AEMJ | ARCHIDIS 2013 | Dundee 2-8-2013

Silence no longer 1

Silence no longer

ARCHIDIS, 2013

Agnes E.M. Jonker

dealing with the past

• the right to know | the duty to remember

• ‘authorised’ history

• the right to know: a basic principle

• missing bits

‘authorised’ historyl’histoire confisquée

• absolute forgetting

– China, Bejing June 4, 1989

• a fabricated past

– former Yugoslavia

• contested memories

– Lithuania

• forced forgetfulness

– France: denial

– Spain: silence or ‘collective amnesia’

– Ireland; Australia: taboo

– hidden identities

– missing voices Tiananmen SquareProtest 1989

What Japanese history lessons leave outBy Mariko Oi | BBC News, Tokyo | 14 March 2013

“Japanese people often fail to understand why

neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th

Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.”

© REUTERS

cultural cleansing | Banja Luka

Former Yougoslavia

AEMJ | ARCHIDIS 2013 | Dundee 2-8-2013

Silence no longer 2

Lithuania : contested memories

Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv : 70 ans après, la mémoire apaiséeLE MONDE | 16.07.2012

Vél' d'Hiv : M. Hollande réaffirme le rôle de la FranceLE MONDE | 23.07.2012

En 1995, Jacques Chirac y avait tenu un discours de rupture et de vérité. En

2012, François Hollande y aura tenu un discours de réaffirmation et de vigilance. Dimanche 22 juillet, devant plusieurs centaines de personnes venues l'écouter au square des Martyrs juifs, sur les lieux mêmes de l'ancien Vélodrome d'hiver, quai

de Grenelle à Paris, le président de la République avait au fond deux messages à transmettre.

“Elle s'appelait Sarah”(2010)

www.seuil.com (2013)Survey July 2012 : nearly two-thirds of those under 35 in France did not know about Vel d'Hiv

Spain – three years of civil war (1936-1939) and 40 years of dictatorship

“Pacto del Olvido“ (Pact of Forgetting)

Exhumations of Civil War graves

a war of memories

The EconomistDec 19th 2006

Spain's civil warPainful memories

“Arguments over the true legacy of the civil war have only just begun.”

AEMJ | ARCHIDIS 2013 | Dundee 2-8-2013

Silence no longer 3

Spanish military secrecy

“Investigadores exigen acceso

a los fondos de Defensa y Exteriores. El primero cierra su archivo y el segundo

mantiene secretos 10.000 informes.”El Pais , July 15 2013

An appeal from the academic world: sign the petition !

H-SPAIN Announcement June 20 2013(…) Recommendation No. R (2000) 13 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on European policies, communication

and archives, and the Convention of the Council of Europe on Access to Public Documents - Tromsø, June 18 2009

access to public archives is a right

Council of Europe | Recommendation No. R (2000) 13 of

the Committee of Ministers to member states on a

European policy on access to archives

Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 13 July 2000

at the 717th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)

III. Arrangements for access to public archives

(…)

(5) Access to public archives is a right. In a political

system which respects democratic values, this right

should apply to all users regardless of their nationality,

status or function.

guidelines : access to archives (2005)

In the early 1990s, when Europe

ceased to be divided in opposing

political blocs, the Council of Europe

concluded that access to archives was

one of the key issues to be addressed

in order to fortify democracy throughout

the continent.

No R(2000)13

Tromsø (Norvège) 18.06.2009

Council of Europe | Conference of Justice Ministers

“Twelve Council of Europe member states today signed the

Convention on Access to Official Documents ( CETS n°205 ), the first binding international legal instrument laying down a

general right of access to official documents.”

The Convention sets forth the minimum standards to be

applied in the processing of requests for access to official documents (forms of and charges for access to official documents), review procedure and complementary measures.

Limitations on the right of access to official documents are only permitted in order to protect certain interests like national

security, defense or privacy.

Magdalene Asylums or The Magdalene Laundry

19 February 2013 : Irish Prime Minister issues apology"This is a national shame, for which I say again I am deeply sorry" 1981

AEMJ | ARCHIDIS 2013 | Dundee 2-8-2013

Silence no longer 4

Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the true story of how three children endured a nine week walk across Australia to be reunited with their families.

… “the Stolen Generations” …

13 February 2008 formal apology, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

hidden identities

György Kutasi =

György Kusinszky

Fiume (Rijeka) 1910 –

Melbourne 1977

parents from Poland

baptized Lutheran

Olympics Berlin 1936

Golden Medal Water Polo for Hungary

Molnár István

Bródy GyörgyBrandy JenőHalassy Olivér (Haltmayer Olivér)

Homonnai Márton (Hlavacsek Márton)Bozsi MihályKutasy GyörgyHazai Kálmán

Sárkány MiklósTarics SándorNémeth János

in search of hidden truths

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and

expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions

without interference and to seek, receive and impart

information and ideas through any media and

regardless of frontiers.

United Nations (1948)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art 19

www.unesco.org/webworld/en/foi

Council of Europe (1950)

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), art 10

ECHR case-law 2009

… ‘it is difficult to derive from the Convention a general right

of access to administrative data and documents’.

(…)

Nevertheless, the Court has recently advanced towards a

broader interpretation of the notion of ‘freedom to receive

information’ and thereby towards the recognition of a right of

access to information.

The Prague Declaration

The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and

Communism - signed on 3 June 2008 - is a declaration

initiated by the Czech government and signed by prominent

European politicians, former political prisoners and historians,

among them Václav Havel and Joachim Gauck, which called

for “Europe-wide condemnation of, and education about, the

crimes of communism.”

(…)

14 “ensuring a clear international legal framework regarding a

free and unrestricted access to the Archives containing the

information on the crimes of Communism”

AEMJ | ARCHIDIS 2013 | Dundee 2-8-2013

Silence no longer 5

German Roots.My Silesian family

the Quintana report (1995)

Collective rights

• the right of peoples to choose their own path to political

transition;

• the right of people to the integrity of their written memory;

• the right to truth (i.e. information on what actually happened);

• the right to identify those responsible for crimes against

human rights.

the Quintana report (1995)

Individual rights

• the right to discover the fate of the disappeared;

• the right to know what information on individuals is held;

• the right to research (i.e. access to the archives);

• the right to amnesty for victims;

• the right to compensation and reparation;

• the right of restitution of confiscated goods.

revised in 2008 the Quintana report (2008)

Individual rights

• the right to exoneration and rehabilitation;

• the right to know the whereabouts of those family

members who disappeared during the period of

repression;

• the right to know of the existence of information on anyone

kept in the archives of the repression;

• the right to historical and scientific investigation;

• the right to compensation or reparation for damages

suffered by the victims of the repression;

• the right to restitution of confiscated property;