Document Library

Key Text Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: A Handbook

Author: D Bloomfield and T Barnes
Date: 2003
Size: 179 pages (1008 KB)

Access full text: available online

Summary

How can societies reconcile after violent conflict? Can victims and offenders work together to achieve shared goals and rebuild society? What lessons have been learnt from reconciliation processes in Guatemala, Northern Ireland and South Africa? This detailed handbook from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) draws on reconciliation experiences from the last thirty years. A series of tools are presented which have been successfully used in reconciliation processes.

Post conflict rebuilding requires reconciliation if societies are to move from a divided path to a shared future. While democratic compromise resolves the issues which cause conflict, reconciliation addresses the relationship between the people who will have to make these compromises work. Reconciliation is a difficult and complex process, which always involves failures and setbacks. But the only real failures are those societies where reconciliation was ignored.

In each context, a different and multi-stranded process must be developed. Some of the lessons from previous and ongoing reconciliation efforts are as follows:

Reconciliation is both a process and a goal.
Reconciliation is a long-term process, it can not be quickly achieved. But the collective and individual legacy of violence - pain, frustration and anger – will only grow if it is not addressed.
It is not sensible to judge any reconciliation process as a success or failure. Each process is made up of many small successes and failures.
Self-interests that cut across the divide can be very effective in facilitating the reconciliation process. Some examples are industry groupings or gender.
Reconciliation consists of a number of stages – relapses are possible and the stages do not always follow one after another.

It is difficult to even begin to do justice in this summary to the wide range of policy recommendations in this document. A shorter version of this handbook, focusing on policy recommendations, is available from IDEA at the address and website below. There is no handy roadmap for reconciliation, each society must find its own route. The crucial actors – victims and offenders - must be understood. And the crucial procedures – healing, justice, truth and reparation - must be undergone and the habits of the past changed.

There is need for great care when selecting the definition of victims. A particular definition will have specific consequences.
Reintegration of offenders is preferable to indefinite exclusion. Some options to do this include the use of traditional ceremonies, community service and human rights training. Disarmament is vital.
Healing strategies include psychosocial programmes, counselling, self-help groups, and symbolic forms of healing such as the construction of a monument. Symbolic forms of healing must be linked with the delivery of truth, justice and social change.
Retributive justice has limits and dangers, supplementary or alternative routes include restorative justice, amnesties and truth commissions. Amnesty should be used as a very last resort, and unilateral total amnesties should be avoided.
Truth Commissions need adequate resources as well as defined follow up mechanisms if they are to be effective.
Reparation must be linked to truth and justice – not a buy off for the victim’s silence. It is important to design a balanced reparation package. After mass victimisation, collective reparation will be necessary.

Access full text: available online

Source: Bloomfield, D., Barnes, T. and Huyse, L. (eds.), 2003, 'Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: A Handbook', International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
Author: Teresa Barnes , t.barnes@idea.int
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, http://www.idea.int/