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

El Jute case reduces impunity for forced disappearance in Guatemala

09/12/2009 - On 3 December 2009, the Guatemalan courts handed down the second landmark judgment this year on the crimes of the internal armed conflict, sentencing Colonel Marco Antonio Sanchez Samayoa and three military commissioners to 53 years in prison for the enforced disappearance of eight members of a family from the El Jute village in October 1981.

The decision in the El Jute case follows the Cusanero judgment on 7 September 2009, which convicted a perpetrator of enforced disappearance for the first time, having established the permanent nature of the crime and dismissed objections of retroactive application of the 1996 law which introduced it into the Guatemalan penal code. (see Landmark judgment in Guatemalan forced disappearance case)

The conviction of Sanchez Samoyoa by the Chiquimula Sentencing Tribunal is the first of a high-ranking member of the military for enforced disappearance committed during the internal armed conflict. Colonel Sanchez was the Commander of the Military Zone of Zacapa, and the prosecutors successfully proved that, given his rank and functions, he was aware of counter-insurgency activities carried out against suspected members of the guerrilla, including the disappearance of the eight victims in this case.

This case is important for an additional reason. In order to bring this case to trial, prosecutors and lawyers for the victims successfully challenged a Court of Appeals decision of 2006, in which Sanchez Samaoya was granted an amnesty under the 1996 National Reconciliation Law. After a long legal battle, that decision was overturned, following a Constitutional Court ruling which recognised that certain crimes, including enforced disappearance, are excluded from the ambit of the law. (See Guatemalan Constitutional Court paves the way for El Jute trial)

The Cusanero and El Jute decisions provide a ray of hope for the families of the estimated 45,000 victims of enforced disappearance from the internal armed conflict, and set important precedents for prosecutors and judges to rely on in future cases to be brought before the courts.

Links:

Cusanero Case - Constitutional Court Decision, 7 July 2009

Cusanero Case - Sentencing Tribunal Judgment, 7 September 2009

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