Reconciliation, Nations and Churches in Latin America

Iain S. Maclean

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317070474
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book examines the recent phenomenon in Latin America of national Truth and Reconciliation commissions. Few studies have examined the role of Churches or religion in political processes that proclaim valued theological terms as their agenda - truth, forgiveness, and reconciliation. This book questions the role of religion, specifically of established Churches. The impact of such reconciliation commissions on Indigenous Native Americans is also examined, as is the role of women and how both commissions and Churches or religions were challenged by their experiences. The contributors offer differing perspectives on one or more national truth and reconciliation processes and thus offer a collection that serves as valuable source for the disciplines of Religious Studies, Ethics, Theology, Political Science, Social Sciences and Women's Studies.

PART I
Nations and Reconciliation

Chapter 1

Truth and Reconciliation: Hope for the Nations or Only as Much as is Possible?

Iain S. Maclean

Introduction

The publication of the Final Report of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1998, and the dramatic televised hearings that preceded it, sharply focused that nation’s and the world’s attention on such commissions. A recent phenomenon in national politics, such a truth and reconciliation project seemed to be offering a more peaceful and constructive route for nations seeking to emerge from periods of great internal strife, indeed of civil war. As the political scientist Samuel Huntington expressed it, such transitions were in fact part of a historic ‘third wave of democratization’, bearing with them hopes for a better future. The South African TRC caught the world’s attention not only because it was conducted in public and nationally televised, but also because it seemed to have found a means to overcome the conflicting demands of victims and perpetrators, between those of justice, (and truth and reparations) and amnesty, that had hindered and often marred the hopes of earlier Latin American commissions seeking national reconciliation.

The attention focused upon the South African TRC had been roused by an earlier report, that of the 1993 United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, and prior to the El Salvador report there had been a rather long series of earlier attempts in other nations. In fact there have been over twenty earlier commissions, primarily in Central and South America, and then scattered examples in other conflict-ridden nations in former Communist Eastern Europe and in Africa. In these situations truth or truth and reconciliation commissions were often established by successor governments to assist the transition to democracy. These are official fact-finding bodies set up to formally investigate the past violations of international human rights’ standards. They were charged to uncover the truth about the past, ioften granted amnesty to perpetrators, and apportioned reparations to victims or their survivors. The work of such commissions, it is hoped, will result in a more unified, or reconciled, nation.

In practice, such commissions produce diverse results, depending upon the scope of the specific mandates, period, scope of operation, ability to satisfy all the participants, and finally, their ability to project their recommendations into future national structures and policies. Put simply, did such commissions produce the truth and did this in turn produce justice, reparations, amnesty and national reconciliation for all or most of the nation? In order to ascertain the truth, such commissions have found that either impunity or amnesty has to be offered to members of the previous government, and victims, in exchange for dropping their demands for full justice, have to be offered reparations. Thus the early commissions tended to grant amnesty to perpetrators and some compensation to victims. However, as the Argentine and Chilean cases soon demonstrated, this approach favoured the perpetrators, who escaped justice, and left the nations with no guarantees that the full truth had been told. This resulted in popular distrust of the successor government, and in some cases, with the subsequent revelation of previously concealed human rights’ violations, amnesty, and/or impunity decisions were soon reversed, all leading to great political unrest. In such cases, then, reconciliation had not been achieved.

Such experiences are reflected in part in the history of the publication of such reports. Thus they can range from formal published studies issued with government approval, such as the Report of the Chilean Truth Commission, the Argentine Report on the Disappeared, and the Guatemalan one on the recovery of historical memory,¹ to the more informal reports from Brazil (no formal commission). Some countries have not been able – for reasons ranging from lack of documentation, to active prevention of access to certain sectors (e.g. military granted immunity) – to obtain a full picture of the past, or only a slice thereof as in the cases of Haiti and Uganda. Other reports have been suppressed or have never been published, as occurred with those of Bolivia, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines.

The Latin American and the South African commissions emerged during a process of democratization following earlier periods of national authoritarian military dictatorship and apartheid respectively. An essential part of these democratization processes (somewhat delayed in the Argentine, Brazilian, and Chilean cases) was the establishment of national commissions (not official in Brazil) to investigate the past, so that its truths might illumine the present and guide the national future. In other words, the hope was – and is – that the truth about the country’s past would somehow contribute to present nation-building and democratization, and so, it was hoped, end the ongoing ‘spiral of violence’. And foster national reconciliation. Did national truth and reconciliation commissions actually achieve these ends?

José Zalaquett, a Chilean lawyer and participant in the Chilean Commission (and consultant to the South African TRC) famously remarked that in reality such commissions can only strive for ‘as much justice as possible’.² Taking a cue from this observation, and extending its range, a study of the most prominent such commissions reveals that the process of developing Truth, or Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in fact represents a balance between the claims of the perpetrators and those of the victims, for as much justice, amnesty, and truth as possible. The extent to which this balancing act succeeds in satisfying all parties, represents the extent of possible reconciliation. This position will be presented in three parts. The first part offers a brief chronological overview of selected Latin American commissions and, for further comparative purposes, the South African TRC. The often under-noted role of the Churches, both Roman Catholic and Protestant (and other religions) in these processes is outlined. The second part presents an evaluation of the result of the demands for truth, justice, amnesty, and reparations in the process of national reconciliation. The third part examines the specifically religious, ethical, and theological evaluations that have arisen from these commissions.

Overview of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

Priscilla Hayner, one of the early scholars to examine comparatively this phenomenon, has briefly defined truth commissions as ‘official bodies set up to investigate a past period of human rights’ abuses or violations of international law’, while a truth and reconciliation commission seeks both the truth and some form of unification within a nation deeply divided by political violence ranging right up to open civil war.³

Due to the national situation of conflict, usual means of dealing with human rghts’ abuses are often not available or cannot be utilized for fear of continuing conflict. Thus, in the transition from authoritarian or military control to democratic government, both sides made compromises. So the outgoing government agreed to step down if guaranteed amnesty or impunity for any crimes committed. The incoming democratic government, not powerful enough to ensure justice through the courts, and feared a military reaction if too stringent demands were made, agreed. Such a political compromise, based on the pragmatic power situation, offered enough to each side to pave the way towards national reconciliation. After all, to pursue charges through the criminal justice system assumed that there was such a national justice system functioning after years of dictatorial rule, that there were a sufficient number of untainted judges, funds to provide for lengthy trials, and that there was enough available evidence. The experience of such a process in Germany post-World War Two revealed the difficulties of pursuing such a course rigorously.⁴ Nevertheless, such commissions have served important roles in helping divided nations deal with a past history of human rights’ crimes as well as providing a voice for the victims. The victims witness to the truth which serves to preserve the memory of the past, to assist in re-writing national history, and to provide a framework for a better society through which the nation might be reconciled.

The earliest such commission, that set up by the then ruling president of Uganda, Idi Amin Dada, in 1974, did not live up to these expectations, largely because its results were not published and its recommendations were not implemented. However, this rather unimpressive performance was to improve as successive commissions took place in Africa (Chad, again in Uganda, and then in South Africa), in Latin America (starting with Bolivia in 1982 and most recently with Peru in 2003), and in Europe (Germany in 1992 to investigate the abuses in the former East German Democratic Republic and in the former Yugoslavia). Not all states have resorted to such commissions, particularly when genocides have occurred. Thus the successor states to the former Yugoslavia have resorted to a justice option and so to an International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague, as has Rwanda. While the case of Brazil does not fit those briefly outlined below in this chapter, in that there has been no official ‘Truth Commission’, the results of non-governmental agencies’ activities, specifically those of the Roman Catholic Church, in collecting, preserving and publishing records of human rights’ violations, do offer an alternative by which the efficacy of such national commissions in other Latin American nations, can be compared and evaluated.⁵

Argentina (1976–1983)

Argentina and its truth commission has drawn the attention of legal and political scholars ever since its inception in 1983 after the military’s handing over of power partly as a result of its dismal military failures against the United Kingdom in the Falkland’s (Malvinas) crisis. The successor government under President Raúl Alfonsín, elected in October and taking office in December 1983, seeking swift democratization, looked to the example of Bolivia in setting up a truth commission to investigate abuses committed during military rule from 1976 to 1983.

President Alfonsín set up a ten-member commission, with further members nominated from both chambers of the Congress, and headed by the well-known author Ernesto Sábato, after whom the commission report is commonly known as the Sábato Report. Its formal name is ‘Comisión Nacional para la Desaparición de Personas’ (‘National Commission on the Disappeared’ abbreviated as CONADEP).⁶ As the name of the commission makes clear, its task was to examine the many cases of disappearances of those taken into custody during military rule. The final report, issued in 1984, documented about 9,000 cases of disappeared persons, and set in motion the trial of some high-ranking military officers. The report vindicated the suspicions of the ‘Mothers of the Plazo del Mayo’ who since 1977 had been holding weekly protests outside government offices demanding to know the truth about the fate of their children and grandchildren.

Though the military government left in disgrace and without time to negotiate a transfer of power, it did issue a justification for its actions, released in 1983 as the ‘Final Document on the Struggle against Subversion and Terrorism’ (28 April 1983).⁷ This report sought to justify the military’s actions and called for a new sense of national unity as all citizens sought ‘reconciliation’ with a ‘Christian spirit’. This document denied the existence of clandestine detention centers and the practice of secret executions.⁸ However, what was most striking about this document was its open admission that the ‘disappeared’, if not still underground or in exile, were probably all dead. . Then, on the 23 September 1983 just weeks before the first civilian democratic elections, the military government passed a self amnesty law, providing a general amnesty for all criminal acts committed between May, 1973 and June, 1982.⁹

However, just days after taking office, President Alfonsín annulled this military amnesty and ordered the heads of the past three military governments arrested. Thus the trials of these officers proceeded as the national Truth Commission was doing its work. After the military refused to try these officers, they were transferred to the Federal Court of Appeals in Buenos Aires in 1984 and on 30 December 1986 the Supreme Court ratified the judgments handed...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• PART I: NATIONS AND RECONCILIATION
• PART II: CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS RECONCILIATION
• PART III: NATIONS AND CHURCHES IN THE FUTURE
• Bibliography
• Index