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Winter 2000: Pacification, Reconciliation (Part. I)
Introduction (PDF, 8 pages, 29.9 KB) , by John Crowley
One cannot establish a sociology of the end of conflicts without taking into account the ethical dimension of this enterprise. The beliefs and values of the parties into conflict do play a key role. There must therefore be a space for ethical considerations in peace research. The constraints generated by the balance of power on the field forbid formulating the hypothesis according to which the sole moral forms of pacification could be sufficient to put an end to conflicts. Nevertheless, in order to remain stable, a post-conflictual order needs taking into account the perception the parties have of its legitimity. In this contribution, the author distinguishes the notion of pacification founded on sometimes questionable political and institutional compromises, from reconciliation, which supposes that the actors consider this peace as fair. How can the contradictory requirements of these two unavoidable notions be reconciled? The notion of recognition could be the third term enabling to overcome this dilemma.
To Reconcile and to Repress: the Years of Lead in Italy and Democratic Transitions in Southern Latin America (PDF, 27 pages, 81.6 KB) , by Sandrine Lefranc & Daniel Mouchard
Comparing Italian politics at the end of the "years of lead" and policies of "national reconciliation" by military governments of South Latino-American, leads to shade the opposition between reconciliation and repression, resort to amnesty and to judiciary proceedings. In both cases, these policies come up against the impregnation of political interactions by the logic of the "internal enemy". Reconciliation and repression both rest on the same will of restoring a unitarian political order: in both cases, they lead to the imposition of a discursive order produced by the State, which does not seem to break up with the logic of radical antagonism.
Discourses of War vs. Dialogues of Peace. The Case of Former Yugoslavia and of Rwanda (PDF, 31 pages, 92.8 KB) , by Laurent Gayer & Alexandre Jaunait
The conflicts of the former-Yugoslavia and Rwanda have been too often portrayed as the result of "old hatreds", while they were actually well prepared large-scale crimes finding their roots in very precise socio-historical contexts. Orchestrated by ethnic entrepreneurs using a wide variety of media (from drawings and music to sports and academic works), they attested to the failure of democratic transitions in these regions. Confronting the rules of "good-neighbourhood" so far prevailing in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, such "voices of war" also intended to exclude the enemy from the civic sphere and finally from humanity as a whole—forecasting conflicts of proximity where the adversary did not present himself under the avatar of an abstract foreign army anymore, but under the shape of the neighbour, whose difference had to be reinvented and finally eradicated. Once the armed conflict began, massacres were identified with the "war", since the bodies of civilians became the main target of the belligerents and the main stake of the conflict. So-called "atrocities" were no hazard in such situations: they presented themselves as a form of "necrography", using the body of the enemy as a space for the assertion of the Self through the exclusion, mutilation and finally annihilation of the Other. Peace appeared still a long ways away in these regions, since no reconciliation seemed possible with an enemy who is not one anymore, having been denied his very humanity before and all along the hostilities. Therefore, no pacification of these regions appeared possible before the former-adversaries could rediscover each-other's humanity. The ethnic ghettos presently rising out of the ashes of Yugoslavia and Rwanda indicate that this day is still afar.
TElections in International Peace Operations: an Instrument of Reconciliation? A Reflection on Bosnia (PDF, 22 pages, 67.7 KB) , by Juan Carlos Guerrero & Maria Del Mar Bermudez
This article analyses the elections in Bosnia as an instrument in the international peace process implemented as part of the Dayton Agreement. It questions the electoral exercise as a means for reconciliation after a civil conflict in deeply divided societies. The theories related to the "Democratic mythology" tend to present the vote as a rational individual choice, far from constraints and external influences. However, in this article, it is shown how elections are an exercise of conditioned political participation. The elements for the development of the electoral process are in fact as important for the reconciliation process as the vote itself. Moreover, these conditions are one of the true determinants, both of the range of choices for voting as well as of the real possibility for the consolidation of a political culture. The authors describe how in Bosnia, the range of choices was more reduced than it appeared at first and that the political dynamics that surrounded the elections were not based on a logic of reconciliation. Political elections, instruments needed in all political peace process, prove to be insufficient in a process for moral reconciliation.
Northern Ireland : an uncertain reconciliation (PDF, 20 pages, 62 KB) , by Elise Feron
Elise Freon shows in this contribution how the 1998 Good Friday Agreements in Northern Ireland contributed to a pacification of the region. These agreements moreover showed that a large part of the population favoured a long lasting peace to settle. But the cease-fire remained fragile as it was not accompanied by any reconciliation between the parties in conflict. The compromise between the unionists and the IRA truly satisfied none of the two parties and left a certain number of crucial questions unsolved. Thus, if the treaty made any immediate return to violence unlikely, it does not garantee a return of a longlasting peace. The author insists on the weak chance for peace to last if it is not accompanied by a true reconciliation.
Forgiveness is an Act of Will (PDF, 5 pages, 30 KB) , by Anthony Holiday
In this interview, the South African philosopher Anthony Holiday highlights the fundamental difference between reconciliation as it is presented by many South Africans and founded on forgiveness as a particuliar form of intimate thought, and the reconciliation as it is presented by the truth and reconciliation commission. This commission's conceptions seem to mainly result from a religious vision, which is not shared by many victims. Forgiveness can only be an individual act. While showing that reconciliation is not incompatible with the fair punishment of the harm the victims suffered from, Holiday insists on the fact that amnesty can sometimes be justified as long as it does not go against the aggressors' civil responsibility in front of their victims.
Remorse and Dissociation: the end of the yeras of lead in Italy (PDF, 17 pages, 56.7 KB) , by Isabelle Sommier
Isabelle Sommier analyses the1970s and 1980s Italy judicial mechanisms that were made to destroy clandestine political groups and try to bring reconcialiation following the 'years of lead'. Two judicial figures retained the authors' attention: the figure of the repentant, exchanging a prison sentence reduction against informations on the clandestine organisation he belonged to; and the figure of the dissociated, who officially recognised the crimes he was being accused of and gave up violence to obtain a sentence reduction. The aim in both cases was to dismantle clandestine organisations and reintegrate their activists into the 'constitutional order'. Still, ethical and judicial problems arose from these mechanims as well as the more general 'political normalisation' enterprise that underlied it did not permitt to overcome this specific page of the Italian history.