Peace versus Justice: A False Dilemma [by the International Center for Transitional Justice]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWFpngEfu84&feature=player_embedded

Dear colleagues,

Today ICTJ launched a short video about the relationship between peace and justice. ICTJ President David Tolbert and other ICTJ experts speak alongside former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, and human rights activists from Kenya, Indonesia and Colombia on the role of justice in sustaining peace, ensuring non-repetition and reinstating respect for the rule of law.

For a long time, making compromises on justice with powerful perpetrators of mass atrocities has been an integral part of peace negotiations. The immediate concern of ending violence often resulted in amnesties for war crimes and crimes against humanity, sometimes even presenting calls for justice as obstacles to peace.

This ICTJ video describes the marked shift in recent years away from the practice of providing immunity from prosecution to those most responsible for mass atrocity. The video illustrates the growing understanding that the two goals of peace and justice, rather than being exclusive, are mutually reinforcing. Peace, when understood as enduring and long-term peace, goes beyond the immediate goal of ending a conflict and relies on justice and accountability to ensure sustainability. Where mass crimes are not addressed, when the root causes of conflict are not sought out and removed, when victims’ calls for justice are not heard, the danger of violence recurring remains high.

We hope you will take a few minutes to watch the video. And we encourage you to share it with your contacts and to use it as a tool in your discussions about peace negotiations.

You are welcome to share the video with a direct link: http://ictj.org/news/peace-versus-justice-false-dilemma

We also welcome you to embed the video on your site. Please write to my colleague, Clare Garvie, cgarvie@ictj.org if you need assistance.

Regards,


Caitlin

Justice handbook: A must-read for Hun Xen and the CPP to solve their disputes with Cambodians?

Justice Handbooks Issued to Help Solve Disputes

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 March 2010

Cambodians may soon start to see handbooks on conflict resolution as a way to keep them out of court and friendly with neighbors.

New handbooks were announced by the government and UNDP on Tuesday, the fruit of a lengthy pilot project with dispute centers.

The ministries of Justice and Interior began providing mediation to villagers in 2006, hoping to keep them out of court, a process that can be expensive.

The rural justice centers were part of a pilot project under the Council for Legal and Judicial Reform. The handbooks were produced as a result of the project.

“At the time it was clear that the demand for justice was bigger than the courts could provide,” said Dorine van der Keur, international coordinator for UNDP’s Access to Justice Program.

The services are especially aimed at the poor, the indigenous and women, all of whom lack access to justice, she said, speaking at the distribution of the handbooks.

While some conflicts must be resolved in the courts, the justice project demonstrated a need for mediation, providing lower costs and faster results than the courts, and allowing both sides in a dispute to take responsibility for the solutions, she said.

“After these handbooks come out, we have a real and fair formula,” said Sok Bora, a project manager for the Ministry of Justice. “We will implement or operate in conformity with the rules and formulas of these handbooks.”

Phon Bunthal, deputy chair of the Legislative Council at the Ministry of Interior, said the handbooks can help people save money and “continue friendships and relationships.”

Doung Sarith, head of the Peany commune dispute committee in Kompong Tralach district, Kompong Chhang province, said the committee had 32 disputes in 2009 and mediated all but two.

“My work went smoothly and effectively in the mediation and justice services for all walks of people,” he said.

Pov Sao, 55, from Santuk district in Kampong Thom province, said he had participated in a dispute resolution.

“I liked the mediation,” he said. “I did not lose my money and my time.” He also salvaged a friendship with a neighbor, he said, “in a small land dispute.”

Rights groups decry jailing of journalist

Monday, 09 November 2009
Chhay Channyda and Sebastian Strangio
The Phnom Penh Post

LOCAL and international human rights groups have lashed out at the two-year sentence handed down to freelance journalist Ros Sokhet by Phnom Penh Municipal Court last week, describing it as an “outrageous misuse” of a criminal lawsuit.

In a hearing Friday, judge Chhay Kong sentenced Ros Sokhet, 40, to two years in prison after convicting him of spreading disinformation by sending disparaging text messages to Soy Sopheap, a well-known CTN anchor.

The following day, the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists (CAPJ) issued a statement saying it was “deeply dismayed” by the sentence, as well as the fact that the court chose to prosecute Ros Sokhet under the Kingdom’s 1992 UNTAC Law rather than the more lenient Press Law, passed in 1995.

On Friday, the court heard that Ros Sokhet’s messages, sent on October 8 and 28, accused Soy Sopheap of demanding hush money from Khay Dara, a woman arrested for firing a pistol during a traffic dispute in September, in exchange for keeping her story out of the news. The journalist admitted to the court that he had sent the messages, but claims he was only alerting Soy Sopheap to rumours already in circulation.

Ros Sokhet is the third person to have been imprisoned in a legal crackdown that has seen over 10 journalists and critics sued for defamation or disinformation by senior government officials since April.

On Sunday, observers criticised the terms of Ros Sokhet’s sentence and questioned that the text messages, which were never made public, could be used to mount a case for his imprisonment.

“The sentence is unjust and disproportional to his offence. It violates the Press Law and the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression,” said Moeun Chhean Nariddh, director of the Cambodia Institute for Media Studies.“His text messages were wrong, but he should not be imprisoned.”

Sara Colm, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the case would only “reinforce the chilling effect” of the recent string of lawsuits against government critics.

“This year has already seen one person convicted for writing slogans on the walls of his house protesting his own eviction; now it’s text messages.”

Sok Dara, a lawyer from the Cambodia Defenders Project who represented Ros Sokhet, agreed on the primacy of the 1995 Press Law and requested that its articles replace the harsher terms of the 1992 UNTAC criminal code.

CAPJ’s Deputy Director Sam Rithy Doung Hak said the two-year sentence was an indication the government was continuing to take “a heavy-handed” approach to critics, but was unsure if the recently passed Penal Code – which is set to replace the UNTAC Law – would stem the tide of defamation convictions.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith declined to comment after the verdict was handed down on Friday.

18-Month Sentences in Dey Krahorm Case [-Parody of justice at its zenith: The land-robber get away free, the victims are sent to jail]

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 February 2009

Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday sentenced three former residents of the Dey Krahorm neighborhood in Phnom Penh to 18 months in jail, for the destruction of property and assault on security guards.

Chan Vicheth, 31, Khieu Bunthoeun, 39, and Ly Youleng, 62, were each found guilty for taking part in the Dec. 3, 2007, vandalization of a bulldozer and the injury of two guards.

The incident followed plans by the 7NG company to evict villagers from Dey Krahorm and move them to the outskirts of the city. That eviction finally took place in force earlier this year, with hundreds pushed out of the Chamkarmon district neighborhood.

However, at the time, villagers had fought the company for their right to stay or be better compensated to move.

Judge Chey Sovan sentenced each man to 18 months, plus five years probation and payment of compensation of $200 to the company, $250 to one guard, Ing Var, and $50 to another, Sok Kosal.

“They were the victims,” the judge said.

Horm Sunrith, lawyer for the accused, called the verdict “unjust,” citing a lack of evidence and differing accounts among the company’s witnesses.

No 7NG representatives were present at the hearing Monday, and none could be reached for comment.