Justice after peace?

When the killing and brutality have largely come to an end, how do you go about
healing both individuals and society? Roberta Bacic, a former member of
Chile's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, reflects.

In October 97, INFOKREIS — a network of Swiss
organisations which have worked with people from former-Yugoslavia — organised
a conference entitled "Building Peace from the Roots". Participants came from
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Chile, Switzerland and South Africa. The
event was hosted by Kinderdorff Pestalozzi in Saint Gallen, Switzerland: in the
midst of this peaceful and attractive scenery, we shared the experiences we
had gone through following war, political repression and apartheid.

At the end of the conference we visited Tordici, a bombed, almost completely
destroyed and abandoned town near Osijek, Croatia. ARK, the Croatian Anti-War
Campaign, had organised the visit with the intention of exploring a nearby mass
grave of victims of the war. Despite common knowledge of the grave, so far no
legal action has been taken.

Visiting the mass grave was not possible when we were there, but we hope it
might be in the near future: seeing the corpses would provide the families with
the relief of knowing where there loved ones are. It would also allow them to
bury their relatives and start the normal mourning process. There is no chance
for them to think in terms of peace and justice until that has happened.

Chilean experience

In
Chile we did several such excavations over the years, and the whole experience
was very important. Collecting evidence about mass graves meant contact with
relatives of the victims, with witnesses" with neighbours and, in a few cases,
even with alleged perpetrators. At the site, a forensic expert could say -
after a short checkup — if there was or had been something there. If so, human
rights organisations or associations of victims took legal action to allow a
formal excavation. Sometimes we had positive results, often we did not, but
this experience of teamwork allowed us to feel like active participants in our
history. From a psychological point of view, the mourning process has to be
materialized if we want to keep mentally healthy — both as individuals and as a
society. It is also a tribute to the absent ones and a way to express socially
that what we say is undeniably true, not a mere story.

Justice after peace

The
discussion at the seminar and the actual experiences in Tordici have inspired
us to organise a plenary for the WRI Triennial in September, in Porec, Croatia.
We are calling it "Justice after Peace", and intend to discuss the concept and
practice of truth, justice and impunity in different parts of the world where
there has been war, dictatorship or apartheid.

These are just some of the questions we have come up with:

Whit can he done to look behind the masks used by those in power to make us
think they care about what is, gong wrong? Grassroots groups need to highlight
injustice by whatever means are available — at a state level (if listened to),
through the media, or even by public demonstrations.

In a culture dominated by lies, what possibilities are there for unveiling the
system of lies? In our work we should always point out the lies, and stress the
truth, but we shouldn't use up too much energy contradicting official
pronouncements. Facts speak for themselves. We must help one another maintain
confidence in a fair and just society and not fall into the argument that
nothing can be done. As long as we are alive we can always do something to
improve what is here.

Have we paid attention to changes in language: dialogue based on euphemisms or
the refusal to use words which imply conflict? Chile is considered to be a
country which has improved its economic standards — the government says that
poverty will be overcome by present economic policies. This is untrue: the
elimination of poverty requires positive action and legal frameworks. To avoid
conflict with the military, the Chilean government spoke of "justice as far as
it is possible". But either there is, or there is not, justice — there is no
intermediate level. So that one sector of Chilean society will feel we are
improving politically, and the other won't think we are going too fast, the
government calls the process "transition to democracy". If that is what it is,
how come Pinochet still has so much power that he appears on the news all over
the world? A democratic system could not allow a person who has been
responsible for disappearances and murders to become a Senator (as was the case
with Pinochet in March 1998, when he officially retired from the army).