Report on Impunity Watch Panel Discussion

Transitional justice: are we ticking the boxes when we should be joining the dots?

Café Dudok, The Hague, 15 December 2009

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Report on Impunity Watch Expert Debate

1 July 2009, Amsterdam: Remembering the Srebrenica and Rwanda genocides: Do war memorials unite or divide?
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Dealing with Impunity in Serbia - Options and Obstacles

Now available in English, this document provides a summary of a research project conducted over the past two years in Serbia, examining the root causes and nature of impunity for crimes committed by the Serbian state and citizens during the wars of Yugoslavia's dissolution during the 1990s.
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Recognising the Past: Challenges in the Combat of Impunity in Guatemala

Now available in English, this document provides a summary of a research project conducted over the past two years in Guatemala, examining the root causes and nature of impunity for crimes committed during its long civil war.
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The Persistence of Truth

This report looks at progress in truth-seeking and the combat of impunity in Guatemala ten years after its UN-backed truth comission, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), published its findings on the events of the internal armed confrontation of 1960-96.
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Impunity Watch Research Instrument

This Impunity Watch tool offers a basic framework for researching the state of accountability in post-conflict societies.
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NEWS ARCHIVE

Guatemalan Constitutional Court decision paves the way for El Jute trial

03/04/2009 - Familes of victims and Guatemalan human rights groups are pushing for an early trial date to be set in the case of former Guatemalan army officer Marco Antonio Sanchez Samayoa, who is accused of participating in the disappearance of five civilians in the village of El Jute, Chiquimula, during the country’s brutal internal armed conflict.

On 23 December 2008, in a decision welcomed by human rights groups, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court rejected an appeal by Sanchez to be granted an amnesty. This is an historic ruling on the amnesty issue, sending a clear message to alleged perpetrators that the facility is not available for crimes against humanity defined in international law.

An appeals court had earlier freed Sanchez, ruling that he was entitled to amnesty under the 1996 National Reconciliation Law. This was later upheld by the Supreme Court. The Constitutional Court however ruled that, although the law is applicable in this case, the Supreme Court judges had failed to take into account its exclusion of “certain crimes related to human rights violations” from the ambit of permissible amnesties.

The case is now expected to return briefly to the Supreme Court, which may in turn refer the matter once again to a lower appeals court that is, according to article 11 of the National Reconciliation Law, responsible for deciding on the eligibility of indictees for amnesties. Given the clear signal from the Constitutional Court, though, it is hoped that amnesty will be refused and that the case will proceed to trial without further delay. If so, the El Jute case will become only the second in which a ranking army figure has gone on trial for crimes against civilians committed during the armed conflict. The first related to the killing of Myrna Mack in 1990.

Guatemala’s National Reconciliation Law is considered by many in the international community as a positive model of an amnesty law. Crucial intervention in its drafting by the UN and pressure from human rights groups at the time of the negotiation of Guatemala’s peace agreements and related legislation, ensured that amnesty was not available to those accused of the most serious crimes against humanity. The law explicitly excludes “those crimes which violate fundamental rights” and specifically mentions genocide, torture and forced disappearance. It also includes a general exclusion of any crime that can be shown to be imprescriptible.

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