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Representations of Rwanda have been shaped by the display of bodies and bones at Tutsi genocide memorial sites. This phenomenon is most often only studied from the perspective of moral dimensions. This article aims in contrast to cover the issues related to the treatment of human remains in Rwanda for commemorative purposes from a historical perspective. To this end, it is based on the archives of the commissions in charge of genocide memory in Rwanda, as well as interviews with key memorial actors. This study shows the evolution of memorial practices since 1994 and the hypermateriality of bodies in their use as symbols, as well as their demobilisation for the purposes of reconciliation policies.
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) – still probably the most well-known and cited truth commission – looms large. It may thus be instructive to examine how the TRC came to exhume bodies, and how an associated practice developed, key features of which continue to characterize post-TRC exhumation work. It is easy to read this practice as comfortably fitting into either the above literatures – in the first, exhumation as an important tool in the transitional justice toolkit; in the latter, how a nationalist nation-building agenda deploys exhumed bodies of guerrilla soldiers, an
’s secondary mass graves in the country’s processes of social reconciliation and peace-building. A definition of the mass grave Over the course of time, ever since the first excavations of mass graves, there have always been attempts at defining what constitutes a mass grave. Currently, there are several definitions and typologies of mass graves that have been put forward. Some of these definitions are based solely on the minimum number of bodies buried, while others try to define a mass grave not only by the number of bodies buried, but by the processes of creation and
Apartheid South Africa 205 The war comes home Among the many omissions laid at the door of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is the absence of statistics indicating the number of persons killed as a result of political violence during the thirty-four-year period covered by its remit (1 March 1960 to 10 May 1994). This seems surprising for a commission specifically mandated to discover the ‘nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights’4 – of which killing was one such violation – and to determine the identity of both victims and
placed in a more general narrative of the history of events. More importantly, perhaps, in the case of Rwanda, the value which forensic anthropologists ascribe to exhumations and identification in terms of achieving reconciliation and restoring broken relations would seem to be based more on a political desire than on any actual demand from within society. Notes 1 L. Fondebrider, ‘Reflections on the scientific documentation of human rights violations’, International Review of the Red Cross, 84: 848 (2002), 885–91. 2 FIDH Africa Watch, UIDH & CIDPDD, ‘Commission
outcry over the violence led to the deployment of an international peacekeeping force and the establishment of a temporary UN administration, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). After two and a half years under UN tutelage, Timor-Leste regained its independence on 20 May 2002. According to the estimates of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation of Timor-Leste (Comissão de Acolhimento, 98 Henri Myrttinen Verdade e Reconciliacão de Timor-Leste – CAVR), the conflict between 1975 and 1999 had cost the lives of upwards
) discovers the entire history of the migrant condition in the changing significance of the white façade opposite the house in Brunswick (Melbourne) where he lives. Its neo-Baroque ornament recalls the public architectural detail of his home province – a strange and uncanny doubling. After projections as multiple and metamorphic as cloud shadows, he reaches a point of reconciliation, where image and substance fuse: ‘All the while the white façade went on glowing. There was nothing behind its luminous presence. It carried no message of comfort. It was not inclined to lean
and records remain classified or unobtainable. An additional complication is the issue of body parts that cannot be identified and, therefore, cannot be returned to the family, which has societal repercussions on national reconciliation policies. Further, it is imperative to identify the victim group if charges of genocide are being pursued. Forensic scientists, including anthropologists, have been exploring the potential of new methods and processes in the resolution of such contexts. The introduction of DNA to contexts where 118 Gillian Fowler and Tim Thompson
associated with the collapsed regimes but was also associated with the return of major international crimes to the European mainland, in Bosnia and Kosovo, and coincided with both the genocide in Rwanda and the deeply contested ‘war on terror’. At the same time, international responses to these and other contexts of mass violence, such as the International Criminal Tribunals on both the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa, and associated major developments in international law, have occurred. In
slow but very significant redefinition of their relationship, towards friendship, reconciliation and then a strong alliance, an alliance formally established in Paris in January 1963. However, the search mission did not play a significant role in this coming to terms with centuries of war and conflict. It was seen by the French only as a precondition for further negotiations and this was constantly repeated by diplomats. But the very activities of the HRMV.indb 139 01/09/2014 17:28:40 140 Jean-Marc Dreyfus mission – the exhumations – were not given much publicity