Annual Report 2004 - Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

decisions should be to first silence the guns.
Then we try to reach a lasting peace that is
worth its name because it is based on justice.”
The human rights organization attracts
professionals from all walks of life —
journalists, attorneys, human rights advocates
and teachers — to its intensive, four-month
Transitional Justice Fellowship Program in
Cape Town, South Africa. A similar program
was established recently in Santiago, Chile.
For ICTJ, reckoning with horrors of the
past requires a comprehensive, holistic
approach that accepts differences between
countries and cultures while acknowledging
four key obligations that governments and
societies owe to victims and society overall:
truth, justice, reparations and institutional
reform. When equal importance is given to
each of these requirements, a nation stands a
better chance of experiencing healing, and
therefore improves the possibilities of
reconciliation, Méndez said.
By trying to heal wounds instead of
allowing them to fester, societies build
democracy in practical ways. For example,
civic engagement increases when judicial
systems are more open to address the
concerns of people who traditionally have
been without power, and when police and
law enforcement officers protect residents
rather than attack them, Méndez said.
When partnering with nongovernmental
advocates and government
officials in various countries to develop
strategies for transitional justice, ICTJ
suggests incorporating five key elements:
• prosecuting perpetrators;
• documenting violations through
nonjudicial means such as truth
commissions;
• reforming abusive institutions;
• providing reparations to victims; and
• advancing reconciliation.
As ICTJ looks to the future, it plans to
decentralize its programs so they better reflect
the organization’s international character. In
2005, the center will open an office in
Brussels, Belgium, to be closer to its work in
European nations such as Bosnia and
Herzegovina. From that location, the center
also will be better positioned to tap resources
to assist French-speaking African nations such
as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Additionally, there are plans to open a Middle
East office, possibly as early as 2006.
“Society cannot live with itself if it
tolerates massive and systematic human
rights violations. These human rights
violations engage our responsibility and our
moral obligation to all our fellow men and
women,” Méndez said.
“It’s not just a matter of doing
something because of some kind of moral
outrage, but doing the right thing. And
doing the right thing comes by learning
from the experiences of how other societies
have dealt with these problems.”
Participants in an
international fellowship
program discuss ways
to address human
rights issues.
2004 ANNUAL REPORT
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