Putting the Human Back in Human Rights

The Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience hosted a forum to examine how historic site museums of conscience are being used to inspire and support broad citizen engagement in human rights issues. Whether remembering the gulag in Russia, the disappeared in Argentina, or civil rights struggles in the United States, learn how these sites connect past to present and memory to action.

Aryeh Neier, OSI president, moderated a conversation with:

• Juan Mendez, International Center for Transitional Justice;
• Ken Roth, Human Rights Watch;
• Patricia Tappatá de Valdez, Memoria Abierta.

Liz Ševčenko of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience introduced the panel.

Summary

Remarking on the significance of site museums of conscience, OSI president Aryeh Neier cited a recent visit to the Nanjing, China, museum commemorating the 1937–38 massacre there by Japanese troops. The presence of thousands of visitors, as well as recent widespread participation in protests in China opposing Japan's membership in the UN Security Council, Neier said, reflect the fact that there is no memorial in Japan commemorating victims of WWII. (On the other hand, he noted, there is also no memorial to the millions who died under Mao.) The role of memory and memorial institutions is difficult but important, Neier said.

Every day, people across the world are creating places of memory as a fundamental way of helping them recover from trauma, said Liz Ševčenko, director of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience. The term "site of conscience" refers to museums that preserve sites of human rights struggles, stimulate dialogue on pressing social issues so that new generations could be challenged to reflect on their own roles in human rights struggles, and inspire civic engagement in the issues that the site raises. Sites of conscience aim to be more than reminders of what must never happen again, she said. Rather they create "forums where we model a culture of human rights by hosting ongoing open dialogue on the most difficult issues faced by each society." The International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience was formed to support these efforts.

The purpose of the present panel discussion, Ševčenko said, is to talk about "how we can create an integrated process of memory and justice that coordinates grassroots movements for justice with more traditional human rights campaigns."

Patricia Tappatá de Valdez, director of Memoria Abierta, spoke about why her organization was created. Documents from the period of dictatorship in Argentina have the potential "to challenge our present in different ways," such as contesting stereotypes, deepening historic investigations, illuminating the juridical past, and adding evidence to judicial prosecution of the perpetrators. Memoria Abierta is not a museum or a historic site, but an alliance of human rights groups whose mission is to preserve the memory of what happened during the era of state terrorism and its effects on Argentine society in order "to enrich democratic culture," she said.

Memoria Abierta focuses on four programs: documentary heritage, oral archive, topography of memory, and a film archive. Current projects include a document-based exhibition and a book on clandestine centers of detention, Valdez said.

The human rights movement's concern with accountability is not simply of historical but also of contemporary significance, Human Rights Watch executive director Ken Roth said. Bringing those responsible for atrocities to justice is necessary out of respect for victims, but also as a way to reinforce the rule of law and a culture of human rights.

There is a "toolbox of accountability" options, Roth said, which include justice, prosecution, and tribunals. Truth commissions supplement these efforts by conveying the breadth of crimes and suffering. However, these traditional tools of accountability are flawed in that they end, Roth said. "Their effect wanes over time." Historic sites therefore provide a form of "living accountability" which bring these lessons into the future.

Roth illustrated the point by recounting a visit to Cambodia where, he said, he was struck by the silence. Because the victims were not there to speak, "the void was tangible." Yet when Roth later visited the museum at Tuol Sleng, seeing photographs of the victims made the reality of their plight much more tangible than had merely reading reports, he said.

Juan Mendez, president of the International Center for Transitional Justice, pointed out that denial is one of the indicators of a risk of massive human rights abuses occurring. Denial is more possible, he said, where there are no cultural artifacts to remind society of what went on. Moreover, "memorialization of crimes committed has to go hand in hand" with justice and reform, because it can legitimize the trials of human rights violators while they are ongoing.

Memorialization is part of truth-telling, Mendez said. A truth commission report is not enough; "visualizing what is in it is absolutely crucial." Memorial sites are also an integral part of reparations policy. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, for example, has repeatedly ordered states to memorialize victims, to name streets, and to erect monuments as part of the reparations process. Cultural artifacts create "some form of reassurance against falling back into authoritarianism," Mendez said.

Neier asked the panelists, as activists "in this era in which efforts to deal with the past have been at the forefront of the human rights movement," whether such work had made a difference.

Roth replied that "the process of accountability still at a rudimentary stage; for deterrence to work the possibility of justice must become much more predictable." In that regard, "we are moving in the right direction." Citing a recent visit to Khartoum, Roth mentioned a meeting with Sudanese officials where he was "struck by how well versed they were in the International Criminal Court." They were "really scared of the referral of Darfur to the ICC," he noted. While this has not by any means stopped the crimes taking place in Darfur, clearly it was part of their calculations. Accountability would raise the cost of abuses significantly, Roth said.

Mendez concurred, noting that when the UN Security Council referred the Darfur case to the ICC a year ago, the leaders of the janjaweed "disappeared from the scene." They were replaced by others, he said, but "the threat [of punishment] is becoming more real than it was in the 1980s."

Given that "Latin America is where the focus on accountability began and influenced the course of the human rights movement in the rest of the world," Neier asked Valdez whether the focus on the past and on accountability has had an impact on the region.

Valdez replied that in the context of the Argentinian process of recovering democracy, for example, "it is impossible to think of the national commission to investigate the disappearances and trials of the junta without all the cultural performance," including for instance films such as The Official Story. "One reinforces the other," she said.