Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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Dilemmas of ReconciliationThis review of Andrew Rigby's new book, Justice and Reconciliation: After the Violence published by Lynne Rienner, Boulder & London, 2001, has been written by Michael Randle. The topic of reconciliation is apt to engender pious homilies. Not so in this book in which Andrew Rigby undertakes a rigorous examination of the problems of reconstructing fractured societies in the aftermath of extreme violence and repression. The dilemmas are manifold. How is the demand for justice to be reconciled with the need to bring the society together and build a different future? Should the past be buried and forgotten, or brought out into the open? How should collaborators be judged and dealt with? Dealing with collaborators poses particularly difficult questions which Andrew deals with in depth in some of the most interesting passages in the book. Under dictatorship, authoritarian regimes or foreign occupation, a degree of collaboration is virtually unavoidable for the majority of the population, and it is not easy task to determine the degree of culpability of those concerned, or indeed whether in some cases they should be deemed culpable at all. How, for example, is one to judge, an employer in occupied France who contributed to the Vichy or German economy, but also aided the resistance movement, and perhaps even took an active part in it? Would anyone condemn Schindler for the degree of cooperation with the Nazi regime that was the price he had to pay to continue running his factory, enabling him to save hundreds of Jews and others from the gas chambers? And what of civil servants who stay in their posts under an occupation regime but use their inside knowledge to keep the resistance movement informed of what is happening or being planned? Especially in the absence of any advance collective plan of action, the dilemmas facing civil servants and other administrators following a coup or occupation can be intolerable. If they quit they may expose the population to greater suffering. If they stay in position, they risk becoming embroiled in the system of repression. Successor governments, too, act under a variety of constraints. Thus the decision as to how vigorously to pursue the leaders and upholders of the old regime will depend to some extent on the balance of forces in the society in transition. Where the institutions and organisations supporting the former regime are still powerful enough to stage a possible comeback, it may be prudent to let matters rest, at least until the successor government is stronger. In 1990, the newly elected government of President Aylwyn in Chile could not have arrested Pinochet and his fellow officers without the near certainty of facing another military coup. Ten years later, and following his arrest - and eventual release - in London, the Chilean authorities felt strong enough to do so, even if he did not in the end stand trial. Despite the constraints, there is always a range of options open to successor government and civil society organisations. By means of a succession of case studies, Andrew examines these, succinctly setting the historical and social context in each case and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the path chosen. The studies range from post-occupation Europe at the end of World War II, Spain after Franco, several Latin American countries, including Chile and Argentina, following the end of military dictatorship, Eastern Europe post-1989, South Africa and Palestine. Andrew also looks at the role of third parties at both official and unofficial levels and, in a final chapter, makes some general observations and judgements based on the evidence of the case studies, and discusses the possible stages by which a society might achieve a 'culture of reconciliation'. As one might expect, there are big differences in how various societies have attempted to tackle the problem of 'dealing with the past'. Post World War II, many of the formerly occupied countries pursued severe retributive justice. In Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, generally regarded as models of liberal democracy, retroactive legislation was passed, introducing the death penalty for extreme cases of collaboration and crimes against humanity. Belgium had the highest proportion of death sentences in relation to the size of its population - 4,170 were condemned, of whom 230 were executed. In France, 6,763 people were condemned, 767 executed. These figures are over and above those summarily executed by partisans or enraged citizens in the immediate aftermath of liberation. In France, the estimated number of such summary executions is estimated to be at least 4,500. Across Europe, too, tens of thousands were imprisoned - 38,000 in France, 40,000 in Holland, 50,000 in Belgium, and 21,000 in Norway, equivalent to 633 for every 100,000 Norwegians. Many later benefited from amnesties, though ironically this meant that some of the more highly placed and responsible collaborators escaped more lightly than those whose offences may have been less grave but suffered the rough justice of the streets. The Nazi occupation was in many respects uniquely terrible, and some of those executed or imprisoned had been responsible for, or were party to, heinous crimes. That said, the experience serves to draw attention to the relatively lenient policies pursued by successor governments in Latin America, South Africa and Eastern Europe the 1990s. This leniency, as noted earlier, was sometimes the product of weakness on the part of the new governments, fearful of provoking the military and the Right into attempting another coup. But compassion, and a resolve to unite the society in the rebuilding process, played a part too, notably in South Africa where Bishop Desmond Tutu heads the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and promotes the African concept of ubuntu - essentially restorative as opposed to retributive justice. South Africa, however, benefited from studying the reconciliation process in other post-dictatorship countries, and notably the work of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation in Chile. As a result its Commission was established on a sounder basis. Thus in Chile the new social democratic government in 1990 - because it did not control the Upper House - was unable to repeal the Amnesty Law promulgated by the junta in 1978. In South Africa, by contrast, people had to apply individually to the Commission for amnesty, and granting it was made conditional on the individual making a full confession by a certain date, thus putting pressure on offenders to come forward. There was a much greater effort, too, in South Africa to involve ordinary people and civil society organisations in the truth and reconciliation process. Nevertheless, even in the case of South Africa, there is still the question of whether justice has been sufficiently well served by this process, given that restorative justice cannot hope to give back fully what has been lost. There is also a question of how far the bulk of the population, as opposed to the political elites, has been adequately involved in the reconciliation process, and how far the process itself can go as long as the gross structural inequalities that have been carried over into post-Apartheid South Africa continue to exist. To quote Andrew, '...while uncovering the past and acknowledging the truth can be important constituents of the social healing process, reconciliation requires more than truth - it requires a modicum of justice, not necessarily in terms of the punishment of perpetrators of evil but in the constructive sense of action to reduce socio-economic inequality.' A refreshing aspect of this book is that Andrew is not afraid to speak in his own voice, and to draw on personal and family experiences, and his active involvement in Israel/Palestine, in making his points. Thus in contrast to much academic work, you get a sense of the person behind the writing rather than the projection of some remote, authoritative persona. The result is a book that is both instructive and highly readable. Michael Randle
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