After The First Trial: A Population-Based Survey on Knowledge and Perception of Justice and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
On July 26, 2010, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was convicted of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions for events that took place three decades earlier under the Khmer Rouge regime. Following this important milestone for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the present study was implemented to (1) monitor public awareness and knowledge of the ECCC’s work, as well as of outreach and victim participation initiatives organized by the tribunal and local non-governmental organizations; (2) assess attitudes about justice and the desire for reparations for past crimes; and 3) recommend ways in which the ECCC, civil society, and the international community can continue to engage Cambodians in the work of the ECCC. This report presents the results of a survey of 1,000 Cambodians, aged 18 or above, randomly selected throughout the country to be representative of the adult population. The interviews were conducted anonymously and confidentially in December 2010 by a team of trained interviewers using a structured questionnaire. This is the second population-based survey conducted in Cambodia by the Initiative for Vulnerable Populations at UC Berkeley’s School of Law Human Rights Center. It is hoped that the findings will contribute to establishing a dialogue between the ECCC, the government, the Cambodian population, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the international actors on the role and impact of the ECCC, expectations of the population, and beyond the Court, what must be done to deal with the violent past.
When the War Ends: A Population-Based Survey on Attitudes about Peace, Justice, and Social Reconstruction in Northern Uganda
Twenty-one years of war, destruction, and the displacement of over 1.5 million people have turned northern Ugandan into a humanitarian disaster. One of the war’s principal perpetrators has been the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). A significant shift in the war occurred in late 2005 when the LRA withdrew its forces to the southern Sudan and then crossed the Nile, assembling in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the summer of 2006, peace talks between the Government of Uganda and the LRA commenced in Juba, and a first Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was signed on 26 August 2006. With the withdrawal of the LRA to the Congo, security in northern Uganda has improved considerably. Some displacement-camp residents have moved to new settlement sites closer to their villages. Yet others fear leaving the relative safety of the camps until a final peace agreement has been signed and the LRA fighters have been demobilized. This is a delicate stage of the conflict, and a deeper understanding of the needs and desires of affected populations will be crucial to a long-term resolution.This report presents the findings of a population-based study conducted by the Human Rights Center, University of California Berkeley, Payson Center for International Development, Tulane University, and the International Center for Transitional Justice. The research was based on a cross-sectional survey of 2,875 individuals, supplemented by in-depth qualitative interviews, in eight districts of northern Uganda most affected by the conflict from April to June 2007. The study capture attitudes about peace, justice, and social reconstruction while peace talks were taking place between the Ugandan government and the LRA in Juba, south Sudan.
Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism
I o n e of the challenges facing the international community in the post-Cold War era is the increasingly pervasive problem of civil conflict.’ Indeed, all of the thirty major armed conflicts fought in the world in 1995 were intrastate wars.’ Devising ways of responding to this violence has been a topic of considerable debate among policymakers and students of conflict management in recent years.3 But no less important is the task of determining what to do once the fighting stops. Operations that aim to prevent violence from reigniting after the initial termination of hostilities-commonly called “postconflict peacebuilding”have been conducted in eight war-shattered states since the end of the Cold War: Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Angola,