My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity

by Edited by Eric Stover , Harvey M. Weinstein

• ISBN13: 9780521542647
• ISBN10: 0521542642
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-12-20
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Tackling the crucial issue of our day--the rebuilding of countries following ethnic cleansing and genocide, this book evaluates the role of trials and tribunals with regard to social reconstruction and reconciliation. The voices of the people of Rwanda and Yugoslavia are heard through the results of extensive surveys and recorded conversations. Their thoughts of past and future controversially conclude that international and local trials have little relevance to reconciliation. The contributors find that communities interpret justice far more broadly than defined by the international community and the relationship of trauma to a desire for trials is not clear-cut. An ecological model of social reconstruction is proposed, suggesting that coordinated multi-systematic strategies must be implemented if social repair is to occur. Finally, the contributors suggest that, while trials are essential to combat impunity and punish the guilty, their strengths and limitations must be acknowledged. Eric Stover is Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) until December 1995. He has served on several investigations as an "Expert on Mission" to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague. He is author of (with photographer Gilles Peress) The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar (Scalo Verlag Ac, 1998), War Crimes in the Balkans: Medicine Under Siege in the former Yugoslavia 1991-1995 (Physicians for Human Rights, 1996), Landmines: A Deadly Legacy (Physicians for Human Rights, 1993) and co-author (with Christopher Joyce) of Witnesses from the Grave (Little Brown, 1992) and The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions (W.H. Freeman & Co., 1985) Harvey M. Weinstein is Clinical Professor in the Joint Medical Program at the University of California, Berkeley. He has done research in and taught health and human rights, refugee health and mass violence and social reconstruction. Weinstein is a member of the Advisory Council of the State Refugee Health Program, and the International Human Rights Committee and the Caucus on Refugees and Immigrants of the American Public Health Association.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	x
Foreword by Ariel Dorfman	xiii
Acknowledgments	xvi
Introduction: conflict, justice and reclamation	1	(26)
HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN AND ERIC STOVER
Part I Institutional approaches to justice
Introduction	27	(114)
1 A world unto itself? The application of international justice in the former Yugoslavia	29	(20)
LAUREL E. FLETCHER AND HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN
2 Legal responses to genocide in Rwanda	49	(20)
ALISON DES FORGES AND TIMOTHY LONGMAN
3 Localizing justice: gacaca courts in post-genocide Rwanda	69	(16)
URUSARO ALICE KAREKEZI, ALPHONSE NSHIMIYIMANA, AND BETH MUTAMBA
4 Exhumation of mass graves: balancing legal and humanitarian needs	85	(19)
ERIC STOVER AND RACHEL SHIGEKANE
5 Witnesses and the promise of justice in The Hague	104	(17)
ERIC STOVER
6 Reparations in the aftermath of repression and mass violence	121	(22)
NAOMI ROHT-ARRIAZA
Part II Social reconstruction and justice Introduction	141	(126)
7 Neighbors again? Intercommunity relations after ethnic cleansing	143	(19)
DINKA CORKALO, DEAN AJDUKOVIC, HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN, ERIC STOVER, DINO DJIPA, AND MIKLOS BIRO
8 Memory, identity, and community in Rwanda	162	(21)
TIMOTHY LONGMAN AND THÉONÈSTE RUTAGENGWA
9 Attitudes toward justice and social reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia	183	(23)
MIKLOS BIRO, DEAN AJDUKOVIC, DINKA CORKALO, DINO DJIPA, PETAR MILIN, AND HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN
10 Connecting justice to human experience: attitudes toward accountability and reconciliation in Rwanda	206	(20)
TIMOTHY LONGMAN, PHUONG PHAM, AND HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN
11 Public education and social reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia	226	(22)
SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN, DINKA CORKALO, NAOMI LEVY, DINO ABAZOVIC, BRONWYN LEEBAW, DEAN AJDUKOVIC, DINO DJIPA, AND HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN
12 Confronting the past in Rwandan schools	248	(19)
SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN, DÉO KAMBANDA, BETH LEWIS SAMUELSON, INNOCENT MUGISHA, IMMACULÉE MUKASHEMA, EVODIJ MUKAMA, JEAN MUTABARUKA, HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN, AND TIMOTHY LONGMAN
Part III Survivors and justice
Introduction	267	(2)
13 Art out of the rubble	269	(18)
PAMELA BLOTNER
14 Trust and betrayal in war	287	(16)
DEAN AJDUKOVIC AND DINKA CORKALO
15 Empathy and rehumanization after mass violence	303	(20)
JODI HALPERN AND HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN
Conclusion: a common objective, a universe of alternatives	323	(20)
ERIC STOVER AND HARVEY M. WEINSTEIN
Index	343