Living together again: the expectation of transitional justice in Burundi: a view from below

Every society that experienced a violent conflict or repression needs to deal with the past, somehow. Accountability was the objective that dominated in the aftermath of the Second World War. The Nürnberg trials are an example. Truth commissions followed, in South-Africa but previously already in several Latin-American countries. Recently, more attention goes to so-called “traditional” justice and reconciliation mechanisms.2 Exemplary for this global tendency are the negotiations between the government of Uganda and the Lords Resistance Army. A proposal was formulated to use the Mato Oput ritual in the aftermath of the conflict. But collective amnesty, a collective oblivion, has often also been a strategy to deal with a violent past.