In recent years it has been fashionable to discuss this process in terms of ‘truth’, ‘justice’ and ‘reconciliation’. However, all these terms are open to subjective interpretation and take on different meanings in each post-conflict situation.(1) Citing the cases of…
The conflict also led to the death and disappearance of approximately 200,000 people between 1960 and 1996. It is estimated that 80% of these victims were of Mayan origin and that 440 Mayan villages were destroyed. The Guatemalan UN-sponsored truth…
She runs a successful animal husbandry project for women of all ethnicities at a time when divisions between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi are bloodier than ever. She hopes that this project will offer a building block for security…
Reports from human rights and humanitarian organisations and global media helped communicate the tremendous pain endured by Rwandan women and girls targeted by gender-related violence.(1) Two years after the genocide it was estimated that 54% of the population were female…
Massive resources have been deployed in Kosovo as the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe have spearheaded reconstruction. How can NGOs and the donor community learn to work with local women and…
GFAP created an overall framework to reconstruct the country and reverse ethnic cleansing. Five years later there are, according to UNHCR estimates, some 300,000 Bosnian refugees in need of a durable solution and a further 518,252 people still registered as…
The international community has massively assisted efforts to enable the return of minority populations to their homes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, yet a survey from the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) suggests that external assistance has often been misguided. In order…
Signs of hope include the collapse of the Khmer Rouge (ending decades of civil war), Cambodia’s entry into the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) in April 1999 and the imminent trial of some former Khmer Rouge leaders.(1) Governance is…
For over 20 years, 10% of the entire country was effectively shut down as a bloody insurgency was fought by tribal groups from the Chittagong Hill Tracts, who felt themselves severely threatened by the government’s construction of a national, homogenous…
This in itself often causes conflicts within the refugee setting. As a result, conflict within a refugee community is often driven by the politics back home and yet, when refugees are finally able to return home, they are expected to…