Rules of Transition: Cases of Argentina and Colombia

The second half of the twentieth century produced momentous changes. Dwell on the last two decades of the century, the return to democracy in some Latin American countries, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the fall of the Soviet bloc, just to name a few, jump out at us as essential events in improving the quality of life for millions of people.

However, during the same period, we have also witnessed troubling developments. Civilian involvement in conflicts and gross human rights violations are the order of the day. Just think that the United Nations records, over recent years, over 70 million people have been forced to leave their homes for reasons related to a conflict.

Of those, over 40 million are internally displaced persons, that is, persons who do not cross the borders of their home countries but merely move away from the sites of violence, leaving behind possessions and life plans. To get a benchmark of civilian population involvement, the internally displaced people were 4 million in 1993.

Observing this context, several questions arise. What happens when an authoritarian regime loses strength and democracy is re-established, like in Argentina beginning in 1983?

How is the rule of law restored, and, more importantly, can people who suffered human rights violations during the dictatorship find forms of compensation and reparations? In sum, in what ways is reconciliation built?

Such questions can also be expanded to a context such as Colombia, where one of the world’s most enduring internal conflicts has produced atrocities of all kinds.

Madres de la Plaza

The notion of transitional justice comes to our rescue to answer these questions. This is that set of measures to lay the necessary foundations to sustain a process of peace or return to democracy.

Justice that is valid for periods of political change, whose ultimate goal is to contribute to reconciliation and the restoration of democracy. Verity, Justice, Memory, Reparation and the guarantee of non-repetition constitute the key element components of transitional justice.

The concept has become an official United Nations document since the early 2000s. However, several countries have also needed to grapple with these issues in earlier years, such as in the case of Argentina, helping to define some practices and bring out the complexities.

Argentine and the transition from the dirty war

In 1983, one of the first acts of the newly installed democratic government after 7 years of brutal dictatorship was to establish a commission whose purpose was not to judge the perpetrators but to investigate the fate of the disappeared, the notorious Desaparecidos, and how violence was exercised. The commission’s report, the infamous Nunca Más, remains a best-selling book.

As a result of the publication of the commission’s work, Argentinians huddled around awareness of the tragedy they had lived through. Trials of the military junta began, although the armed forces are still very influential in the country. Before the 1980s were over, the laws sanctioning the impunity of the military who took part in the dictatorship arrived, showing the weight the military still wields over democracy.

These laws would not be declared unconstitutional until 2005, decreeing the reopening of proceedings against the military junta and their belated conviction. The admission of guilt by the armed forces comes only in 1995, a good thirteen years after the end of the dictatorship.

During this juncture, appeals to regional human rights organizations, extradition requests from foreign countries, and tireless work by human rights organizations help to keep alive the historical memory, the call for new forms of justice, reparation, as well as institutional reforms that ensure that the atrocious past is not repeated.

During Argentina’s first phase of transition, facing the difficulties of holding military power accountable for the terrible human rights violations, there is a focus on reparation measures in favor of the victims.

Early measures in this direction were aimed at public administration personnel and expanded to include those who worked in private companies who lost their jobs for political reasons during the dictatorship. It is not only reinstatement but also compensation for the period of inactivity. Compensations of an economic and symbolic nature then.

In those years, a debate began over whether the state should recognize some form of reparation to benefit the families of victims of enforced disappearance, Desaparecidos. In principle, certain organizations considered that accepting reparations implied the abandonment of demands for truth and justice.

In contrast, tensions during this debate made it possible to arrive at a legal recognition of enforced disappearance. This case did not exist in the Argentine legal system, forcing the state to admit that the person was illegally abducted.

In the second part of the 1990s, following a failed new coup attempt in 1990, the institutional reforms also intervened, which gradually scaled back the power of the military.

In the 2000s, in addition to the existing measures and constitutional rulings that reopened the trials against the military junta, there was a law recognizing reparations for minors who were victims of state terrorism and those who were forced to leave the country during the dictatorship.

Though many people still await justice, the course started in Argentina has paved the way for other international experiences that have come in subsequent years.

Colombia and the rules of transition amid conflict

Colombia is a path of transition formally initiated in the early 2000s, during the bloodiest phase of a conflict of very long duration, which is complex and, above all, atrocious because of violent actions against the civilian population.

Forcible displacement and expropriation of land, kidnapping, extortion, illicit recruitment of minors, torture, murder, massacres, and forced disappearances are some of the modes of the exercise of violence recorded in Colombia, especially between 1996 and 2005, resulting in more than 9 million victims. Still, nearly 5 million people are internally displaced, a figure exceeding 7 million in 2016.

Starting in the late 1990s, despite the context of severe violence and instability, initial measures to help victims began to emerge. At first, the topic was addressed through responses to extraordinary events and actions of a humanitarian nature in favor of the displaced population.

Later on, from 2005 onward, more permanent measures to lay the foundations for reconciliation, such as demobilizing ex-combatants and reintegration into society, found their place.

During those years, there has been a growing acceptance of the idea that it is necessary to prioritize structural measures at the expense of extraordinary ones. It became imperative to define the victims of the conflict, quantify them, implement a reparations system, and identify institutions responsible for its implementation.

It was in 2011 that a law was passed defining the concept of a victim in Colombia, improved the reparations system hitherto only sketched out, and set up a complex system of assistance for victims.

Through the 2011 law, a real milestone in the path of transitional justice in Colombia, it was decided to favor, amongst the reparations measures available, the return of land to encourage the return of people to territories abandoned due to the internal conflict.

A peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, was reached in 2016 after lengthy negotiations in Havana.

The topic of land distribution and the promotion of the Campesinos economy finds an important space in the agreement: the FARC had proposed the creation of Campesinos territories to grant full rights to farmers based on the formalization of their own, and the final compromise includes a commitment to a plan to distribute three million hectares to peasants, regularize an additional ten million hectares now farmed by peasants without title, and access to credit.

In addition, Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz was established, an organ whose function is to learn about crimes committed as part of the internal armed conflict and administer transitional justice.

According to official organs, over 7 million people are receiving assistance from the state for directly or indirectly affected by the conflict and human rights violations. More than 1.5 million of these are minors.

Ultimate pacification in Colombia is far from being achieved partly because of the difficulty of implementing the reparation and restitution measures required by law. Without a doubt, however, the transitional path has helped turn the tide and reopen hopes for a peace that seemed impossible less than twenty years ago.

Conclusion

The two case studies taken as examples demonstrate the great complexity of transition. In particular, the impossibility of defining universal recipes applicable to every context emerges. Indeed, in every country, one interpretation prevails at the expense of others or more emphasis is placed on one aspect than another.

For example, in some instances, independent commissions have been charged with reconstructing the truth of past violations. In others, more emphasis has been given to other aspects such as reparations, be they in money or other forms, and institutional reforms or criminal trials of those responsible for the violations.

Both in the Argentine and Colombian cases, a courageous, lively and, most importantly, dogged civil society plays an important role, with human rights organizations and victims’ relatives able to organize and put pressure on governments.

To conclude, we can state that the path of transition is far from being a linear path. Instead, it resembles a zigzag road marked by forwarding thrusts and sudden setbacks. Although it has its difficulties, it is nonetheless a path that contributes, once embarked upon, to lay the foundation for lasting peace.

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