We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Genocide Through the Lens of Transitional Justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
INTRODUCTION
More than thirty truth commissions have been set up throughout the world since the 1970s, in Latin America and Africa, in particular. Truth commissions are typically created either by presidential decrees, as they were in Chile and Peru, or through agreements negotiated between governments and guerrilla forces, as in Guatemala.
The overall purposes of truth commissions are to reach the truth about past atrocities, provide a safe forum for testimonies, write reports of their findings, reconcile opposing groups in war-torn societies, and make recommendations. Truth commissions seek to discover what really happened to people who were forcibly “disappeared,” and to discover where people who were murdered are buried. They provide a safe forum in which victims, survivors, and sometimes perpetrators can publicly attest to violence, abuses, and human rights violations they have experienced or witnessed.
A standard characteristic of truth commissions is that they do not have the power to prosecute, or to grant perpetrators amnesty for their crimes, except in the case of the South African Truth Commission (1996–8). They seek to reconcile war-torn-fragmented societies and yield reports on their findings, which also contain recommendations for steps governments can take to prevent political violence from recurring. In Chile, for example, the Commission recommended that the state provide victims and families with special health programs recognizing and helping to heal their sufferings.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
