Nuestro trabajo

Emprical Dialogues in Human Rights

Inside Rwanda´s Gacaca Courts. Seeking Justice after Genocide

Bert Ingelaere ,University of Antwerp (Belgium)

19.11.2019
Getafe, University Carlos III Madrid

After the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, victims, perpetrators, and the country as a whole struggled to deal with the legacy of the mass violence. Neighbor had attacked neighbor, and once the killing was over, genocide survivors often lived near those who had murdered their family members or friends. Rwanda’s government attempted to deal with this situation by creating a new version of a traditional grassroots justice system called gacaca. This seminar examines what the gacaca courts set out to do, how they worked, what they achieved, what they did not achieve, and how they affected Rwandan society. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the Rwandan countryside, I rely on vivid firsthand recollections, interviews, and trial testimony from victims and perpetrators, witnesses and lay judges alike. The findings demonstrate how this grassroots process got rerouted under the weight of the Rwandan state and through the pragmatism of the Rwandan peasantry. By providing rich evidence from the Rwandan grassroots, this seminar will discuss what – at the grassroots and beyond – is at stake for next generations and – also beyond Rwanda – what can make a difference when societies worldwide attempt to deal with the legacies of mass violence and human rights abuses.

Bio:

Bert Ingelaere is assistant professor at the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB), University of Antwerp (Belgium). He chairs the Great Lakes of Africa Centre.  His research focuses on the legacy of mass violence, mobility and the process of knowledge construction. He has undertaken over 40 months of fieldwork in Africa’s Great Lakes region. He was advisor or expert for international NGOs, the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The World Bank, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and a postdoctoral fellow at  the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (FWO) and the Program on Order, Conflict and

Violence (OCV), Yale University.

International Seminar

International Indigenous Knowledge Brokers at the UN: Impact, Challenges and Pitfalls

Vicky Tauli-Corpus and Anne Nourgam

8 November 2019

Getafe, University Carlos III Madrid

As part of RIVERS launch, Vicky Tauli- Corpus (Kankanaey Igorot, Philippines), UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and and Anne Nourgam (Sami, Finland), the Chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues have given a seminar in Getafe campus called “International Indigenous Knowledge Brokers at the UN: Impact, Challenges and Pitfalls”. This seminar was also part of the graduate course “Social movements and transnational Actors” of Prof. Dr. Viaene.

During the seminar, the participants discussed the political struggles of indigenous people and how they were able to obtain a more prominent presence in the higher-level bodies within the UN universal human rights protection system, including the story of their own communities and how they took their struggles in international level. Tauli-Corpus, who has been involved in the negotiation processes in UN from the beginning stated that indigenous people have tried very hard to gain their rights and they are one of the most successful social movements in terms of utilizing the UN, although most things are still not implemented the way they want. Nourgam similarly mentioned the story of Sami people and how the first Sami parliament in Finland was established and how they found their way into the UN system. At the end of the seminar, the students asked questions about many issues such as the biggest challenges they encountered during their struggles, the most successful states in terms of respecting indigenous peoples rights, the role of European Union in the process. You can watch the whole seminar from our YouTube channel.

International Seminar

The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution or Ontological Conflicts?

08.11.2019

Getafe, University Carlos III Madrid

On the third day of the launch of the RIVERS project, the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), hosted in its Main Hall, the opening ceremony and international seminar ‘The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution or Ontological Conflicts’. With a welcome remark of the representative of the vice-chancellor and the director of the Department of Social Sciences, who expressed their gratitude and congratulations to the team of the ERC RIVERS project, the seminar was introduced by professor Lieselotte Viaene. Lieselotte, RIVERS’ principal investigator, narrated the vital and academic journey that gave birth to the project as well as its main goals and challenges. Talking about the Colombian context, Belkis Izquierdo, indigenous magistrate of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace, shared her experience to foster the recognition of indigenous territories as victims of the armed conflict. For his part, Dambar Chemjong, head of the anthropology department of Tribhuvan University in Nepal, talked about both his personal and academic experience dealing with indigenous territorial rights. In the context of international law, Victoria Tauli-Corpus, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, critically approached how the rights of nature are being approached by ‘conservationists’ who do not take indigenous rights seriously. Subsequently, Anne Nuorgam, chair Of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, tackled how Sami people are relating with their ancestral lands as well as their resistance processes against the fishing ban in Finland. The seminar was moderated by Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado, deputy representative of OHCHR-Colombia.

Photo Credits: Carlos Argueta

Seminario Internacional

Seminario internacional: Pueblos indígenas y justicia transicional en América Latina: logros y desafíos

7. 11.2019

Getafe, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

En el segundo día del lanzamiento del proyecto RIVERS, la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid fue la anfitriona del seminario internacional ‘Pueblos Indígenas y Justicia Transicional en América Latina: Logros y Desafíos’. Moderado por el profesor Javier Dorado Porras (Instituto de Derechos Humanos Bartolomé de las Casas), el panel contó con la presencia de Lieselotte Viaene, investigadora principal del proyecto RIVERS, quien evaluó críticamente el eurocentrismo que ha sustentado las reflexiones en torno a la justicia transicional y propuso herramientas metodológicas para descolonizar su aparato epistemológico. Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado, representante adjunto de OHCHR-Colombia, expuso su experiencia con los sistemas de justicia transicional de Guatemala y Colombia, señalando los logros y desafíos más prominentes para alcanzar verdad, justicia, reparación y no repetición en contextos transicionales latinoamericanos. Por su parte, Belkis Izquierdo, magistrada indígena de la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz de Colombia, compartió su experiencia al interior de la Sala de Reconocimiento de Verdad y de Responsabilidad, llamando a un diálogo intercultural que tome las culturas indígenas en serio.  El último ponente, Alejandro Quiceno, expuso el trabajo de la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición de Colombia, como funcionario la alta entidad para la construcción de una paz estable y duradera. Después hubo un debate con el público sobre diversos aspectos de los logros y desafíos de la justicia transicional en territorios indígenas.

Cineforo

Colombia: Un Pais de Eterno Conflicto
Documental: Testigos de un etnocidio, memorias de resistencia

Dirigido por Marta Rodríguez, Colombia

06.11.2019

Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Madrid

En medio de un recrudecimiento de la crisis humanitaria de los pueblos indígenas de Colombia, enfrentados a una avalancha de asesinatos selectivos, que ha crecido después de la firma de los acuerdos de paz entre el gobierno del expresidente Juan Manuel Santos y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC-EP), se proyectó en el Museo de Antropología de Madrid el documental ‘Testigos de un Etnocidio, Memorias de Resistencia’. En el contexto del acto inaugural del lanzamiento internacional del proyecto RIVERS, la proyección fue precedida por un cine foro que contó con la presencia de Belkis Izquierdo (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, Colombia), Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado (Oficina de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, Colombia), Kelly Quilcué (indígena Nasa, Proyecto RIVERS), y Calixto Suárez (mamo del pueblo Arhuaco, Colombia). Moderado por Lieselotte Viaene, investigadora principal del proyecto RIVERS, el conversatorio puso de presente tanto la pertinencia del enfoque cinematográfico de Marta Rodríguez, directora del documental, caracterizado por conectar las secuencias del pasado histórico con las trazas del presente y el porvenir; como la evidencia palmaría, de que el genocidio indígena no es una cuestión colonial, sino un hecho que de acuerdo a la Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia ONIC, está en curso.