Knut Rauchfuss*, Bianca Schmolze**
Abstract
Case studies show that traumatized refugees, who are survivors of
serious human rights violations, suffer from persisting impunity in
their home countries.
Ongoing impunity – the inability to overcome the legal protection
of the perpetrators assured by impunity laws, incomplete truthfinding,
missing integral reparation and a lack of the necessary acknowledgement
by society – represents an important obstacle for the recovery of
survivors of serious human rights violations.
There are reports describing that a high percentage of survivors shows
an elevated mental vulnerability caused by impunity. Mental health
problems resulting from traumatic experiences can persist or be
reactivated by certain events. In particular family members of forcibly
disappeared suffer from an incomplete mourning due to the uncertain
fate of their beloved ones. The ongoing search for the forcibly
disappeared under an atmosphere of impunity puts family members under a
high risk for retraumatization. Studies from other continents also
prove that impunity severely affects mental health.
Due to the global character of impunity there can be only little
evidence about a positive impact of justice on mental health.
Nevertheless few examples, in particular from Latin America show, that
the combined implementation of memory, truth and justice can have a
healing impact on those who suffer from trauma. They demonstrate that
the fight against impunity is not only a legitimate moral struggle for
human rights, but also a basic need for the sustainable recovery of
survivors.
Key words: torture, war crimes,
trauma, survivors, human rights, impunity, transitional justice,
transnational justice, Truth Commission, memory, reparation, justice
heals
Introduction
The psychosocial impact of man made disasters has attracted increasing
attention during the last three decades. Mostly scientific research
work has drawn the attention to the mental health of individuals who
survived severe human rights violations, to symptoms and diagnostic
instruments as well as to different methods of individual or group
therapy.
At the same time human rights organizations tried to hold the
perpetrators responsible for the crimes that have been committed
through wars or by authoritarian regimes. Although there have been
trials against the Greek generals and torturers in 1975, and attempts
to bring perpetrators to court as e. g. in post-dictatorship Argentine
between 1983 and 1987, a real development to combine political
transition with justice started with much delay, with the arrest of
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London less than ten years ago.
Since then the necessity of justice in the aftermath of gross human
rights violations has been discussed, but either as a measure of
democratization or as a probable danger to peace and reconciliation.
Whereas psychological research on trauma and therapy didn’t take
much into account the social environment and the situation of a society
in transition, the role of justice after atrocities has been debated
regardless its impact on survivors’ recovery from trauma.
As a human rights organization and treatment center for refugees
located in Bochum / Germany, the Medical Care Service for Refugees
offers medical, psychosocial and legal support to survivors from
torture, war crimes and other severe human rights violations.
During psychotherapy with survivors exiled in Germany we experienced
that in several cases ongoing impunity in the countries of origin
affected negatively the therapeutic process and recognized impunity to
be an important factor in continuing their traumatic process or causing
retraumatization. In some case studies we documented our findings. The
case studies included survivors of serious human rights violations from
Chile, Argentine, former Yugoslavia and Turkey.1
In 2001 Medical Care Service for Refugees started to investigate
systematically on the influence of impunity on survivors’ mental
health.
Methods
We systematized our experience from work with political refugees in
exile and after their return to their home countries. From 2004 to 2007
we were able to realize a scientific research project on different
strategies to fight impunity, covering the experiences from 13
countries.2 Although the study’s first aim was to
focus on the different efforts that have been undertaken worldwide to
deal with atrocities of the past, we included the question of mental
health consequences of impunity in our research. The investigation
covered literature research as well as personal interviews with
survivors, therapy centers and human rights organizations.
The following essentials combine the experiences that have been published by the Chilean therapy centers CINTRASa and ILASb, by EATIPc from Argentine, and by SER-SOCd from Uruguay.3-8 Apart of their publications we analyzed a number of interviews we carried out in these three countries, as well as with ATYHAe
in Paraguay and with the South African Khulumani Support Group. We
discussed our findings internationally, at the conference Justice
heals, held in October 2005 in Bochum, Germany, where further
representatives from human rights groups, therapy centers or
survivors’ organizations of Cambodia, East Timor, El Salvador,
Ex-Yugoslavia, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone,
Turkey and from the Latin American Federation of Family Members of
forcibly disappeared (FEDEFAM) followed our invitation to share
experiences on impunity and mental health.
During other meetings we had the opportunity to talk to human rights
activists or therapists from Algeria, Colombia, Denmark, Greece,
Indonesia, Iraq, Liberia, Morocco, Mexico, the Russian Federation,
Spain and South Korea as well. And as an organization based in Germany
we included the German experiences too.
From the discussions on impunity and mental health as well as from the
exchange of different experiences in the fight against impunity a
worldwide “Justice heals-Network” was set up and started
work in 2007. Its aim is to deepen the international cooperation and
information exchange on the fight against impunity and to support
political interventions to bring perpetrators to court.
Here we present the outcomes of our research work on the impact of
impunity and the fight against it on the recovery of serious human
rights violations' survivors.
What do we mean by “impunity”?
On the first sight and in the most common use of the term, impunity
means the absence of legal justice, the protection of the perpetrators,
mostly assured by impunity laws or other mechanisms to avoid their
prosecution.
But impunity includes more than this. It describes a social phenomenon
characterizing and affecting society as a whole. Impunity keeps alive
the atmosphere of repression throughout society. By denying
survivor’s access to the truth, impunity continues the historical
interpretation of the repressors and denies the necessary
acknowledgement and reparation for victims and survivors.
So as we will explain later in further details, the fight against
impunity includes political measures to reveal the truth about the
past, to construct a collective memory, to bring the perpetrators to
court, to derive integral reparation to the survivors and structural
reforms to prevent society from suffering the same kind of atrocities
again.
What is our concept of trauma?
When talking about the impact of the fight against impunity on the
recovery of serious human rights violations' survivors we need to
explain our concept of traumatic experiences and their impact on the
individual and on society as a whole.
As we learnt from the research work realized by the Dutch psychoanalyst
Hans Keilson, trauma is not only the result from a single act of
atrocity. Keilson developed his theory of sequential traumatization
after decades of therapy he provided to Jewish orphans in the
Netherlands who had survived the Shoah.9
The importance of Keilson’s findings lies in the new perception
of trauma, which is no longer understood as the consequences of a
single event, but as a continuing process, even after the atrocities
came to an end.10, 11
In the early 80ies, before he was killed by right wing death squads,
the Liberation Psychologist and Jesuit priest Ignacio
Martín-Baró, from the Central American University at San
Salvador, developed a broader socio-psychological understanding of
trauma. According to Martín-Baró’s concept, trauma
is not only an individual process but a social and political phenomenon
that affects society as a whole. He described trauma as a link, which
interrelates individual and society in a traumatic process. The
psychosocial trauma can only be understood within its specific cultural
and political context.12-14
Martín-Baró’s description of psychosocial trauma
within the society of El Salvador amplifies the sequential model of
trauma by Keilson, and underlines the importance of a survivor’s
social environment on the further development on the traumatic process.
From 1982 to 1999 the German psychotherapist David Becker lived in
Chile, where he attended survivors from torture and family members of
forcibly disappeared people during the last decade of the dictatorship
and afterwards. Together with other therapists from ILASb he
adapted Keilson’s findings to the Chilean situation. Based on the
experiences from Chile and other parts of the world, Becker insists
that there is no post-trauma but a continuous Socio-political Traumatic
Process, which depends a lot on further developments within society.
According to Becker, trauma can be described as a “normal
reaction to an abnormal situation” and he defines trauma on an
individual and social level as the ‘destruction or fragmentation
of memory’. Becker distinguishes between trauma as a
psychological wound and the traumatic situation, which he sees as the
“destruction of the social fabric, […] implying that human
relationships and the basic laws that guide them have been attacked,
hurt and possibly destroyed”. As a consequence Becker claims the
necessity of both, political change, including the survivors’
right for truth and justice, as well as a focus on the individual needs
of those who have been victimized.15, 16
Based on an understanding of trauma as a psychosocial process, with its
individual and social implications, we address the question of impunity
as a barrier to the recovery of survivors.
The broad variety of possible trauma symptoms is well described and
will not be discussed here. At the same time it is well known that not
everybody who had to experience severe violence automatically develops
symptoms later. When we talk about mental health consequences of
impunity, we are referring to the subgroup of survivors that developed
symptoms and suffer from trauma.
How does impunity influence the traumatic process?
Most of the scientific research, which has been undertaken to
investigate the impact of impunity on society and on the mental health
perspective of the individual, was realized in the Southern Cone of
Latin America and some in South Africa too. 3-8, 17-19, 21-23
Investigations on the influence of impunity on the traumatic process
need to distinguish between survivors of severe human rights violations
and a specific subgroup consisted of family members of those victims
who have been forcibly disappeared and killed.
Since trauma is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation, often
traumatized survivors themselves cannot believe the dimension of
terror, threat and destruction they had to go through. Because their
horrible experiences are exceeding the worst nightmares, it is
difficult to share the unspeakable with others, even with family
members and friends. Additionally, through periods of authoritarian
rule or conflict, perpetrators’ ideologies dominate the public
discourses, polarize societies and the bystanders avoid breaking the
conspiracy of silence. Mostly survivors remain without a save
environment, where they can speak out openly and where their stories
are heard, understood and recognized. Therefore the most important need
of survivors is an acknowledgement from the surrounding society for the
atrocities they underwent.
But impunity continues the atmosphere of silence. It obstructs a public
debate about the crimes that have been committed and refuses the
necessary acknowledgement to the survivors. There are many reports from
different countries, which demonstrate that under impunity the social
stigmata against survivors continue and their exclusion from society is
perpetuated.
Apart that, the free movement of perpetrators in the public, their
remaining in powerful economic or political positions and their ability
to protect themselves from prosecution, produces not only a continuous
loss of trust in justice for survivors, but an ongoing latent or open
psychological threat to their future and a permanency of degradation
and humiliation.
Since trauma is a continuing process affected by and affecting the social relationships, impunity fuels the traumatic process.
The feeling of powerlessness, which already dominated during the
traumatic experiences, persists due to impunity, prevents
self-determination and goes hand in hand with a lack of
self-confidence.
As a barrier for overcoming the traumatic experiences, impunity raises
indignation, distrust, anger, rage and aggression among survivors, but
their capacity of developing healthy aggressions has already been
damaged during their traumatic experiences. Who suffered too much from
violence, often lost the ability to accept the own aggressive potential
and feels incapable to canalize rage. Many survivors turn their
aggressions against themselves, instead of developing anger against
their victimizers.
Due to the ongoing threat, survivors show an elevated mental
vulnerability under impunity conditions. Mental health problems
resulting from traumatic experiences can persist or be activated any
time by certain daily events even years later. Especially occurrences
of repression, e. g. against present social protests, are reported to
trigger traumatic memories.
Survivors, who are family members of forcibly disappeared people, are considered to be a specific subgroup of survivors.20
They may suffer the same from impunity, but additionally their
situation is harmfully influenced in a quite characteristic way:
Family members of forcibly disappeared suffer from an uncertain loss.
The more time goes by, the more obvious it might become that their
relatives in fact have been murdered. But it is never definitely sure;
the fate of their beloved ones remains unknown. The lack of information
makes it difficult to accept the loss. There are reports that up to ten
years messages for the missing relative have been left behind by family
members on a table each time when leaving home. There weren’t any
parting opportunities before the kidnapping of the disappeared took
place, no burial after their killing and there are no graves where to
visit and remember them.
Under the permanent search for the whereabouts of the missing and for
the circumstances of their enforced disappearances there is no
opportunity to accept the loss. Acceptance means betrayal of the
beloved ones. In such a situation the trauma is ongoing, since all kind
of mourning necessarily remains incomplete. Suffering from the trauma
of an uncertain loss means that knowing the truth about the fate of the
disappeared becomes a key question for recovery.
But under an atmosphere of impunity the searching relatives become a
special target of disinformation and systematic lies by the state,
putting them under a high risk for retraumatization. There are family
members that participated in hundreds of exhumations whereas others
reject exhumations categorically. Other reports mention wrong
identifications of remains that have been revealed later, when
genetically examinations were undertaken. Quite often information has
been offered to groups of family members in the context of a dirty
deal, asking them to grant impunity to the perpetrators in exchange.
And time and again the so called information led to nowhere. During
their ongoing search for the whereabouts of their beloved ones, family
members stumble from hope to disappointment. The psychotic situation in
between denial and acceptance continues, resulting in frustration,
distrust, anger and rage.
Their exclusion from society, which started during the period of
repression, remains under impunity conditions. There are numerous
examples, in which the social descent that resulted from the loss of a
family member could not be overcome. And if there were any offers of
compensation by the state, many family members refused them, because
due to impunity they consider any kind of financial reparation as
betrayal.
Although it is the systematic denial of information preventing them
from finding the remains or knowing the truth about the fate of their
relatives, many family members attribute the failure of their search to
themselves. Nearly all the treatment centers know cases of
self-accusation by family members of forcibly disappeared people for
not having been able to protect or to find the missing relative.
Under conditions of impunity survivors in general and the subgroup of
family members of forcibly disappeared people in their specific manner,
keep continuously suffering from trauma. Impunity not only creates a
strong barrier to a sustainable recovery, it continues and deepens the
traumatic process and elevates the risk for retraumatization.
Can Truth Commissions heal the wounds of the past?
Since 1974 worldwide more than 30 attempts have been undertaken to heal
the wounds of the past by establishing Truth Commissions.
The idea behind most of the commissions was that the access to truth
for survivors and the construction of a ‘historical truth’
for the society might lead to reconciliation in the aftermath of
trauma. During the Nineties especially in South Africa promises rose
that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) would have a
sustainable healing effect on society, although perpetrators received
amnesty in return for their cooperation. So was the hope in other
countries as well. But, depending on their mandate, the vast majority
of Truth Commissions didn’t have any legal instruments to force
perpetrators to reveal the truth. Lots of final reports have never been
finished or published and there are only a few examples where Truth
Commissions were allowed to make public the names of perpetrators.
Many truth processes failed and also in South Africa there have been
harsh critics from survivors and family members of victims concerning
the TRC-process, especially on the amnesty for truth trade. A healing
impact could not be affirmed.21-23 Comparable critics are reported from East Timor.24
Of course, some of the Truth Commissions have been able to define a
historical truth. In particular the efforts of the South African TRC,
the Argentinean CONADEPf, the Chilean Rettig-, and Valech-Commissionsg and the Peruvian CVRh
did reach the public opinion to a large extend and created a realistic
perspective on past human rights abuses. But at the individual level
the truth finding had its serious limits, in particular in the
disappearance cases. Many witnesses stayed with an incomplete truth
after the commissions had finished their work.2
In most of the cases the recommendations by Truth Commissions –
if there were any – haven’t been fulfilled by the
governments of transition. There are only few positive examples among
the globe, especially if we look at the recommendations for justice and
reparation. In most of the cases the inability to overcome the legal
protection of the perpetrators assured by impunity laws continued.
Recommendations for broad and integral reparation have been stayed rare
in the history of Truth Commissions.
During the past decade it became more and more evident that Truth
Commissions alone cannot provide the promised therapeutic effect. They
can be an important but additional instrument in the framework of
measures that have to be undertaken to overcome the wounds of the past.
Wherever legal impunity continues despite the work of Truth
Commissions, a large number of survivors remains dissatisfied and keeps
claiming justice.
Are there any proves that justice might heal?
If we take a look at transition, we need to distinguish different forms of bringing perpetrators to court.
At the international level initially there have been the Nuremberg
Trials (1945-1949). Nearly fifty years later transnational justice
restarted in 1994. Since then it is carried out by UN-bodies such as
the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY
1994-2010) and for Rwanda (ICTR 1997-2010), the International Criminal
Court in The Hague (ICC since 2002) and hybrid courts like the Serious
Crimes Investigation Units in East Timor (SCIU 2000-2005), the Special
Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL 2002-2008) and the Extraordinary Chambers
in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC since 2007).
Parallel to the UN-bodies transnational criminal justice has been
carried out by some national courts too. Since the late Nineties, there
have been remarkable international trials according to universal
jurisdiction in Argentine, Belgium, Chile, France, Germany, Italy,
Senegal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The cases are few, in which transitional justice has been carried out
by courts in the same countries, which have been affected by the
atrocities before. Notable national trials took place in Argentine,
Bolivia, Bosnia, Chile, East Timor, Germany, Greece, Paraguay, Peru,
Rwanda, South Africa and Uruguay, most of them recently or after a long
period of pressure by survivors or family members groups. Further
national trials as e. g. in Ethiopia, Romania or Iraq did not fulfill
the demands of a democratic rule of law.
In total the number of legal trials worldwide is few in comparison to the number of perpetrators.
In general most of the sentences in national trials were quite low, or
the perpetrators could soon profit from pardons and amnesty laws, so
that impunity was reestablished after a while. In most of the mentioned
countries only high rank repressors have been brought to justice and
not even all of them.2
Greece makes an exception from this tendency25, 26 and recently the number of trials in Chile and Argentine increased significantly.2, 27
But the impact of the Greek trials on survivors never has been examined
under a health perspective and the developments in Chile and Argentine
are still too new to derive general lessons.
In order to cope with the large number of perpetrators, Rwanda chose an
alternative and community-based model of jurisdiction by implementing
traditional Gacaca-tribunals in 2002, more comparable to mediation than
to trials under the rule of law. The outcome of Gacaca has been
critically investigated.28, 29 Of course, there were
survivors who could benefit from this model; but in general the doubts
grew over time, in particular concerning how Gacaca has been carried
out in practice.
Courts in third countries, where transnational lawsuits have been
filed, often had to work under restrictions of the local criminal law
since universal jurisdiction hadn’t been established yet. Where
convictions have been made or extradition demands have been issued the
courts were confronted with difficulties in having the perpetrators
extradited. There are only a small number of arrests reported e.g. from
Spain and Italy.30, 31
Few studies measured the impact of UN-Tribunals on the recovery of
survivors. One has been carried out by Eric Stover from the Human
Rights Center at Berkeley University.32 Stover interviewed
witnesses at the ICTY about their expectations prior to testifying
before the court and after their return to the former Yugoslavia. He
detected that highly motivated survivors who participated as witnesses
came back home from The Hague disappointed. There was a high level of
unfulfilled expectations. The main critics considered convictions as
being too mild and denounced the lack of extraditions from the former
Yugoslavia. Also security matters under the rule of impunity after
their return played an important role for dissatisfaction. Several
survivors felt threatened, after their arrival back home. In particular
the last two findings draw the attention on the fact that the UN-model
of extraterritorial justice could not really break with the situation
of impunity inside the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Despite a couple of cases, in which perpetrators could be brought to
justice, the whole picture remains fragmented. For a long time the
widespread global character of impunity was complete. Neither the
international efforts nor the few national trials could really break
the dominancy of a worldwide culture of impunity. Under these
circumstances it is difficult to investigate what impact an end of
impunity would have, and to which extend justice could really
contribute to a healing process of past atrocities.
Changes, as they occurred recently in Chile and Argentine and to a much
smaller extend in Peru and Uruguay too, are far too fresh, to give
complete evidence on a presumed healing potential of legal justice.
But there are a few examples, in particular from Latin America and
South Africa, which show a positive impact of justice on mental health,
and can give evidence at least to some degree, that legal justice can
have a healing impact on those who suffer from trauma.
The arrest of the former Chilean dictator Pinochet on October 16, 1998,
in London was a surprise for the whole world. The more unexpected it
came for the Chilean public. So not the arrest itself but the House of
Lords decision of November 25, when it was confirmed that
Pinochet’s crimes were not covered by his presidential immunity,
had a catalytically effect on survivors in Chile. Reports from therapy
centers and human rights groups show that in late 1998 and during the
following months the atmosphere of silence broke. The former
untouchable had been touched and while the Chilean government undertook
strong efforts to save the former dictator from extradition to Spain,
and despite of military threats inside Chile, people started to take
side in the Pinochet case.33 Survivors didn’t hide any
longer. Therapy centers experienced a strong increase of demands from
survivors who decided to talk about their traumatic experiences for the
first time.34
According to our own observations, survivors who had returned to Chile
from exile after 1989 tried to hide their past during the first years
after their arrival. Beginning already in 1995 with the trial against
the former Chief of the secret police Manuel Contreras and expanding
after the Pinochet arrest in late 1998 they readopted their personal
history and began to talk openly of being ex-political prisoners.1
An association of former political prisoners has been set up all over
the country and hundreds of survivors filed lawsuits against Pinochet
and other military officers for torture, despite the existing amnesty
law. So did the family members of forcibly disappeared. Since that time
the number of filed law suites steadily increased, not only against
Pinochet but also against his henchmen down to the former torturers. By
the end of 2005, 94 repressors had been convicted, 20 of them to life
imprisonment. Another 405 court cases were still under trial.35
Reports from Uruguay and Argentine confirm that the Pinochet-Effect spread to the neighboring countries as well.
The breakdown of impunity in Argentine goes back to a continuous fight
against impunity. After a series of trials during the first years of
return to democracy, the elected governments granted impunity step by
step and released the already convicted generals. It were the family
members of the disappeared, the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de
Mayo, who played the leading role in overcoming impunity by their
steady struggle, which lasted over three decades. The way the Mothers
of the disappeared organized their struggle, beginning in the second
year of dictatorship and continuing after return to formal democracy,
has been the topic of a couple of controversy debates. While some
authors consequently pathologized the Mothers’ refusal of any
kind of reconciliation without justice, others classified their
collective struggle as a method of developing a sense of coherence,
according to Antonovsky’s model of Salutogenesis. The collective
search for their children and grandchildren triggered this development
and helped to overcome isolation and fear. Taking up the struggle
against the dictatorship and continuing it afterwards allowed regaining
activity despite the traumatic loss of their children. And their
sometimes radical political demands for a different society, in
particular their consequential fight against impunity, provided a sense
of life.20
Until 2006 the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo clearly denied any cooperation
with the different civil governments and repeated demanding the
“return with life” of their children. Most of them denied
exhumation, official acts of memory and reparations categorically. And
they did never stop their continuous and often frustrating attempts to
bring perpetrators to court. In 2000 the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo
reached a partial success by cracking down the impunity laws in a
specific case of abduction. Three years later, with the support of the
recently elected president Nestor Kirchner they achieved the complete
abolition of the impunity laws and since then more than 1.000 cases had
to be reopened and hundreds of perpetrators were taken into custody.1, 27, 35
After the breakdown of impunity and with the support they had received
by the Kirchner government, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo slightly changed
their strict rejection of the state policies. From 2004 Mothers in fact
began to accept memorials and from 2006 they started to cooperate with
the Kirchner government, which could be understood as a hint that, with
the rise of credibility of political and legal institutions, the
psychological necessity for a role of fundamental opposition had
decreased.
Uruguay is still far from the Chilean or Argentinean developments.
Impunity is yet in power, but some lawyers reached to overcome amnesty
laws in certain cases. Their first heavy strike against impunity was to
put former dictator Juan María Bordaberry under trial in early
2006. And by chance the news of the High Court’s decision
appeared in the media just the day, when the burial of the first
identified remains of a Uruguayan victim took place, who had been
forcibly disappeared 30 years before. The funeral had a catalytically
effect on Uruguayan family members and survivors. About 10 % of the
inhabitants of Montevideo were participating in the burial and
newspapers reported that several disappearances from 30 years ago have
been made public by family members for the first time. Several court
cases were opened subsequently. And therapists reported an increase of
demands by new clients. Former political prisoners started to tell
their stories to their grandchildren, although before they had never
shared their traumatic experiences, even not with their children.
For sure, there is only little evidence that legal justice has a
healthy impact on the recovery of survivors. The examples illustrate
that in some cases, in which perpetrators have been brought to court,
positive effects could be recognized. Some other court cases
didn’t have the same impact, in particular when they took place
in far away courts, while impunity inside the countries persisted. Also
Truth Commissions were not able to fulfill the goal of healing the
wounds of the past, at least for a relevant minority of survivors.
Nevertheless, healing of extreme traumatic experiences is never a
simple linear and straightforward mechanism. Since survivors keep
claiming justice, legal justice is a necessary but not the one and only
step to be undertaken. Unfortunately it is the most missing piece in
the complex multitude of necessary individual, social, political, legal
and cultural measures in the aftermath of trauma. And without justice
the traumatic process continues.
Which measures can contribute to the stabilization of survivors?
Sustainable recovery of individual and society needs responses to the
past at different levels, which are not only linked, but interrelated
to each other.
Truth finding, the creation of a collective memory, legal justice,
rehabilitation and reparation are undividable parts of an integral
strategy to overcome the legacies of a violent past. And they have to
be complemented by structural reforms that prevent society from a
reappearance of past conflicts.
Impunity denies these necessities partly or to a larger extend. But
none of the measures can be turned down without affecting
survivors’ perspectives of recovery.
Truth finding allows survivors to speak out the unspeakable publicly,
and it socializes individual grief and pain. The revealed information
can help family members to know about the fate of their forcibly
disappeared beloved ones. The construction of a historical truth
changes the discourse within society and contributes to social
rehabilitation of survivors by providing an important part of the
necessary acknowledgement by the public. Finding a historical truth
prepares the construction of a society’s collective memory.
But creating a collective memory means more than only declaring the
final report of a Truth Commission a historical truth. Elaborating a
collective memory needs to provide public access to archives, to
investigate on different subjects of the past and distribute them in
scientific publications as well as in school books and in popular
media. Narrative history has to be continued even when the mandate of a
Truth Commission might be over. Memories can become part of literature,
music, theatre, movies and fine arts. Documentaries, newspaper
background articles, exhibitions, memorials, museums as well as signs,
indications and explanations at locations of importance, street names
and wall paintings can keep the memory alive and prevent the past from
amnesia.
But truth and memory cannot stand alone. How can there be a definite
truth about atrocities if those who committed the crimes are not held
responsible? Criminal Justice is an elementary tool in dealing with the
past. Only bringing the perpetrators to court can reestablish the rule
of law, restore survivors’ trust in the institutions of society
and rebuilt a common sense about ethical values among the citizens.
Only by equality before the law the perception of repressors as
omnipotent untouchables can be destroyed. By redefining who is
perpetrator and who is victim - in all the complexity of this problem -
legal justice contributes to the destruction of the propagandistic
moral values implemented by past dictatorship or conflict parties.
Even survivors, who are not willing to participate actively in court
cases, can profit from the changes in public discourse and a conversion
of public perception. The shift in the public discourse goes ahead with
a shift of the roles attributed to survivors, not only if they were
considered to be terrorist or criminals before. And role transformation
is created actively when survivors become involved. Those who bring
their cases to court leave former victim roles and play an active part
in the construction of future. In this way legal justice can lead to an
empowerment of survivors from serious human rights violations,
regaining self-confidence and self-determination by taking
responsibility and playing an active role in society. Years after the
traumatic experiences they have the opportunity to overcome
powerlessness and hold the perpetrators responsible.
Of course, due to the risk of retraumatization in court, psychological
support for witnesses is inevitable. But with the necessary assistance,
this approach to the traumatic memories can contribute to integrate the
traumatic experiences in survivors’ biographies.
A court decision to convict the perpetrator under the rule of law
represents an important factor of acknowledgement for survivors and
relatives of forcibly disappeared. Holding perpetrators responsible can
facilitate the acceptance of reparation and cannot be misunderstood as
bribery.
For many survivors their trauma was not only physical, psychological or
social, but economic as well. Suffering from torture or war crimes,
having lost a family member, returning from prison or detention camps,
or coming home from exile quite often goes hand in hand with a social
descent. Jobs have been lost, education hasn’t been finished or
other living conditions might be destroyed. Civil rights could have
been suspended for a long time, and several social obstacles or maybe
trauma symptoms can inhibit survivors from a new start.
Therefore there is a high need for reestablishing the living conditions
of survivors. They are entitled to full and unconditional compensation;
which means that reparation schemes must be designed in an integral
way, and, besides the necessity of material compensation, must lead to
a comprehensive psychosocial, political and cultural rehabilitation and
reintegration into social life.
Healing, in the full meaning of the word, includes the security that
the past will never happen again. There is a high risk that the
traumatic experiences might reoccur if there was no truth finding, no
legal justice and if there hasn't been established a culture of memory,
which keeps the past awake and future generations alerted.
Therefore the construction of a sustainable stability in the aftermath
of man made disaster has to be based on an analysis of the roots of
past escalation of conflicts or repression. From this analysis measures
can be derived to prevent society from repeating the past.
Institutional reforms, such as military reforms, strengthening
democratic structures, especially the independence of jurisdiction,
developing a non-violent practice of conflict resolution, dissolving
social injustice, developing an open and democratic culture within
society and the integration of international law into the national
penal code, can help to prevent a comeback of atrocities.
Conclusion
There is not one single and magic solution to the problem of dealing
with the legacies of man made disasters. Healing of psychosocial trauma
is inevitably a lengthy and complex process. Under the atmosphere and
culture of impunity a recovery of society is impossible and the
recovery of individual survivors has to face insurmountable barriers.
Bringing perpetrators of gross human rights violations to court and
holding them responsible for their crimes is a need, which has been
expressed by survivors all over the globe. There can only be little
evidence about the healing impact of legal justice, since impunity is
still widespread. But where impunity broke down, some reports about
serious improvements indicate the essential role of justice for the
recovery from extreme trauma. Of course, criminal justice cannot stand
alone and has to be combined with other measures of dealing with the
past, such as truth finding, creation of a collective memory, integral
reparation and rehabilitation and structural reforms. But the absence
of justice is still a key problem in all parts of the world.
As long as there is no justice in the aftermath of conflicts the fight
against impunity is not only a necessary moral struggle for human
rights, but also a basic need for the sustainable recovery of survivors.
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* Medical Care Service for Refugees, Bochum, Germany: http://www.mfh-bochum.de
** Coordinator of the International Network „Justice heals“: http://www.gerechtigkeit-heilt.de
a Center for Mental Heath and Human Rights
b Latin American Institute of Mental Health and Human Rights
c Argentinean Psychosocial Working and Investigation Group for
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e Center for Alternatives in Mental Heath
f National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons
g named by their chairmen
h Commission of the Truth and the Reconciliation
(published in: Torture - Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture 01/2008)