MODELS OF NATIONAL RECONCILIATION

To "reconcile" means "to restore to friendship or harmony; to settle or resolve differences." The goal of national reconciliation is to restore peaceful relations as between and among ethnic, religious and/or political communities that have been in conflict. National reconciliation is not unlike reconciliation between individuals that have had a history of mutual hostility. Through a program of reconciliation, the source of their conflict is examined, and the sense of injustice and desire for vengeance are provided non-violent outlets. Whether a program of national reconciliation is successful in creating an environment for peaceful coexistence can depend on many factors, including, the nature of the conflict, the strength of the state’s democratic and legal institutions, the will of the state’s leadership to commit to a program of national reconciliation, and access to the international community’s peace keeping and dispute resolution mechanisms.

National reconciliation is in large part a spiritual and psychological process that seeks to encourage moral reflection and individual and collective repentance. Underlying programs of national reconciliation, is the effort to create an environment of tolerance so that relations of trust between and among individuals and between and among communities (that may have their own language, religious institutions and cultural practices) can be rebuilt. Critical to promoting this environment of tolerance is reaffirming the rule of law and the process of democratic change.

One method of promoting national reconciliation has been to establish truth commissions to investigate and report on human rights abuses. Several South American countries, e.g. Chile, Argentina and El Salvador, which in the 1980’s were governed by military regimes and have only recently re-established democratic systems of government -- have employed truth commissions, principally, to evaluate the abuses of military rule. Truth commissions have been granted authority to subpoena witnesses and take testimony on human rights abuses. They are not charged with prosecuting individuals for crimes.

A second method of promoting national reconciliation has been to establish a war crimes process that will identify and prosecute individuals responsible for international crimes. In Bosnia (in 1993) and in Rwanda (in 1994), for example, war crimes tribunals were established by the United Nations as a measure to help promote the preservation of peace and security in the Balkan region in Southern Europe and in Central Africa.

As part of the process of uncovering and prosecuting injustices, Chile, Argentina and El Salvador have established commissions to provide victims reparations-- usually awards of money or services and educational opportunities to acknowledge their losses. In states like South Africa, however, where whole communities suffered psychological and material injuries as a result of the policy of apartheid, providing reparations is a larger and more complicated process. Examples of reparations provided to whole classes of persons include the reparations given by the Federal Republic of Germany to victims of Nazi persecution, and the reparations given by the U.S. Government to Japanese Americans who were interned during the Second World War.

U.S. history also provides an important example of national reconciliation-- the reconstruction of the Federal Union following the American Civil War (1861-1864). The goal of reconstruction was to reform the political, legal and cultural institutions of the Confederate states so that they could rejoin the Union. One critical feature of reconstruction was the abolition of slavery. The ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution -- abolishing slavery, and establishing the federal rights to equal protection and to vote -- were important legal advances that set the stage for the Civil Rights movement of the mid- 20^th Century.

Although reconstruction ultimately resulted in the re-formation of the Federal Union, the subsidiary effort to integrate black Americans into national life was, over all, a failure. Although slavery was abolished as a matter of law, legal discrimination in the form of the segregation of non-white Americans persisted well into the 20^th Century until the Supreme Court struck down school desegregation in its famous decision, Brown v. Board of Education. A decade later, Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race with respect to the use of public facilities, education and employment.

National reconciliation in the United States has taken several generations and is still, in the opinion of many, an uncompleted process. In the end result, however, a legal framework was developed to address claims of discrimination and racial injustices. In this regard, one cannot over look the significant contributions of individual personalities like the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who advocated integration and opposed violent separation and further segregation of the races.

Criticizing the nation’s reconciliation efforts for not compelling white Americans more adequately to confront their nation’s history of slavery, some commentators have pointed out that reparations should have been made to Afro-Americans in the same way that Germany has made reparations to the victims of the Holocaust. Opponents of this view have argued that Affirmative Action programs (that have afforded minorities preferences in education and employment opportunities) have served the nation’s moral obligation to make restitution to its Afro-American citizens. Still others have argued that making reparations would, itself, be an incomplete process of justice that, in the end result, would satisfy no one.

In summary, it is sufficient to note that even in our own country, whether or not the process of national reconciliation has been successful is still a matter for debate. Moreover, it is apparent from the U.S. example that national reconciliation is a long and difficult process of re-shaping not only laws, but also the attitudes of an entire society.

Today, national reconciliation has taken on an international dimension with the rise of ethnic conflict in many parts of the world. The success or failure of programs of national reconciliation on an international level is likely to have far-reaching impact not only on American foreign policy but, possibly, on minority rights issues within the United States, itself. Indeed, unless the sense of racial inequality and injustice in American life is more comprehensively addressed, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that discontent may one day spawn ethnically and racially based political movements not unlike those that are currently tearing apart societies in other parts of the world.

The sources of conflict between and among national groups, like as between individuals, are limited only by the human imagination. As long as people perceive differences between and among each other, there exists a potential source of conflict. Differences, however, in and of themselves, do not create controversy, except when they are raised to the level of affecting a group’s social standing, political power, and cultural autonomy.

A. When Ethnic and Racial Distinctions are Allowed to Make a Difference

Apartheid South Africa

During the period of apartheid, the white minority government in South Africa instituted a political program, the hallmark of which was preventing the black majority from being able to participate in national life. Laws were passed segregating the races, restricting the movement of black persons to specific areas of the country, and prohibiting their participation in the political process. The racialist view of society advanced by the leaders of the white minority led to South Africa’s international isolation, and the development by the international community of a body of law defining apartheid as an international crime.

Kosovo

In Kosovo, a province of Serbia, a country in the Balkan region of Central Europe that forms with Montenegro the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a conflict currently rages between Yugoslav government forces and Kosovo’s Albanians, a Muslim minority in Serbia, but making up over 90% Kosovo’s population. Recently, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ("NATO"), which includes the United States and 18 other countries, has commenced a bombing campaign against the government of Yugoslavia to halt its attacks on Albanian civilians in Kosovo.

Serbia’s policy in Kosovo, which has promoted the persecution of Albanians, culminated in 1989 with the abolition of the Albanian population’s political and cultural autonomy within Serbia. Albanians have, among other things, been prohibited from openly teaching their children the Albanian language, or forming political associations without fear of harassment. By raising ethnic differences to the level of depriving Albanians of their internationally acknowledged political and cultural rights, the Serbs only encouraged ethnic solidarity among Kosovars ( the Albanians of Kosovo) and de-facto segregation of the Albanian and Serb communities. Recently, Serbia’s persecution of the Kosovars has intensified into physical attacks, the consequences of which have been to provoke a violent independence movement led by the Kosovo Liberation Army, which advocates Kosovo’s independence.

The Kosovo crisis has alarmed policy makers because of its potential: one, to create an international refugee crisis; two, to ignite Albanian independence movements in other parts of the Balkan region, including in Macedonia; three, to cause further breakdown of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that includes the states of Serbia and Montenegro; and four, to precipitate renewed fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina, between Bosnian- Serbs and Bosnian-Muslims.

The crisis in Kosovo has also caused policy makers to weigh the dangers of intervention into the affairs of a sovereign state against the perceived moral duty to halt Serbia’s program of ethnic cleansing. Whether the doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" under which NATO has intervened in the conflict will survive the current crisis to become a standard basis for intervention under international law will have to await the uncertain outcome of the present conflict.

B. When the Distinctions that Are Made are More Unreal than Real

The Hutu and the Tutsi

Sometimes, political leaders have gone to great lengths to overemphasize, even to manufacture, racial distinctions in order to perpetuating their own political control over a state. The conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi communities in Central Africa (Rwanda and Burundi), for example, originated with the policy of the German and Belgian colonial authorities to co-opted the support of the Tutsi minority for colonial rule. To accomplish this, the colonial administrations gave the Tutsis significant economic and political advantages over their Hutu neighbors. The result of this "divide and conquer" strategy was that the Hutus and the Tutsis, who have more things in common than there are differences between them, have become bitter enemies. Indeed, the Hutu Manifesto that was drawn up by Hutu political leaders in 1957 characterized their movement not as one to overthrow a colonial power but as one to overthrow Tutsi racial domination.

Bosnia and the Myths of History

Similar manipulation by political leaders can be seen in the Bosnian conflict that erupted following the breakup of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia in 1989, and which involved an attempt by Bosnian-Serbs to drive Bosnian-Muslims out of the region as part of a campaign of "ethnic cleansing." Serb nationalists have argued that Serb hostility towards the Bosnian-Muslims was justified in view of the long history of oppression endured by the Serbs at the hands of Muslims going back to the Middle Ages. Observers of the region have argued, however, that the present conflict has had less to do with Muslim oppression in the Middle Ages than it has had to do with the effort by modern Serb politicians to shore up their weakening political base.

As demonstrated in the Bosnia and Hutu - Tutsi conflicts, political leaders have been able to invoke myths of history and racial division to promote solidarity within certain ethnic communities from which they draw their support. Playing on the grievances of their supporters, political leaders since the end of the Cold War have been able to promote a violent form of ethnic nationalism that is fundamentally based on vilifying ethnic minorities. It is because of the powerful hold of myths on the imaginations of communities in conflict that one important aim of national reconciliation is to correct the historical record so that reason can begin to supplant emotion as the driving force behind politics and government policy.

C. Conflicts Can Have Their Origin in History

The Israelis and the Palestinians

Although one source of conflict relates to attempts by groups to maintain political authority by denying other groups equal rights to participate in national life, other conflicts have had their roots in historical events. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has its root in the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and, subsequently, the Six Day War in 1967, which resulted in Israel’s assuming political and military authority over the West Bank and Gaza strip, territories inhabited by a large Arab population. Although many refugees from Israel’s War of Independence (1948-1949) re-settled in other countries, the establishment of a Jewish Homeland promoted the development of a national consciousness among Palestinian Arabs who have spent a generation attempting to reestablish rights to lands held by Israel.

D. Different Political and Economic Ideologies Can Be a Source of Conflict

China and Taiwan/North and South Korea

South Africa:

One of the most ambitious efforts to promote national reconciliation is in contemporary South Africa, which underwent a peaceful transition from white minority to black majority rule with the election of Nelson Mandela and his party, the African National Congress, in 1994. The centerpiece of the new Government’s reconciliation program was the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission, which has been directed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a well regarded civil rights activist and clergyman, was established pursuant to a provision of the country’s new constitution that advocated "national unity" and "reconciliation between the people of South Africa and the reconstruction of society." National legislation gave the Commission broad powers to investigate and report on crimes committed by all sides during the apartheid era (1948-1990), including the power to subpoena witnesses. Independent tribunals were established to review applications for amnesty. Amnesty from prosecution was given under specific circumstances in exchange for unrestricted testimony.

One purpose behind the Commission was to reveal the ugly history of the National Party’s apartheid policy. Another purpose was to provide to victims a degree of recognition for the losses both physical and psychological that they suffered. Still a third purpose was to promote a national catharsis that would encourage individuals and their communities to work through their natural feelings of anger and frustration and desire to seek vengeance.

The ability of South Africa to establish legal institutions to promote national reconciliation is a testament to the strong legal tradition that was able to survive the apartheid era. Not to be ignored, however, is that Nelson Mandela, who was elected President of South Africa in 1994, W.F. de Klerk (last President of the white minority Government) and many others played important roles in promoting a transition to multi-racial democracy within a legal framework that would protect minorities, including the white minority, from persecution.

Practical considerations also played a role. As a result of the apartheid policy, white South Africans became not only the most highly educated element of South African society, but also a community that held a vast portion of the country’s wealth. The African National Congress, which assumed control of the national government, recognized that unless minorities were protected that confidence in black majority rule would be lost, leading to the flight of the nation’s wealth and expertise.

Bosnia and Herzegovina:

While the program of national reconciliation in South Africa was developed within that country, the effort to promote national reconciliation among the Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia has been an international affair. The centerpiece of this effort has been the Dayton Peace Accords, negotiated by Richard Holbrooke, an American diplomat, in 1995. An independent commission established by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, under the direction of Carlos Westendorp, a European diplomat, was authorized to supervise the implementation of the Accords.

The goal of the Dayton settlement has been to compel hostile groups under international military supervision to develop civil and political institutions that would, over time, bring these communities into peaceful cooperation with one another. Under Dayton, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been divided into two sub-regions, the Muslim-Croat Federation (the "Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina") and the Serb Republic of Srpska. Each sub-region has its own parliament and ministers. Each region sends representatives to a federal parliamentary assembly. The Federal government of Bosnia and Herzegovina is headed by three presidents, respectively representing the Croat, Serb and Muslim communities. A significant feature of the effort to promote reconciliation in Bosnia is the large role that regional organizations like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Contact Group have played in enforcing peace among these communities and promoting civil order and the democratic process.

Related to the effort to build democracy in the region has been the effort to prosecute individuals for international crimes committed from the beginning of the Bosnian War (1991 to the present). The Ad hoc War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that was established by the United Nations in May 1993 has represented the international community’s first effort since the Nuremberg Trials to impose criminal responsibility on individuals responsible for mass killings of civilians in civil/international conflict.

Contrasting the South African model of reconciliation with the Bosnian model, several important distinctions are apparent. First, in Bosnia, it is the international community that has been enforcing ethnic peace and promoting the development of democratic institutions. Second, the protection of minority rights is a function of international agreement. Third, an international tribunal has been established with the capacity to prosecute and imprison individuals. Because the Bosnian model involves an effort to prosecute rather than merely to uncover crimes, it has been criticized for not decisively dispelling the myths of history that continue to plague relations between and among the Serb, Muslim and Croat communities.

Applying the South African model to Bosnia, however, would be difficult. Unlike in South Africa, in Bosnia there still is no consensus among the various ethnic communities that they want to live together in one unified state. Without this consensus, it is unlikely that a truth commission would be able to obtain the cooperation from the local administrations necessary to make effective its fact-finding efforts. On the other hand, critics of the Bosnian national reconciliation model point out that building a federal state under present circumstances is equally futile and that the best strategy would be for the international community to broker a peaceful separation of ethnic groups.

Israel:

The final model of national reconciliation to be discussed is, in fact, the rejection of national reconciliation and the adoption of a process of peaceful separation. The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians stems from the founding of the State of Israel, and the displacement of large numbers of Palestinian Arabs. The Oslo process that followed the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994 by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin involved granting Palestinians autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza regions in a series of small but deliberate steps. Critical to the process of granting the Palestinians more autonomy has been balancing increased Palestinian self-rule with the security requirements of the Israeli State. The Oslo model of national reconciliation is based on the theory that once Israelis and Palestinians normalize their relations that peaceful coexistence and increased constructive economic ties can follow.

Movement toward reconciliation under the Oslo model has depended on regional and international pressure. Regionally, the Israelis and Palestinians have determined the pace of the process. The United States, however, has played a significant international role in pressuring both sides to keep the process moving. Critics of Oslo, like Professor Edward Said from Columbia University, a leading Palestinian intellectual, argue that separation will ultimately fail to improve relations between Israelis and Palestinians because of the high degree of mistrust that exists between the two communities. Said has advocated the recreation of Israel into a bi-national state that would require reconciliation between Arabs and Jews.

Conclusion