses over which he presided for close to a decade.

Blum was deeply involved in the civil suit filed against Vides Casanova and his co-conspirator Gen. José Guillermo García, which was initially filed in 1999. Three plaintiffs in the case were all victims of torture during the war. In 2002, a jury in West Palm Beach, Florida found them responsible for the torture, and awarded over $54 million to the victims. Proceedings against the two former generals then began in US immigration courts in 2009.

The United States does not have universal criminal jurisdiction, but its laws allow for foreign citizens to pursue civil suits against perpetrators of human rights violations outside of the US.

This provision, Blum explains is called the Alien Tort Statute, which was first created as a part of the first US Judiciary act of 1789. Recent development of the statute includes torture victim protection, which provides another basis for people to seek redress for harm suffered. “A lot of people refer to it as a sort of US civil universal jurisdiction,” says Blum.

She says the Vides Casanova case is monumentally significant: not only for the United States in its policies of dealing with human rights abusers, but for El Salvador, where perpetrators of atrocities continue to be shielded from the eyes of the law.

“The country had a very broad blanket amnesty that was passed within five days of the release of the Truth Commission report on El Salvador,” says Blum. “Everything was kind of shut down very quickly. And that shutting down was not just the responsibility of criminal prosecution, but it was also silencing the whole question of what the conflict had been about.”

Today, El Salvador’s Supreme Court has so far upheld the amnesty law. However, while criminal accountability is important, Blum argues that other forms of accountability can still take hold in the country, for example, memorialization and reparations efforts like the creation of the Peace Wall with the names of victims, the apologies by the FMLN government for the massacre of El Mozote, or the upcoming beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed by a death squad in 1980 due to his strong denunciation of human rights violations in the country.

PHOTO: Nerys Gonzalez, who said she had been kidnapped by soldiers in the 1980's, holds pictures of people who disappeared during El Salvador's civil war as she joins protesters outside the airport before former General Eugenio Vides Casanova arrives from the U.S. in San Salvador, El Salvador, Wednesday, April 8, 2015. The ex-general linked to human rights abuses during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980's was deported by the U.S. and flown to his home country, where officials said he faces no charges or restrictions on his movements. (Salvador Melendez/AP Photo)

More than 20 years after the peace agreement was signed, Guatemala continues to struggle in its quest to provide accountability and redress for massive human rights violations that occurred during the 36-year internal conflict.

One of the most pressing issues at the moment is the uncertain future of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, known as CICIG. Since the CICIG was established in 2007, by the UN and the government of Guatemala, it has supported the Prosecutor’s Office, the National Police, and other state institutions in their investigations of crimes committed by illegal security groups and the subsequent efforts to dismantle their structures. The CICIG’s mission is to strengthen the Guatemalan judiciary so that it can continue to prosecute these criminal groups in the future. CICIG’s mandate is due to expire in September and the president of Guatemala has recently questioned the need for the CICIG to continue its work in the country.

In this edition of the ICTJ Forum, Marta Martinez speaks with Marcie Mersky, ICTJ’s Director of Programs, about recent developments affecting the justice system in Guatemala. Mersky weighs in on the work of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), the conclusion of the trials of Spanish Embassy attacks and the pending case against former president Rios Montt on charges of genocide.

In the podcast, Mersky begins by stressing the important role the CICIG has been playing in bolstering justice reform in post-conflict Guatemala.

The war in Guatemala, which lasted from 1960 to 1996, significantly weakened the judiciary—particularly its independence and ability to deal with any sort of complex cases, Mersky explains.

“The commission put the issue of impunity squarely on the political table—put it on the political agenda more broadly than ever before. For the most part impunity had been one of the banners waved by human rights groups and victims groups, but was not necessarily a more generalized concern,” reflects Mersky.

Mersky explains that while it may not often be recognized, the CICIG has helped to bring the international community together to understand how their role in judicial reform and rebuilding the rule of law in Guatemala should be a priority. “I think sometimes each donor country will have their own agendas,” Mersky says. “I think CICIG has been very helpful in unifying a vision of what’s needed and helping to channel then their cooperation be it political technical or financial, in a more coordinated fashion around the keys issues.”

Although it is not part of the commission’s mandate, the CICIG has been acting as a “watchdog,” she says, even if it’s not officially part of its mandate. “People know that the CICIG is actually there indeed observing and engaging in these issues, and is a voice of independence that can be brought to bear.”

There is deep concern over the manner in which new members of the Supreme Court and the Appeals Court were appointed several months ago, in what Mersky says was the most highly politicized appointment process in recent memory. Many believe that the process itself delivered a serious blow to the advances made to judicial independence over the past twenty years, and to then remove the CICIG would only serve to deteriorate the situation further.

“It would be a terrible moment to have the commission have to close its doors,” she adds.

Martinez and Mersky also discuss the conclusion of the trial of the Spanish Embassy attacks in Guatemala in 1980.

“This was very much a turning point in people’s anger at government and the government’s decision [that] ‘we can do anything we want’,” Mersky explains.

And while the Spanish Embassy trial has come to a conclusion, Mersky reminds that others haven’t, like the trial against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt for genocide, which is once again stalled.

“The Rios Montt case is not going forward, because some group of elites in Guatemala drew a line in the sand. Rather than seeing the oblivion of the country to bring a former dictator to justice for genocide, which has been actually proven in the court,” Mersky says, “there is some sense perhaps of a guilty conscience on their own part—but these are often times deeply moral and ethical and political issues, not only legal and technical.”

PHOTO: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú giving her testimony at the trial of the Spanish Embassy in January 2015 in Guatemala City. Her father was among the 37 people who died in the 1980 attack, when agents of the National Police sieged the embassy. (Sandra Sebastián/Plaza Pública)

In this edition of the ICTJ Forum, Virginie Ladisch, head of ICTJ's Children and Youth program, speaks with Marie Wilson, a Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), about her reflections on her role in the commission and its relationship with education.

Wilson is one of three Commissioners overseeing the Canadian TRC, which was formally established in June 2008 as a response to the legacy of Indian residential schools in which indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to boarding schools as a means of assimilation into Canadian culture.

Commissoner Wilson joined ICTJ and UNICEF for a two-day roundtable on transitional justice, education and peacebuilding. Read more about the roundtable here.

In the discussion with Virginie Ladisch, Wilson talks about why she believes truth commissions should include education in their work and the role that education plays in the Canadian TRC.

"If we are talking about transitional justice as a vehicle and a process of transformational change in a society, then we have to be investing in the upcoming generation of children who are going to become the adult leaders in no time at all,” Wilson says, “Who need to understand where their country is coming from in order to learn the lessons that are available from that but also be informed so that they can be part of guiding it forward in a good way.”

Wilson reflects on the context of the Canadian system of forced residential schooling that spanned over a 150-year period in their history. "Education is not just a vehicle and a tool—education is really at the heart of the story itself, and in fact, the place where the harms took place," she says.

Part of the goal of the policy was to remove a distinct indigenous identity from the Canadian landscape, she explains.

"It was not armed conflict, but the schools became the weapon, and indeed the children themselves became some of the ammunition,” says Wilson. “Their job was to go home and be so different from their parents—both in terms of the languages they spoke, the way they thought, the spiritual beliefs that they had, the conversion to Christianity which was implicit. They were to go home and therefore be an influence over their parents, so that their parents could then get in line along with those stated goals.”

She says that as a big part of the historical problem, schools now have the potential and the opportunity to be a huge part of the pathway towards restoration of respectful relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada.

Ladisch and Wilson also discuss the idea that the educational process and its principles—not just the end goal of reconciliation—is of utmost importance.

The process, as it has been unfolding in Canada, has allowed for a different kind of reconciliation to take place, in which people see each other in new ways and begin to appreciate and respect each other's expertise in new ways, reflects Wilson.

"As a country, we have an enormous amount of remedial learning to do about ourselves, and as a society, we have a tremendous opportunity to reframe our notion of our own history, to be honest about that,” Wilson says.

“Not to make ourselves feel badly about ourselves, but to be honest about it so that we can start to live into the values that we hold as being Canadian values and that we espouse in the wider world.”

This podcast is part of a special series on the relationship between transitional justice, education and peacebuilding, developed from ongoing research collaboration between ICTJ and UNICEF. Learn more about the research project here.

Photo: Commissioner Marie Wilson, New York, October 2014 (ICTJ)

In this episode of the ICTJ Forum, we turn to South Africa, where educators are challenged daily to teach the country's past of apartheid to their students, while the country still grapples with ongoing inequalities, discrimination, and divided schools. In this discussion between South Africa's Gail Weldon, co-founder of Facing Our Past, Transforming Our Future and co-author of the national history curriculum, and Roy Hellenberg, the Head of History at Rondebosch Boys School and leader of the Facing Our Past teacher training program, we explore how South Africa's education system is engaging with the past.

Weldon and Hellenberg joined ICTJ and UNICEF for a two-day roundtable on transitional justice, education and peacebuilding. Read more about the roundtable here.

In this discussion with ICTJ's Rachel Goodman, Roy Hellenberg and Gail Weldon explain why after conflict, education is a critical tool for a society's positive transformation.

Roy Hellenberg believes that it is especially important to compel young people to learn about the past because they tend to be focused on the now and on the future.

"The past defines us," says Hellenberg, "So whether we study it or not, the reality is it affects us as a nation and it affects us as individuals as well. The advantage of studying it is it gives us an idea of what streams have impacted us and to what degree, and also, how it has unfolded in our community, in our society and the institutions that we are a part of. Until we understand where we come from, we don't really appreciate where we are. And we can't really define the pathway forward."

Even twenty years after the fall of apartheid, significant challenges of teaching the past in South Africa remain, and South Africa continues to be a deeply divided society. As Gail Weldon points out, the schools that have become most integrated are the former white-only schools, while other children are still “trapped” in poverty in the townships. These inequalities, she says, create real challenges for teachers in township schools.

"You have teachers having to teach a past that still looks very much like the present still—a past that was divided,” says Weldon. “The ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ were divided by color, and they continue to be largely. Although there has been a significant redistribution of wealth, the townships remain really poor. So for a history teacher teaching these young people, who have been told and are taught that our constitution gives equal opportunity to everybody, that they have access to all of this, and our young people look around them and say, 'But why are we still here?'"

The challenges can be personal as well. Hellenberg, who teaches at a school that used to be for white people only—recalls that when he arrived at Rodenbosch and saw the huge amount of resources that had been available to white students, he was filled with anger over the loss at the opportunities that could have been presented to students of color.

"One of the challenges is overcoming the baggage that we carry," he says. "Facing the Past, and participating in it as a teacher in that program, helped me to open the suitcase that I was carrying around, to take the articles out. I wish I could say that the suitcase is empty--that I've moved on from there--but it's not true. But at least I understand what's inside there and what's affecting me."

This podcast is part of a special series on the relationship between transitional justice, education and peacebuilding, developed from ongoing research collaboration between ICTJ and UNICEF. Learn more about the research project here.

Photo: School children in uniform walk long distances to and from school in the rural Kwa Zulu Natal. South Africa, 2007. Photo: Trevor Samson/World Bank

In this edition of the ICTJ Forum, Virginie Ladisch, head of ICTJ’s Children and Youth program, interviews Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire about his work with the Child Soldier Initiative and the complex dimensions of former child combatants in post-conflict societies.

Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire is a renowned Canadian humanitarian, author, and retired senator and general. In 1993, he was appointed Force Commander for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) where he witnessed the country descend into genocide, leading to the deaths of more than 800,000 Rwandans. Since his retirement, he has become an outspoken advocate for human rights, genocide prevention, mental health and war-affected children. He founded The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, an organization committed to ending the use of child soldiers worldwide.

In discussion with Virginie Ladisch, Dallaire reflects that his personal connection to the issue of young combatants grew out of his experiences in Rwanda, where many children took part in the violence.

The mission of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldier Initiative is to eradicate and prevent the use and recruitment of child soldiers worldwide. Prevention of recruitment—and re-recruitment—is an area Dallaire sees as critical, but too often ignored.

“Efforts we have seen to try to curtail it although very legal and so on […] we didn’t see the numbers reduced, because everyone was concentrating on rehabilitation and reintegration, and not on actually stopping them from being recruited,” he says. “I discovered [...] that nobody else was looking at this from that angle—prevention.”

Dallaire asserts that the use of child soldiers in conflict should be understood as an early warning system, and that rise in recruitment can be a clear signal that a conflict is escalating. He says that child recruitment is “an asset that has no limits to what it can do,” and points out that youth can be uniquely indoctrinated, and, with the influence of abuse or narcotics, can be pushed to horrible extremes.

“[Child soldiers] are, in our opinion, a dominant element of the security dimension that has to be resolved,” he says.

Ladisch and Dallaire also discuss the repercussions of various stereotypes of child soldiers, where they tend to be understood in extremes: either as passive victims (a view typically held in the international community), or as perpetrators (more often in local areas affected by conflict). Dallaire also reflects on how recognition of the agency of young people can inform a more sustainable reintegration strategy, and cites the education sector as a critical area for potential acknowledgement, learning, and even prevention.

Despite the fact that many child combatants have undergone horrific abuse and may have committed serious crimes themselves, Dallaire advocates for a more dynamic approach to understanding former child soldiers place in society, and suggests that reintegration programs are yet to fully realize the potential assets these former combatants can offer to their communities. Their experience, Dallaire says, has given them depth. “The resiliency they have, you can build on that.”

Photo: Roméo Dallaire with the United Nation, April 2012. Via (Flickr)

ICTJ President David Tolbert’s recently published op-ed in Project Syndicate sounded a serious warning about what Tolbert describes as “backsliding by the international community” on the protection of human rights. The piece attracted a lot of attention in the international human rights and justice communities, and in this edition of ICTJ Forum, ICTJ Communications Director Refik Hodzic interviews Tolbert to discuss Tolbert’s assertions from this piece, and to hear more reflection on Iraq, Ukraine, and other countries where conflict and human rights abuses are making headlines.

In his recent opinion piece, Tolbert describes an acceleration of not only brutal human rights abuses, but impunity for the perpetrators:

“The world has plunged into a period of brutality, with impunity for the perpetrators of violence. Syria is suffering untold civilian casualties as a divided United Nations Security Council sits on the sidelines. Gaza was pummeled to dust yet again with the world watching on. Iraq is in flames, with no end in sight. Atrocities are mounting in South Sudan and the Central African Republic, which are also being swept by an epidemic of sexual violence. Even Europe is not immune: a civilian aircraft was shot down over a conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, and officials were prevented from investigating.”

In conversation with Hodzic, Tolbert says his motivation to write the op-ed grew out of a sense of urgency over the state of world today.

“If you read the newspapers, if you look at the world’s situation today, you’ve got to be deeply troubled,” says Tolbert. “We’re seeing backsliding across the board, whether it’s in the Middle East, Africa, and in other parts of the world. This has seemed to be going in the wrong direction for some time, but now, it seems to be accelerating […] What is even more concerning is the reaction--or lack of reaction--from the international community writ large, particularly the great and emerging powers, which seem to have turned their back on human rights.”

Particularly troubling, says Tolbert, is a reversal of what for some decades had been a robust and growing trend of international commitment to accountability for heinous crimes.

“Where there have been human rights abuses of these kinds of levels—at least since 1989—we have seen some response from international community; sometimes it is late or not as effective as we would like them to be, but there was a movement for accountability,” says Tolbert.

“If we looked back a few years ago, we would have thought that the great powers & emerging powers would be at least committed to stopping or addressing these abuses; or, if this didn’t happen, there would at least be some kind of system to address this—but we’re not seeing that today.”

In considering recent international political shifts, Tolbert reflects on the parallels between today’s power dynamics and Cold War-era politics, and points to the ongoing draw back of European and North American powers—particularly the US—on human rights.

“The US engagement on human rights has been reeling ever since 9/11, and particularly after the loss of US credibility with Iraq. The unity of Europe has broken apart in a lot of ways, and the emergence of spoilers in that vacuum […] I think there is a great feeling of discontent, there’s a feeling of hypocrisy on the Western powers in particular, and a feeling of economic injustice that is not being addressed.”

For transitional societies and countries facing a legacy of human rights abuses of the past such as Colombia and many countries of the "Arab Spring", Tolbert remains confident that demands for truth, justice, and reparation will never be swayed. But in the absence of support from the international community, the possibility of that justice can come under threat.

“[Victims'] quest for justice can’t be extinguished by external circumstances,” says Tolbert. “What I would worry about it that these processes need international support.”

PHOTO: Ukraine - A local citizen collects parts of a seized Ukrainian Army Truck that was set alight during fighting between pro-Russian militants and government troops at Oktyabrskoye village, about 20 km. (12 miles) from Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, Wednesday, May 14, 2014. At list six servicemen were ambushed and killed and eight others wounded Tuesday afternoon outside the town of Kramatorsk, Ukrainian defense ministry said. ---(Copyright Maysun/Corbis / APImages)

In 2007, Canadian lawyer Philippe Leroux-Martin witnessed what was probably the biggest political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the end of the war – in 1995 – while working for the Office of the High Representative. Bosnian-Serb representatives opposed passing a set of reforms to strengthen federal power, which was supported by Bosnian Muslims and the international community. The failure to pass the reforms showed how entrenched ethnical divisions still were in the country.

The Bosnian crisis motivated Leroux-Martin to reflect on the role of international intervention in complex conflict and post-conflict situations. His recently published book, Diplomatic Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina, analyzes how interventions from foreign powers to end armed conflict can actually create new forms of conflict.

In this interview with ICTJ’s Hannah Dunphy, Leroux-Martin delves into the book’s main points and reflections, some of which might be considered controversial, such as the concept of “non-violent war” and “diplomatic counterinsurgency.” He also makes recommendations to the international community – including transitional justice practitioners – on how to conduct interventions more efficiently.

The concept of “non-violent war” has sparked discomfort among some members of the international community. Yet Leroux-Martin argues that an intervention might be successful in ending armed conflict with military force, but that does not necessarily stop conflict as such. “In these contexts war tends to transform itself into a non-violent war, a specific form of non-violent conflict which is being weighed by war-time elites and constituencies in order to achieve or pursue a war-time objective,” Leroux-Martin said.

A key to successful interventions, in Leroux-Martin’s opinion, is not to underestimate the intensity and complexity of the conflict. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that was a mistake the international community made, he says: “Had we been more conscious that we were managing a power arrangement that constrained the evolution of a non-violent war, I think we would have been more ready to accept that these changes that we were looking at would trigger very, very strong reactions.”

By being aware and understanding the dynamics and nature of “nonviolent wars,” Leroux-Martin explained, international actors are in a better position to anticipate the evolution of conflict and the impact that they will have on it. That has big tactical and strategic implications, such as on timing, resources, and what alliances to develop.

To transitional justice practitioners, Leroux-Martin sends the following message: “When you intervene in complex conflicts, you never do transitional justice in isolation. You interfere with a very intense conflict, and you are bound and destined to trigger reactions within this context. You may be very well neutral in your intentions, but you’re never neutral in your effect.”

PHOTO: A French UN soldier sets up barbed wire in one of the UN compounds in Sarajevo Friday, July 21, 1995. (Enric F.Marti/AP PHOTO)

After more than half a century of repressive military rule, Myanmar has embarked on a fragile, yet hopeful transition to democracy. Since President Thein Sein took office in 2011, Myanmar’s new political course has received considerable international attention, especially from development agencies and industries eager to invest in the country.

To evaluate the current state of progress, ICTJ released a new 28-page report today, “Navigating Paths to Justice in Myanmar’s Transition.” It analyzes the country’s attempts to foster democracy, peace, and development and examines the role international assistance can play in ensuring that economic development doesn’t neglect the need for accountability for ongoing and historical violations.

In this podcast, ICTJ’s Hannah Dunphy speaks with Deputy Program Director Anna Myriam Roccatello, who just returned from Myanmar.

The new report is based on ICTJ’s work in Myanmar over the past six years, and, as Roccatello explains, “underpins certain features of [Myanmar’s] transition and the policy decisions that have been made by international actors, while engaging with the Myanmar transition.” International involvement like ICTJ’s has been crucial to Myanmar’s transition, and the report calls on international actors to help ensure that human rights violations in the country are taken seriously by the new government.

Roccatello also discusses the recent anti-Muslim violence and the challenges it presents to developing adequate transitional justice measures. She suggests solidarity through an understanding of common suffering as a way to unify the country and promote the transition to a peaceful society.

This unity is also what Roccatello suggests will lead to more victims feeling comfortable participating in truth-seeking measures, which can help societies like Myanmar deal with atrocities of the past. Roccatello is optimistic, given her recent time in Myanmar, that there is an emerging trend towards accountability.

Roccatello also looks ahead to the next six to twelve months: “Hopefully we will move into a national political dialogue phase where the issues of transitional justice that have been momentarily parked in a different place – because the priority was to stop the fighting and reach a truce – will be finally revived and looked into seriously.”

PHOTO: People cheer to celebrate the 67th anniversary of Martyrs' Day at the National League for Democracy (NLD) head office in Yangon on July 19, 2014. General Aung San and eight other leaders were assassinated on July 19, 1947, as Myanmar marks the 67th anniversary of Martyrs' Day. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)

In this edition of the ICTJ Forum, ICTJ experts discuss developments in Tunisia, where a truth commission—the Truth and Dignity Commission—has recently been created. In the discussion, ICTJ’s Communications Associate Hannah Dunphy interviews ICTJ Truth and Memory Program Director Eduardo González, Gender Justice Program Director Kelli Muddell, and Reparative Justice Program Director Ruben Carranza.

González begins by speaking about the establishment of the truth commission earlier this year; he explains its first steps, points to the measures it will take to holistically represent Tunisian society, and predicts challenges it might face as it proceeds with its work.

ICTJ’s Truth and Memory Program, other ICTJ programs, and ICTJ country office in Tunisia will be working closely with the commission, providing guidance and expertise based on past experience. “ICTJ is cooperating with international agencies that are present in Tunisia and that are also supporting the truth commission, particularly the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and UNDP, which are very active,” González notes.

With a female president and other female commissioners, the commission is already sending signals that it is determined to take seriously the experiences of women. In fact, the Transitional Justice Law that established the TDC acknowledges the fact that women were particularly vulnerable to abuses under the regime of former President Ben Ali.

Muddell explains that commissioners have been supportive of acknowledging the difference in nature of the experiences of women and emphasizes the importance of special measures within the truth commission to “gain the trust of women victims and to make sure that their identities are protected so that they do not experience further shame and stigma by coming forward.” Muddell says that commissions that have been successful in reaching victims in the past have been flexible in their programming.

“They’ve realized that as they go along, they may need to create special measures beyond the usual statement taking or public hearings that take place to reach out to women,” said Muddell.

Finally, Carranza expands upon how the commission will be addressing issues of reparations for victims.

“The transitional justice law requires the truth commission to not only design a reparations framework that the government, that the state will then implement, but that it also requires the commission even now to begin establishing a database of victims and violations, to address potentially urgent cases, and to also address a category of victims that is unique as transitional justice experiences go,” Carranza explains.

In the near future, Carranza mentions that ICTJ “will be working with the ministry of human rights and transitional justice to now expand the evaluation [of ongoing reparations programs in Tunisia] that we conducted.” He says that the intention will be “to not only improve the implementation of ongoing reparations programs by the government, but to then have data available for the TDC for when it designs its own recommendations on reparations.”

Photo: Dennis Jarvis via Flickr