When nations yearn for both justice and unity

As the U.S. Senate begins hearing an impeachment case against former President Donald Trump, the trial raises basic questions common to many countries coming out of traumatic periods: Will it improve national unity? Is airing the evidence enough? How does justice balance punishment and mercy?

Over the past few decades, a handful of countries emerging from protracted conflict have sought national reconciliation by tying forgiveness to accountability and unity to advancement of the collective good. Most have fallen short of the mark, but case by case humanity is refining the model. One example is taking place now in Colombia.

In 2016 the government and a guerrilla movement called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace accord ending a 52-year civil war that left as many as 220,000 people dead with 5.7 million people displaced. Both sides were accused of gross human rights violations and summary executions.

The peace deal has three main components. First, it seeks to extend the government’s reach throughout the country to address rural poverty and lawlessness that were the root of the conflict. Second, it calls for disarming and reintegrating former combatants and tackling the narcotics trade. One novel provision guaranteed the FARC – which was allowed to become a political party – 10 seats in Congress through 2026. And third, it addresses victims’ rights through reparations as well as prosecutions that would exchange leniency to perpetrators for full disclosure of their politically motivated violence.

The accord built on lessons from South Africa’s attempt at post-apartheid reconciliation from 1996 to 2003. That process tied amnesty for politically motivated crimes to a person’s admission of truth and then expression of remorse. While it produced a common narrative of South Africa’s past by bringing victims and perpetrators together in public hearings, it faltered in the follow-through. The government lost interest in prosecuting perpetrators who were denied amnesty. Just as crucial, it largely failed to alleviate poverty.

Since signing its peace pact, Colombia has shown similar vulnerabilities. Many parts of the country remain beyond the reach of the government. Territorial conflicts continue, hundreds of community leaders have been killed, development and land reform have stalled, and thousands of people continue to be displaced.

But Colombia’s transitional justice process learned from the weaknesses in South Africa’s approach. It established a special judicial panel to investigate cases and decide what penalties to apply. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa had the power to grant amnesty but not to prosecute. In Colombia, the same panel that holds the carrot also wields the stick. While perpetrators can earn leniency by cooperating, there’s no free pass. They still face sentences requiring them to contribute to the peace accord’s restorative aims. And unlike South Africa, Colombia is starting with those who ordered atrocities rather than the foot soldiers who carried them out.

That compact now faces its first test. On Jan. 28 the special judicial panel issued its first indictments. Eight FARC leaders, two of whom now hold seats in Congress, stand accused of gross human rights abuses. Having already made earlier acknowledgments of their offenses, they are expected to accept the charges. If that happens, the public’s acceptance of leniency will almost certainly be tested. If they admit their crimes before the panel, the FARC leaders will be required to contribute to redressing the harm done to victims rather than facing prolonged incarceration. But they won’t stand trial or face life sentences. The two members of Congress may even keep their seats.

As jarring as that might be for victims, it is still the better outcome, argues Yesid Reyes, a human rights professor at the University of the Andes in Bogotá. “What is preferable,” he asked in an interview with CE Noticias Financieras: “Five hundred theoretical years in prison or eight effective years of a sanction that, in addition, has led former guerrillas to publicly acknowledge their responsibility, ask for forgiveness, and bring truth – apart from fulfilling the obligation to cooperate in reparations for victims?”

From Rwanda to Sierra Leone to South Africa, and now to Colombia, the evidence continues to mount that truth, contrition, forgiveness, personal reformation, not just punishment, also hold the power to heal broken societies. Each country can build on the experience of others in refining humanity’s insights on the needs for justice considered along with unity and progress.