To the Admissions Department of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights,
When talking about transitional justice, two pictures come to my mind. As an international human rights observer in Guatemala, I had the chance to follow transitional justice cases. One of them was the Sepur Zarco’s woman case, historic for being the first criminal trial about sexual violence committed by the army during Guatemala’s armed conflict. It was observing one of the testimony hearings when I got my first image. The woman who suffered all that violence were talking about it for the first time in front of an audience, but fear was still a part of them and while they were speaking they covered they head with typical Guatemalan tissues. …show more content…
This experience had a strong impact on me and made me reflect upon my origins and Spain’s history and I realized that in Spain, despite some important attempts, we have not made yet the collective effort to look at the past and think about what happened during the Civil War. As an example of this, I have never heard my grandparents talking about the war and the question about it had a tense silence as an answer. Taking this into account, I have actively lived both the celebration of memory and the oppression provoked by silence and denial of past. These opposing experiences are part of the main reasons that led me to the decision of studying about transitional justice and its diverse tools. I hope that if I am given the opportunity to study this Master’s Degree I could become an actor who promotes transitional justice as an essential exercise to look at the past and create a better future …show more content…
At the moment I am writing these lines, I am still in the process of learning both at the professional and personal level from this experience. However, I have realized that in México, as in other parts of the world, justice and human rights have a stormy relationship. Here, my job is more focused on the accompaniment to relatives of victims of enforced disappearance. By monitoring this phenomenon, I realized that transitional justice and all the tools it offers can be implemented also in countries and societies suffering no traditional conflicts, but which are immersed into a vicious circle of impunity.
After my experiences as international human rights observer, I have decided it is the moment for me to keep on learning about justice and memory, because now I do not want to limit myself to observe transitional justice process, but I hope, in the future, I will be a well-educated professional helping to boost them. I would love to actively contribute making societies able to come to terms with the past and I would be able to foster the individual and common search of memory and
When talking about transitional justice, two pictures come to my mind. As an international human rights observer in Guatemala, I had the chance to follow transitional justice cases. One of them was the Sepur Zarco’s woman case, historic for being the first criminal trial about sexual violence committed by the army during Guatemala’s armed conflict. It was observing one of the testimony hearings when I got my first image. The woman who suffered all that violence were talking about it for the first time in front of an audience, but fear was still a part of them and while they were speaking they covered they head with typical Guatemalan tissues. …show more content…
This experience had a strong impact on me and made me reflect upon my origins and Spain’s history and I realized that in Spain, despite some important attempts, we have not made yet the collective effort to look at the past and think about what happened during the Civil War. As an example of this, I have never heard my grandparents talking about the war and the question about it had a tense silence as an answer. Taking this into account, I have actively lived both the celebration of memory and the oppression provoked by silence and denial of past. These opposing experiences are part of the main reasons that led me to the decision of studying about transitional justice and its diverse tools. I hope that if I am given the opportunity to study this Master’s Degree I could become an actor who promotes transitional justice as an essential exercise to look at the past and create a better future …show more content…
At the moment I am writing these lines, I am still in the process of learning both at the professional and personal level from this experience. However, I have realized that in México, as in other parts of the world, justice and human rights have a stormy relationship. Here, my job is more focused on the accompaniment to relatives of victims of enforced disappearance. By monitoring this phenomenon, I realized that transitional justice and all the tools it offers can be implemented also in countries and societies suffering no traditional conflicts, but which are immersed into a vicious circle of impunity.
After my experiences as international human rights observer, I have decided it is the moment for me to keep on learning about justice and memory, because now I do not want to limit myself to observe transitional justice process, but I hope, in the future, I will be a well-educated professional helping to boost them. I would love to actively contribute making societies able to come to terms with the past and I would be able to foster the individual and common search of memory and