Reconciliation after Violent Conflict

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How does a newly democratized nation constructively address the past to move from a divided history to a shared future? How do people rebuild coexistence after violence? The International IDEA Handbook on Reconciliation after Violent Conflict presents a range of tools that can be, and have been, employed in the design and implementation of reconciliation processes. Most of them draw on the experience of people grappling with the problems of past violence and injustice. There is no ‘right answer’ to the challenge of reconciliation, and so the Handbook prescribes no single approach. Instead, it presents the options and methods, with their strengths and weaknesses evaluated, so that practitioners and policy-makers can adopt or adapt them, as best suits each specific context.

The Context

1 RECONCILIATION: AN INTRODUCTION

1.1 Democracy and Reconciliation
1.2 The Process of Reconciliation
1.3 The Necessity of Reconciliation
1.4 No Easy Answers
1.5 How to Use This Handbook

2 THE PROCESS OF RECONCILIATION

2.1 What is Reconciliation?
2.2 Reconciliation: Who is Involved?
2.3 Reconciliation: How?
2.4 Reconciliation: When, in What Order and How Fast?

Case Study: Zimbabwe: Why Reconciliation Failed

3 THE CONTEXT OF RECONCILIATION

3.1 The Legacy of the Past
3.2 The Transition
3.3 The Post-Transition Context
3.4 Concluding Remarks

Case Study: Reconciliation in Cambodia: Politics, Culture and Religion

The People

4 VICTIMS

4.1 The Many Faces of Victims
4.2 The Identification of Victims
4.3 Victim Mobilization
4.4 Victims and Offenders: Interchangeable Roles
4.5 Concluding Remarks

5 OFFENDERS

5.1 Understanding Offenders
5.2 Offenders and Reconciliation
5.3 Concluding Remarks

The Instruments

6 HEALING

6.1 What is Healing?
6.2 Violence and its Impacts
6.3 Reconciliation and Healing
6.4 Approaches to Healing
6.5 Healing Programmes and Strategies
6.6 Concluding Remarks

Case Study: Victim–Combatant Dialogue in Northern Ireland

7 JUSTICE

7.1 Retributive Justice: the Promise, the Practice and the Risks
7.2 Amnesty: a Questionable Alternative
7.3 Restorative Justice
7.4 Concluding Remarks

Case Study: The Gacaca Tribunals in Rwanda

8 TRUTH-TELLING

8.1 Introduction
8.2 Instruments of Truth-Seeking
8.3 Understanding Truth Commissions
8.4 Concluding Remarks

Case Study: The Truth Commissions of South Africa and Guatemala

9 REPARATION

9.1 Introduction
9.2 What is Reparation?
9.3 Why Reparation?
9.4 Sources of Reparation
9.5 How to Develop and Run a Reparation Programme
9.6 Concluding Remarks

The International Community

10 THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

11 CONCLUSION

Annexes
Relevant Institutions and Web Sites
Contributors
Index

Creating trust and understanding between former enemies is a supremely difficult challenge. It is, however, an essential one to address in the process of building a lasting peace. Examining the painful past, acknowledging it and understanding it, and above all transcending it together, is the best way to guarantee that it does not – and cannot – happen again. As we continue our own journey towards peace in South Africa, I commend this handbook to those who struggle for reconciliation in other contexts around the world. I hope that the practical tools and lessons from experience presented here will inspire, assist, and support them in their supremely important task.

(From the Handbook Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

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