Welcoming address at Transitional Justice Retreat: Transitional Justice and Peace Negotiations

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Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, friends and colleagues

I am honoured to be here to share this meal with you at the start of the Transitional Justice Retreat.

I am delighted to welcome you to Oslo. I am honoured to host this event, and I greatly appreciate this opportunity to exchange views on the many important issues that have brought us together here – and have assembled us at this table.

Let me take this opportunity to share with you some of my own reflections.

The dilemmas are inherent in the very title of this event – transition and justice.

Both words are associated with progress. They are also associated with trauma and pain at both personal and at societal levels.

Balancing the two requires intellectual integrity, honesty and imagination.

I believe that the venue of this meeting and this dinner is a particularly apt setting for grappling with the complex issues to be addressed over the next two days. Lysebu is a gift from Norway to Denmark – in gratitude for the food aid that we received during the Second World War when we were occupied by foreign forces. And this beautiful building - and its surroundings - has since become an important venue for intellectual discourse, political talks and cultural exchange. And of course for good food and wine.

Dear guests,

We could take inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s words: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

We must be the change we wish to see in the world. There is profound wisdom in this seemingly simple observation.

Change does, of course, depend on us.

Gandhi’s words offer some explanation as to why Norway has engaged directly in peace and reconciliation processes. For many decades, and especially the last two, this engagement has been a policy priority for successive Norwegian governments. The same pertains to the enhancement of human dignity.

The Norwegian press – as well as some of our intellectuals - have recently raised questions about the results of our engagement in a number of concrete processes and post conflict situations.

Does our engagement produce results? Have we secured peace and progress?

All things being equal - would it not be better to let the rivalling parties fight it out without outside intervention?

And might our efforts to engage in peace and reconciliation processes in fact be leading to deeper conflicts and greater chaos?

I welcome such questions. Because a major policy engagement should not pass unnoticed. And – of course – because engagement in conflict situations is all about taking risks.

If combined efforts succeed, the rewards – for those who suffer from conflict and abuse – are significant. But the other side of the coin is – of course – failure, and we should not shy away from facing up to our failed efforts. 

In this broader discussion one thing is clear: success in pursuing global peace is difficult to measure.

What would have happened if we had not been engaged is also a difficult thing to measure?

How do we measure success? According to what sort of standard, scale or score card?

When do we know that a process is a success?

And what would the alternatives have been? To sit and watch? Wait and see?

We engage – dear guests - because we consider it a moral obligation to do so. Because we believe that we – located in a peaceful and tranquil part of the world, placed at the very top of the Human Development Index – have a responsibility to engage.

Over the last 15 years the world has witnessed over 100 violent conflicts. More than 30 of them are still on-going. And nearly all of them originated within a state rather than between states. They have produced 12 million refugees. Another 25 million are internally displaced.

We engage because our membership in the United Nations entails a joint commitment to set values for the common good - values that pertain to fundamental freedoms. 

We engage because we believe that there is a direct link between human dignity and human security. At the end of the day, helping to secure the dignity of others will enhance our own security. 

But – as all of us here tonight will know - a lasting peace is impossible without a shared perception of justice.

Peace and reconciliation. Truth and justice. Words that can easily be associated with situations of abuse and suffering, anger and despair, and perhaps above all – the silence of denial.

But at the same time – they are the harbingers of hope.

Over the last few weeks we have seen the fruits of hope being reaped in such different places as Northern Ireland, Nepal and Argentina.

In Northern Ireland, we have witnessed Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley standing side by side for the first time, declaring that they are willing to seek reconciliation in the name of future generations, for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

A year ago in Nepal, the people took to the streets, demanding democracy, demanding a voice, demanding an end to a decade of violent conflict, and demanding justice. Now the insurgent Communist Party of Nepal – the Maoists - have locked away their weapons and joined the new interim government. A Commission for Truth and Reconciliation is to be established.

In Chile, new mass graves have recently been exhumed. These victims were brutally silenced, buried in unmarked tombs and treated with indignity even in their deaths. Through exhumation and reburial some of their dignity will be restored.

And in Argentina the cry of long 25 years – “nunca mas” (never again) – resonates in the wise decision to intensify efforts to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the torture, the fear and the silence under the junta, formerly shielded by amnesty laws.

Juan Mendez, who is at my side tonight, knows precisely what this means, having spent long months in a prison cell during the military dictatorship in his country.

Dear guests,

Working in and with situations marred by violent conflict tests our patience, our resolve and – inevitably – our humanity. Moreover, it opens for much ambiguity and great dilemmas.

The ambiguity relates to the fact that in our daily lives there is no hard and fast line separating fiction from fact, fable from truth. Each and one of us rely every day on “reality testing” in our individual attempts to cope with a very complex and composite world.

And we rely on others to make our interpretations plausible. Interpretations provide us with “meaning” – they give coherence to ourselves as individuals and identity to our collective social groups.

The question is then: How do we provide meaning and coherence to the atrocities of war?

How do we understand the unprecedented scale of the pain inflicted on others?

How do we cope with what Hannah Arendt described as the “banality of evil”, the insidious and non-spectacular aspects of moral and political deterioration?

Let us start by taking a look at what we do know.

We know that most mass violence is the result of deliberate political decisions.

We also know that internal conflict – whether in the form of civil wars, armed insurrections or violent secessionist movements – always revolves around relations of power, as does international conflict.  

However, two other powerful elements also frequently play a role in internal conflicts.

One is identity. That is the mobilisation of people based on race, religion, culture or language.

The other is the distribution of economic, social and political resources within society.

Identity is fundamental. It influences our thoughts and actions in numerous ways.

Many contemporary political and social issues revolve around conflicting claims of disparate identities involving different groups.

Standpoints are often argued along simplistic lines. And, as we have seen in Rwanda, in the Balkans and in the Darfur province of Sudan, this can be deadly.

Likewise, polarisation into allegedly separate identities can be a central factor in fomenting sectarian confrontation – as we have seen in Somalia and the Middle East.     

But identity is a complicated matter. As individual human beings, we all have – at all times – multiple identities.

This we need to highlight in times where strong actors want us to believe that one identity is up against another, one civilisation is being confronted by another. But the reality is – and for this we should be thankful – far more complex.

To single out one factor as a basis for defining a person is counter-productive and dangerous. It is imperative that we gain a clearer understanding of the plurality of human identity. We must learn to appreciate that these multifarious identities overlap and cut across each other.

In other words, culture matters. The critical question is how it comes into play.

We know that human dignity and proper governance can only be achieved through representative government and legal frameworks that comply with international human rights norms and standards.

Improving human rights protection and access to justice must remain a primary priority. Real achievements in these areas could help us towards putting an end to marginalisation, exclusion and violence.

I am not emphasising the primacy of democracy solely on ideological grounds. Rather, democratic participation is a prerequisite for a workable system to manage change, reform and conflicting interests.

Afghanistan is a case in point: the government’s action plan for transitional justice is promising. But at the same time the war lords are blatantly demonstrating their contempt for people’s trust and longing for a better future by pushing for blanket amnesty. This highlights the dilemmas that we face in assisting Afghanistan.

There is no easy answer. Reconciling a society that is emerging from violent conflict takes patience, the ability to balance fundamental values and immediate political needs, and – not least – time.

I firmly believe that it is worth persevering in our efforts. It is essential to strengthen governance in countries affected by conflict in order to ensure lasting peace.

We must continue to assist in the development of norms, rules and institutions that make it possible to deal with conflicts of interest without resorting to violence.

Democracy is no “one-size fits all” model, it can take many forms. But participation and contestation remain essential features and no solution should be considered democratic without a meaningful level of both.

Dear guests,

It is vital for a society emerging from conflict to come to terms with what has happened.

I met the local PEN club in Kabul a few weeks ago. And discussed exactly these issues in depth: how to come to terms with what has happened. How to deal with it.

Wounds will not heal and progress will not be made until past abuse and abusers have been dealt with in ways that address the losses of the victims and establish some level of justice, of fairness.

Establishing relevant concepts, a language that can be used in the search for truth is essential. The five-volume report of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was published in October 1998, sought to resolve three interlinking challenges:

Truth, reconciliation and amnesty.

Truth was considered a particularly complex concept. Still, the Commission worked on the premise that truth had, I quote from the report: “the potential of restoring and affirming human dignity and integrity”.  

This brings us to memory. Why is memory such an important issue?

The argument has been put forward that it is vital not to forget in order to prevent atrocities from happening again.

However, memory serves many purposes. We need memory to connect – to ourselves, to our history, to who we are, why we are what we are, and where we are. To establish our identities.

We need memory to understand. A living memory relies on language, on our ability to share words.

But how do we put words to the unspeakable?

When we are overwhelmed by the immense brutality and sheer horror of armed conflicts, words may seem inadequate, meaningless or even an insult. They may remind us of that which we cannot bear to be reminded. The unbearable pain.

But words can also relieve. Words don’t come easy but words can heal. And – perhaps most importantly – words enable us to grapple with what it means to be a human being – for good and for bad.

By establishing meaning, tragic losses are illuminated, not erased.

It is said that indifference towards the suffering of others is only sustainable when we know little about that suffering. Knowledge in itself goes a long way towards breaking the chain of apathy and indifference. To remember or to forget, to keep secrets or to expose them, is often a political decision.

But above all, I maintain, it is a moral decision. 

As experts in this field, you are all aware of the politically contentious and sensitive environment that mediators work in. You are all too familiar with all the difficulties and deep dilemmas that pursuing such work entails.

Let me be direct and personal: I admire your persistence. I am convinced that these days of discussions and exchange will be an inspiration to all of us in our efforts for peace and justice.

More than 50 years ago, Hannah Arendt immersed herself in an attempt to understand the brutal horrors that occurred during the Second World War. The tribute we owe to her seminal work is to think things through here and now, just as she thought them through there and then.

Dealing with a past tainted by crimes against humanity is an enormous undertaking. The challenge is to deal with the past in ways that allow us to move forward – in respect for and memory of the sacrifices that have been made, the losses and the lives shed, but at the same time with greater wisdom.

Prosecutions, truth processes and memorials are all aspects of our response to this challenge.

Silencing the guns. Securing justice. Allowing wounds to heal.

It is a major challenge. Both in scope and in consequence. We must shoulder it together.

It is a pleasure for me to welcome you to this Transitional Justice Retreat. I wish you every success in your deliberations.

Thank you.