{"title":"Ex-combatants and the Truth Commission in Colombia: An Analysis of the Participation of Former Military and Ex-guerrillas","authors":"J. Ugarriza, Laly C Peralta","doi":"10.1093/ijtj/ijae018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijae018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Colombian Truth Commission (2018 to 2022) provides a unique opportunity to delve into the participation of ex-military personnel and former guerrillas within truth-seeking bodies. While existing literature highlights the importance of their involvement in facilitating the assumption of responsibilities, rebuilding relations with their victims and undergoing personal transformation, it tends to overlook their potential contribution to truth and memory. After conducting interviews with former Commissioners, staff, soldiers and ex-guerrillas over a two-year period, our research reveals that former fighters maintained confrontational attitudes toward their previous adversaries. They primarily focused on promoting historical memory narratives rather than making substantial contributions to uncovering the truth. Conversely, the Commission took a moral stance in supporting the victims but failed to prevent conflicting narratives from hindering the path to reconciliation. The Colombian experience underscores the need for strategies to ensure that truth-seeking and memory spaces play a constructive role postconflict, and to accommodate perpetrators’ contributions to historical clarification without condoning their actions.","PeriodicalId":513490,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Transitional Justice","volume":"52 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141345675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Advancing Local US Transitional Justice Initiatives: A University Partnership Alongside Descendant Communities","authors":"Linda J Mann","doi":"10.1093/ijtj/ijae002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijae002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article suggests that the ongoing denial by the USA federal government of historical human rights infractions against African Americans and people of African descent led to a proliferation of local transitional justice efforts. Drawing from a university-driven transitional justice project, this article offers an analysis of local initiatives and highlights one of its six transitional justice collaborations. The university project sought to decolonize its structure and approach, drawing on methods of cultural humility, desire-based research and deep listening. This article responds to the success and challenges of decolonizing a transitional justice project within academia. Findings suggested that local initiatives face obstacles due to enduring legacies of harms and silenced histories, necessitating communities to substantiate their claims. Capacity issues and funding are challenged due to centuries of disinvestment. The article offers lessons learned for potential ally organizations who seek to advance transitional justice where government-sponsored redress continues to be denied.","PeriodicalId":513490,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Transitional Justice","volume":" September","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140092788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Historical Violence and Public Attitudes towards Justice: Evidence from the United States","authors":"Jamil S Scott, Daniel Solomon, Kelebogile Zvobgo","doi":"10.1093/ijtj/ijad034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijad034","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article brings transitional justice scholarship to bear on the case of racial violence in the United States. We investigate how knowledge of racial terror lynchings shapes Black Americans’ support for symbolic and material transitional justice measures. We administer a survey with an embedded experiment to Black residents in Maryland, a US transitional justice pioneer. We provide select respondents with information about historical lynching violence and find that they are more likely to support symbolic transitional justice (e.g., apologies and memorial markers) than individuals presented with information on contemporary police killings. Regarding material transitional justice (e.g., monetary reparations and community projects), we find no significant differences between groups. Linked fate excepted, we do not find that key aspects of Black identity and the Black American experience (i.e., historical knowledge, police contact, church involvement and Black nationalist beliefs) moderate transitional justice attitudes. Our work indicates the promise and limits of information campaigns to mobilize support for transitional justice.","PeriodicalId":513490,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Transitional Justice","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139860919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Historical Violence and Public Attitudes towards Justice: Evidence from the United States","authors":"Jamil S Scott, Daniel Solomon, Kelebogile Zvobgo","doi":"10.1093/ijtj/ijad034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijad034","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article brings transitional justice scholarship to bear on the case of racial violence in the United States. We investigate how knowledge of racial terror lynchings shapes Black Americans’ support for symbolic and material transitional justice measures. We administer a survey with an embedded experiment to Black residents in Maryland, a US transitional justice pioneer. We provide select respondents with information about historical lynching violence and find that they are more likely to support symbolic transitional justice (e.g., apologies and memorial markers) than individuals presented with information on contemporary police killings. Regarding material transitional justice (e.g., monetary reparations and community projects), we find no significant differences between groups. Linked fate excepted, we do not find that key aspects of Black identity and the Black American experience (i.e., historical knowledge, police contact, church involvement and Black nationalist beliefs) moderate transitional justice attitudes. Our work indicates the promise and limits of information campaigns to mobilize support for transitional justice.","PeriodicalId":513490,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Transitional Justice","volume":"73 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139801043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transitional Justice and Redress for Racial Injustices against Marginalized Minorities: Lessons from Indigenous Twa People in Post-Genocide Rwanda","authors":"E. Sentama","doi":"10.1093/ijtj/ijad036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijad036","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article addresses the question of how countries respond to racial injustices through transitional justice. It draws on the case of Rwanda and explores the experiences of the marginalized indigenous Twa minorities with transitional justice implemented after the 1994 genocide through the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and Gacaca courts. The lessons from Rwanda highlight the limitations of transitional justice in providing redress for racial injustices of marginalized minorities when it is practised within an authoritarian political context. The article discusses how the transitional justice approach in Rwanda contributed to the construction of a flawed record of the past and marginalized the racial realities of Rwandans by imposing an official historical narrative. It was also used as a tool of the government to negate racial injustices against the most marginalized communities of Twa people but also to preserve racial injustices and human rights violations against them by denying their ethnic identity and indigenous way of life.","PeriodicalId":513490,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Transitional Justice","volume":"34 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140487937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Strengths and Limitations of South Africa's Search for Apartheid-Era Missing Persons.","authors":"Jay D Aronson","doi":"10.1093/ijtj/ijr013","DOIUrl":"10.1093/ijtj/ijr013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines efforts to account for missing persons from the apartheid era in South Africa by family members, civil society organizations and the current government's Missing Persons Task Team, which emerged out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process. It focuses on how missing persons have been officially defined in the South African context and the extent to which the South African government is able to address the current needs and desires of relatives of the missing. I make two main arguments: that family members ought to have an active role in shaping the initiatives and institutions that seek to resolve the fate of missing people, and that the South African government ought to take a more holistic 'grave-to-grave' approach to the process of identifying, returning and reburying the remains of the missing.</p>","PeriodicalId":513490,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Transitional Justice","volume":"5 2","pages":"262-281"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3185365/pdf/nihms-307167.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30197167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}