For forgiveness is not enough

[the_future_modernes]

Colombia Moves Past Reconciliation and Revives the Idea of Reparation

When unspeakable crimes have been committed, justice often falls silent, too. That’s why half a century after Colombia plunged into bloody conflict and oppression, the healing has barely begun. But a new law is trying to make victims of the violence whole in a country still fractured by brutal violence. In the process, it has revived an old debate over reparations, and how society should confront past injustices that still shape life today.
Colombia’s so-called “victims’ law” is the product of years of negotiation between the government and militia groups. The law centers on punishment as well as restitution. Many will be compelled to confess their crimes and, unlike many previous efforts at what’s been dubbed restorative justice, survivors will be allowed to petition for compensation.

One survivor’s testimony from a recent hearing in Colombia highlights how challenging this kind of conciliatory justice can be:

The modern idea of reparations as a human rights enforcement tool toes the line between accountability and mercy. In cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing or mass displacement—from Nazi Germany to Apartheid South Africa to Rwanda—there’s always tension between the desire to correct the wrongs of the past and the need for society to move forward. Sometimes it means suppressing residual animosities—and having to live next door to your brothers’ murderer, or the parents of the dissident you tortured.


...

A backgrounder by the advocacy group Redress, explains how Colombia’s law will work:

The law contains two main parts, the first refers to the judicial process and the conditions under which the members of illegal armed groups (either paramilitary of guerrilla) can benefit from an alternative punishment. That is among others to fully confess their crimes, depose their weapons, enter into a peace agreement, and stop their interference in public affairs, release the people they have kidnapped, contribute to finding the victims of forced disappearance.
The second part of the law refers to the rights of the victims to truth, justice and reparation.
For the first time in Colombia’s history victims came to the center of the attention as it was understood that they were they hinge between justice and peace. Beneficiaries will only be entitled to an alternative punishment if, and only if, they confessed all their crimes, were subject to a criminal procedure by independent prosecutors and judges and, most important of all, if they repaired the victims of their atrocities.

This model of restorative justice parallels similar systems in other countries devastated by conflict. But it takes an unprecedented, perhaps precarious, step toward both symbolic and material recompense.MORE

via the restorative justice online blog


via jeopardymaze X-men First Class by the "Asking the Wrong Questions blog has a critique of the film based on what we teh people are being fed re: the notion of forgievness and how we should react to being wronged.

Comments

Thank you for these links

[thejeopardymaze]

And the culpability doesn’t lie just within Colombia’s government, since the warfare has been underwritten by the Pentagon’s military support over the years.

One of the many reasons why I think this crap is mostly pointless. Leaders of Western countries should be put on trial, but I won't be holding my breath for that.

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BTW, I thought you might be interested in this recent review of the latest X-Men film, the author has managed to articulate my feelings and suspicions of how victims of injustice are viewed as a suspect class just for being victimized in the first place, at least in Western media:

http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2011/06/x-men-first-class.html

Re: Thank you for these links

[the_future_modernes]

yeah I saw that and thought of you but lost the link. Thanks!!!