Rebekka Friedman

Competing Memories: Truth and Reconciliation in Sierra Leone and Peru

The aftermath of modern conflicts, deeply rooted in political, economic, and social structures, leaves pervasive and often recurring legacies of violence. Addressing past injustice is therefore fundamental not only for societal well-being and peace but also for future conflict prevention. In recent years, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions have become important but contentious mechanisms for conflict resolution and reconciliation. This book fills a significant gap, examining the importance of context within transitional justice and peace-building. It lays out long-term and often unexpected indirect effects of formal and informal justice processes. Offering a novel conceptual understanding of “procedural reconciliation” on the societal level, it features an indepth study of Commissions in Peru and Sierra Leone, providing a critical analysis of the contribution and challenges facing transitional justice in societies recovering from conflict. It will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, international relations, human rights, and conflict studies.

Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone: Theory, History and Evaluation

The Sierra Leonean civil war was exceptionally brutal; during the conflict, in this small country with just over 6 million inhabitants, an estimated 70,000 people lost their lives and 2.6 million were displaced.1 The war became known for widespread atrocities, including forced recruitment of child soldiers and extensive incidents of rape, sexual slavery and amputations of limbs. In addition to the outward manifestations of violence, the conflict left less tangible but still pervasive legacies. Incidents of localised violence caused deep rifts within many communities, and, in politically marginalised areas, state violence reinforced the mistrust of political institutions and government structures. As many combatants were disenfranchised youth, the conflict featured a high degree of violence targeted against specific authority figures, made relations between generations more fraught and tore apart the social fabric.

The Potential and Politics of Transitional Justice: Interactions between the Global and the Local in Evaluations of Success

Sierra Leone has become something of a touchstone in broader debates surrounding transitional justice (TJ) since its civil war ended in 2002: a site of competing imperatives and Conflicting ideologies and agendas. The country has been the focus of a sustained international effort to implement an ideological-normative TJ agenda and a setting in which TJ practitioners tried to correct perceived past shortcomings. Yet this was not purely a project of ethics or law: international and domestic politics, as this book makes clear, have also played important roles in dictating the opportunities and constraints for transitional justice in Sierra Leone.

Implementing transformative justice: survivors and ex-combatants at the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación in Peru

ABSTRACT Interest has recently increased in transformative justice. While transformative justice research offers an important contribution to transitional justice, I discuss challenges in its implementation. Drawing on research on affected communities and practitioners at the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación in Peru, I question whether there are tensions between addressing micro and macro causes of conflict and in representing and integrating survivors and ex-combatants. While scholars and practitioners have importantly linked transformative justice to the reconfiguration of macro socio-economic structural injustices, more attention is needed to micro drivers of conflict. I outline a tension for a desire for more established punitive justice (prosecution of perpetrators and reparations for survivors) and the need to engage and reintegrate ex-combatants. These challenges are acute in conflict transitions, where transitional justice has taken on more expansive goals of peace-building. More recognition is also important of lingering legacies of violence and practical impediments.