Transitional Justice Forum

Haiti, Iraq, and political transition

Posted by Helena Cobban at 14:02 | TrackBack

Joanna Quinn wrote a very informative post about Haiti here on TJF on Tuesday. I was going to post this as a comment on what she wrote, but saw it would be so long that it probably should be in a post of its own.

My first general observation is that, obviously, what we see happening in Haiti during this very week, is an apparently risk-laden process of ongoing political transition. This process-- like the continuing and very long-drawn-out government-formation process in Iraq-- certainly remind sus of some of the enormous risks that exist in the crucial period that comes after elections held during times of deep social and political conflict.

We can ask, too, what is the role of "justice" in these situations? And what, more specifically, is the role in them of classic transitional-justice mechanisms like war-crimes courts or truth commissions?

I see, from this BBC article, that Haitian ex-PM René Préval has now been declared the winner in the election that was held February 7. Prior to that, there had been quite a lot of uncertainty about the outcome of the election-- or at least, over whether Préval could be named the winner without having to go into a second, run-off election. Yesterday (Wednesday) there was much anger in the Aristidist Lespwa Party, which Mr. Préval heads, over the discovery of large numbers of ballot-boxes, many containing lots of ballot marked for him, on a trash-dump outside Port-au-Prince.

There was also a question over whether, in counting the total number of ballots, ballot papers that were unmarked but had allegedly been "cast" into the boxes should be counted in the total. That made the difference between Mr. Préval's vote count bringing him over the 50% figure needed to avoid a run-off, or not. Today, that issue was settled in his favor.

This story on the NYT newswire tells us that the agreement to discard all the unmarked ballots,

was forged after marathon negotiations among leaders of Mr. Préval's Lespwa Party, the interim government, the Provisional Electoral Council, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the O.A.S. and ambassadors from the United States, France, Canada, Brazil and Chile. The talks started Monday, after early tallies indicated Mr. Préval would not win enough votes to avoid a runoff and his supporters paralyzed cities across the country with protests and flaming barricades.

With that 4% percent of the ballots that were unmarked taken out of the count, Préval had just over 51% of votes cast. His nearest runner-up (in a crowded field) had around 11%.

However, this result may still be contested and opposed. The NYT's Ginger Thompson quotes one Haitian human-rights advocate as saying, "All the efforts we made for a democratic transition could be lost. We are going right back to where we have always been where the crowds on the street, not elections, have the last say. We are close to losing an historic opportunity."

Thompson also wrote:

Opponents of Mr. Préval, along with several international election observers, wondered though whether his campaign workers had planted the boxes of ballots. They said it might be part of an effort to incite the crowds of Préval supporters whose protests in recent days have paralyzed cities across Haiti, using bullying to put him in power.

Whether the ballots were dumped or planted, the discovery added to questions here and abroad about the credibility of elections considered crucial to setting Haiti back on the road to democracy.

If 51% of voters did vote for Mr. Préval, that still means that 49% did not-- and then, there were presumably some numbers of Haitians who did not cast votes at all. So if Mr. Préval forms a government, it is still far from certain that it will have the national-political legitimacy to be able to govern, and the country may remain mired in deep social conflict.

Let's hope not.

In Iraq, meanwhile, it has now been 63 days since the "historic" elections of December 15; and there, too, the post-election period has been marked by continued political contestation, in addition to a shockingly high level of political violence. There, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list won the largest bloc of seats in the new parliament-- 128 out of 275-- and on Sunday its parliamentarians (and two allies) all finally got together and named their candidate for Prime Minister: Ibrahim Jaafari, who was also the PM in the most recent transitional administration there.

Given the complexities of intra-Iraqi politics, it may well take a few more weeks before Jaafari and the UIA can form their governing coalition. Meantime, the level of inter-sectarian violence in Iraq, which showed a lull for around two days at the time of the election, almost immediately thereafter resumed; and it continues unacceptably high, and the country held in the grip of general public fearfulness, to this day.

Under the circumstances of very tricky, threat-laden political "transitions" like these, what can we say about "justice"?

One of the first things I would say is that a general atmosphere of public security is a conpletely essential 'justice' need. Men and women cannot enjoy any other of their basic "rights" unless the right to a basic level of public security is assured.

This fact has been shown as particularly true by the situation in Iraq since March 2003. There, the total lack of planning by the occupation forces for the post-conflict phase, especially as regards the need to provide basic public security throughout the country, has resulted in the whole panoply of people's rights being disregarded and abused.

In other words, Iraq shows us, first and foremost, that public security is worth a lot to any human community.

In South Africa, assuring public security in the country at the time of the historic April 1994 elections-- and also, equally crucially, throughout the period of political transition that followed them-- was something that was worth a lot to the ANC's leaders, who confidently (and rightly) expected to win a resounding victory in that election.

That was why, right in the midst of the elections process itself, the ANC offered a total amnesty to all members of the previous armed forces for all abusive actions they perpetrated or organized over the preceding years. (Provided those perps undertook to tell the whole truth about their own actions and those of others.)... That offer of amnesty was finalized in the second day of a four-day election period... The preceding two days and the run-up to the elections had already seen some rather nasty violence aimed at disrupting the elections... The South African Transitional Executive Committee (TEC) had reason to be worried about the willingness of the existing security forces to actually provide security nationwide for the rest of the election... There was literally no other force capable of doing it...

So those were the circumstances in which the offer of amnesty was made to those people. And how very thankful the vast majority of people in South Africa and beyond it are that the elections and the subsequent handover of power to the newly elected ANC all went off so smoothly.

In Haiti and Iraq, today, obviously, the political outlines of both situations are very different from South Africa 1994. There really is no question in Haiti, as far as I know, of offering "amnesties" to anyone. (Though maybe that will arise?) And in Iraq, in the midst of the continuing violence and the great political uncertainties, we have had news of a few, selected amnesties having been given to some officials of the former Baathist regime...

But meantime, the trial of Saddam Hussein continues, on-again-off-again but returning very frequently to the political and media "front-burner" in that country. Whenever it has done so, until recently, its main effect has been to exacerbate intra-Iraqi differences. In particular, given that the present Dujail case involves regime executions and other repressive acts against residents of a Shiite village, the main political effect of the trial has been to polarize relations between the country's Arab Sunnis and its Arab Shiites-- with the Kurds for the moment left largely, but not wholly, to one side. (Both the present chief judge and his predecessor are ethnic Kurds.)

Now, however, is something new happening in popular reactions to the ongoing "drama" of the trial? In this intriguing article today, AP's veteran Baghdad correspondent Hamza Hendawi writes,

It's supposed to be a serious affair, but after three months and 12 hearings, the
Saddam Hussein trial has become like a TV sitcom steeped in Iraqi pop culture and local vernacular.

Interest in the trial has spiked since a new tough chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, took over last month and cracked down on the chaos that had marked the early hearings, which began Oct. 19.

Saddam and Barzan Ibrahim, his half brother and co-defendant, try their best to unsettle the stern new judge, using tactics from insulting his nonexistent mustache to showing up in long underwear.

Proceedings are broadcast on state television with a 20-minute delay. Many Iraqis who cannot follow the hearings during business hours watch in the evenings on satellite stations, some of which show the day's full hearing.

Perceptions of the trial among Iraqis depend in large part on their sectarian affiliations.

Many Shiites, long oppressed by Saddam's Sunni Arab-dominated regime, believe the ex-president's execution is already overdue. To many Sunni Arabs, Saddam and his seven co-defendants are persecuted men.

Yet, Iraqis are united over one thing — the trial's entertainment value.

"The toughness of the new judge has turned the whole thing into a farce," said Ismail Ibrahim, a 45-year-old Sunni engineer who watches the hearings at work. "It's funny."

Hatem Abbas Khalaf, a health worker from the holy Shiite city of Karbala, said he finds the whole affair "entertaining."

I am sure that having the trial decline into a sitcom is not at all what the US occupation authorities had in mind when they decided to sink $138 million or more into making this an examplary war-crimes trial.

But if the antics of all players in the hastily rigged courtroom in Baghdad could have the effect not of continuing to polarize members of the country's communities against each other but rather, of giving them a TV spectacle that causes many of them to chuckle together, rather than to hate each other more than before-- then would this be such a terrible outcome?

Indeed in that still very unfinished and deeply risk-laden political transition, how can we tell where "justice" lies? Perhaps it lies first and foremost in redoubling everyone's efforts to find a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the political differences that remain among Iraqis, and a way for the foreign occupation forces to release their grip on the country and give it back its independence?