Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia
Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia

Author: Ben Kiernan

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9781412806695

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Two modern cases of genocide and extermination began in Southeast Asia in the same year. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, and Indonesian forces occupied East Timor from 1975 to 1999. This book examines the horrific consequences of Cambodian communist revolution and Indonesian anti-communist counterinsurgency. It also chronicles the two cases of indigenous resistance to genocide and extermination, the international cover-ups that obstructed documentation of these crimes, and efforts to hold the perpetrators legally accountable. The perpetrator regimes inflicted casualties in similar proportions. Each caused the deaths of about one-fifth of the population of the nation. Cambodia's mortality was approximately 1.7 million, and approximately 170,000 perished in East Timor. In both cases, most of the deaths occurred in the five-year period from 1975 to1980. In addition, Cambodia and East Timor not only shared the experience of genocide but also of civil war, international intervention, and UN conflict resolution. U.S. policymakers supported the invading Indonesians in Timor, as well as the indigenous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Both regimes exterminated ethnic minorities, including local Chinese, as well as political dissidents. Yet the ideological fuel that ignited each conflagration was quite different. Jakarta pursued anti-communism; the Khmer Rouge were communists. In East Timor the major Indonesian goal was conquest. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge's goal was revolution. Maoist ideology influenced Pol Pot's regime, but it also influenced the East Timorese resistance to the Indonesia's occupiers. Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia is significant both for its historical documentation and for its contribution to the study of the politics and mechanisms of genocide. It is a fundamental contribution that will be read by historians, human rights activists, and genocide studies specialists.

The Dynamics of Transitional Justice
The Dynamics of Transitional Justice

Author: Lia Kent

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-04

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1136303456

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The Dynamics of Transitional Justice draws on the case of East Timor in order to reassess how transitional justice mechanisms actually play out at the local level. Transitional justice mechanisms – including trials and truth commissions – have become firmly entrenched as part of the United Nations ‘tool-kit’ for successful post-conflict recovery. It is now commonly assumed that by establishing individual accountability for human rights violations, and initiating truth-seeking and reconciliation programs, individuals and societies will be assisted to ‘come to terms’ with the violent past and states will make the ‘transition’ to peaceful, stable liberal democracies. Set against the backdrop of East Timor’s referendum and the widespread violence of 1999, this book interrogates the gap between the official claims made for transitional justice and local expectations. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including extensive in-depth interviews with victims/survivors, community leaders and other actors, it produces a nuanced and critical account of the complex interplay between internationally-sponsored trials and truth commissions, national justice agendas and local priorities. The Dynamics of Transitional Justice fills a significant gap in the existing social science literature on transitional justice, and offers new insights for researchers and practitioners alike.

Families of the Missing
Families of the Missing

Author: Simon Robins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-29

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 113409695X

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Families of the Missing interrogates the current practice of transitional justice from the viewpoint of the families of those disappeared and missing as a result of conflict and political violence. Studying the needs of families of the missing in two contexts, Nepal and Timor-Leste, the practice of transitional justice is seen to be rooted in discourses that are alien to predominantly poor and rural victims of violence, and that are driven by elites with agendas that diverge from those of the victims. In contrast to the legalist orientation of the global transitional justice project, victims do not see judicial process as a priority. Rather, they urgently seek an answer concerning the fate of the missing, and to retrieve human remains. As important are livelihood issues where families are struggling to cope with the loss of breadwinners and seek support to ensure economic security. Although rights are the product of a discourse that claims to be global and universal, needs are necessarily local and particular, the product of culture and context. And it is from this perspective that this volume seeks both to understand the limitations of transitional justice processes in addressing the priorities of victims, and to provide the basis of an emancipatory victim-centred approach to transitional justice.

Social Democracy in East Timor
Social Democracy in East Timor

Author: Rebecca Strating

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-10-05

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1317504232

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Since the end of the Cold War, considerable scholarly debates have been devoted to the nature and scope of international state-building interventions in ‘fragile’, post-colonial states and their effectiveness in instituting democratic rule. By examining the construction of political institutions in East Timor, this book highlights the relationship between the social and political realms during these processes. Focusing on the roles of East Timorese leaders and civil society organisations during the independence movement, it analyses the effectiveness of democracy building in East Timor. It examines the processes of drafting the new constitution, establishing key political institutions (such as the electoral system), and articulating a new vision of citizenship and social justice. The book argues that East Timor offers a relatively successful case of democratic transition, enabled by a consistent set of goals and aspirations, grassroots political legitimacy and participation, and the development of a democratic civil nation. Offering a coherent argument for why democracy has been successful in East Timor and the roles of political leaders and civil society during democratic transition, this book will be of interest to those studying Southeast Asian Politics, International Politics, and Democracy.

Torture, Truth and Justice
Torture, Truth and Justice

Author: Elizabeth Stanley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-10-27

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1134021046

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Building on observations, documentary analysis and over seventy interviews with both torture victims and transitional justice workers this book explores how torture was used, suffered and resisted in Timor-Leste.

Gender and Transitional Justice
Gender and Transitional Justice

Author: Susan Harris Rimmer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-02-25

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13: 113527245X

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Gender and Transitional Justice provides the first comprehensive feminist analysis of the role of international law in formal transitional justice mechanisms. Using East Timor as a case study, it offers reflections on transitional justice administered by a UN transitional administration. Often presented as a UN success story, the author demonstrates that, in spite of women and children’s rights programmes of the UN and other donors, justice for women has deteriorated in post-conflict Timor, and violence has remained a constant in their lives. This book provides a gendered analysis of transitional justice as a discipline. It is also one of the first studies to offer a comprehensive case study of how women engaged in the whole range of transitional mechanisms in a post-conflict state, i.e. domestic trials, internationalised trials and truth commissions. The book reveals the political dynamics in a post-conflict setting around gender and questions of justice, and reframes of the meanings of success and failure of international interventions in the light of them.

The Future of Asian Feminisms
The Future of Asian Feminisms

Author: Nursyahbani Katjasungkana

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2011-10-18

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 1443834696

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This book on the future of Asian feminisms, confronting fundamentalisms, conflicts, and neo-liberalism is a critical contribution to the rising voices of Asian women’s studies scholars and activists. It is based on the ongoing research and advocacy work of the Kartini Asia Network, founded in 2003 in Manila. The five overlapping themes of the network are women/gender studies, fundamentalisms, conflicts, livelihood and sexuality. Considering that the economic and political weight of the region is growing fast, and that the 21st century has been named the “Asian century,” Asia is increasingly recognised as the continent to which economic, if not political power, will shift in the coming decades. The chapters brought together in this volume demonstrate the great diversity of the “transversal cultural flow” that women’s movements within Asia provide. Members of the Kartini network stimulate the articulation of a particular “Asian voice” in women’s studies and in the global women’s movement. Considering the existing patriarchal structures all over the continent, a continuum of oppressions enfolds, from the global sphere of market exchange to emerging fundamentalisms and to bitter conflicts and struggles around sexualities. The present volume provides elements for the critical dialogues that are needed between women in the region, between women and men, between people in all sorts of strategic positions, and between theoreticians in the Global South and the Global North to create a world in which human dignity is not eroded by predatory economic processes and in which democracy, diversity, pluralism, and inclusivity are the guiding principles of governance.

Counting Civilian Casualties
Counting Civilian Casualties

Author: Taylor B. Seybolt

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-07-11

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0199977305

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Counting Civilian Casualties aims to promote open scientific dialogue by high lighting the strengths and weaknesses of the most commonly used casualty recording and estimation techniques in an understandable format.

Regulating Business for Peace
Regulating Business for Peace

Author: Jolyon Ford

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-02-05

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1107037085

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The first book to study how peace operations have engaged with business to influence its peace-building impact in fragile and conflict-affected societies.