Justice et réconciliation : perceptions des victimes de crimes contre l'humanité en Guinée
Since its independence in 1958, Guinea has been ruled by authoritarian regimes that caused many victims of serious violations, the most notable dating from 1958 to 1984 under the reign of Ahmed Sékou Touré and recently in 2009 under the reign of Moussa Dadis Camara.  The crimes against humanity in Guinea had direct and indirect impacts on the lives of the victims, their families, and their loved ones. They have left thousands of dead, they resulted in the exile of countless individuals and the rape and abuse of hundreds of women (Human Rights Watch, 2011).  While some efforts have been made to address this violence, victims nevertheless persist in their demand for justice. This raises many questions: what is justice for the victims of crimes against humanity in Guinea? How do victims come to the sense of justice? In this paper, we explore the perceptions of justice of 31 victims of crimes against humanity in Guinea. More specifically, we use justice as a theoretical framework to examine perceptions and experiences of victims in relation to justice in order to promote reconciliation and lasting peace. The results indicate that justice has several dimensions, namely distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice. Although distributive justice (punishment and reparation) comes more quickly in victims’ discourse, procedural justice (neutrality of authorities, constancy, etc.) and interactional justice (respect, information, etc.) are equally important in the eyes of the victims. There are several similarities between the two groups of victims (1958–1984 and 2009) as regards the violence committed, their consequences, and the definition of justice. However, there are differences as well, particularly regarding the types of violence, the duration of the crimes, the method used to commit the crimes, the interchangeability of victim-offender roles, the duration of the consequences of crimes and the importance of the elements included in the definition of justice. Some elements included in the definition of justice would be more important than others for each group of victims given the time that has passed since the commission of crimes, the death of most perpetrators, and the interchangeability of victims perpetrators’ roles. That said, justice as a whole is a condition for reconciliation. However, the lack of justice experienced by the victims calls into question reconciliation in Guinea.
Sense of justice/justice judgments Distributive justice Procedural justice Interactional justice Crimes against humanity Guinea