Danushka Medawatte*
Noemí
Pérez Vásquez’s Women’s Access to Transitional Justice in Timor-Leste: The
Blind Letters is a welcome addition to the growing body of critical
literature on Transitional Justice (TJ). It is published against a background
where monographs on TJ’s application to specific jurisdictional contexts remain
limited. Using the case study of Timor-Leste, Pérez Vásquez investigates how
women navigate TJ processes against extant patriarchal convictions of both
international and national actors. Particularly, she challenges two positions
of TJ’s mainstream literature. First, is the assumption that TJ is inherently
just. Second, is that it is a ‘global’ justice system that states (are expected
to) turn to through new laws and purpose-built TJ institutions in the aftermath
of conflicts: conflicts that have left many with experiences of harm.
To
critique these broad claims of TJ, Pérez Vásquez relies on data she gathered
from conducting interviews with policy makers, investigators, and other actors
of justice, and more importantly with seventy-seven Timorese women, who have
suffered various forms of violence during the Indonesian intervention. These
harms include sexual slavery, forced impregnations, forced and temporary
‘marriages’, forced abortions, and other grave forms of sexual and gender-based
violence. The engagement of such women as research participants brings ethical
considerations that Pérez Vásquez has explained in detail (pp.22 - 26). She is,
however, critical of the ethical practice that obliges researchers to hide all
participant identities through anonymisation, based on the generalist presumption
that ‘these women are vulnerable’ (p. 26). I find this criticism to be
particularly important for research relating to women of the so-called ‘third
world’. While ethical precautions are very important and at times, life-saving, they should – like any other regulatory
practices – be assessed on a case-by-case basis. To not do so may contribute to
perpetuating epistemic injustices and discursive violence which postcolonial
feminisms attempt to uncover and address.
Pérez
Vásquez signals these ethical considerations and where appropriate, recognises
and makes her research participants visible in a multitude of ways. From these,
I am especially impressed by her chapter titles which transcend the orthodox
academic standards. She creatively quotes her research participants in her
chapter titles to give a thematic thread to the chapter and to shed light on
the insights of her research participants. In doing so, Pérez Vásquez treats
her research participants as knowledge–makers of postcolonial feminisms. She also
uses a range of photographs from her field visits to give visibility to her
research participants. Due to ethical standards of research with which, like
all qualitative researchers, Pérez Vásquez has had to comply, she uses
participant numbers to refer to her research participants. This practice can
lead to denial of identity to research participants. Such denials remind me of
W.H. Auden’s poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’ where the life of an unnamed citizen
referred to only by an alpha-numeric code is celebrated by constructing a
marble statue.[1]
His memorialisation and the denial of his individual identity occur in
parallel. Committing his memory to the history and his erasure from history
paradoxically coincide much like the research participants whose individualities
are erased even when their stories are immortalised through research.
While
provoking the thoughts of readers concerning ethical challenges, Pérez Vásquez
also mounts a critical challenge to mainstream TJ literature. Assessing her
data from a postcolonial feminist approach, she demonstrates that when applied
to postcolonial / post-conflict states like Timor-Leste, TJ exhibits
dissensions with contextual realities. In her view, this occurs as TJ is a
mechanical design sold in packages as ‘quick solutions to conflicts’ which can
be contrasted to TJ’s modern origins that arose in response to Nuremberg and
Tokyo trials of the second world war (p.3.). When extracted from such loci of
TJ theory and praxis, and applied to contexts like Timor-Leste, Pérez Vásquez
says TJ can exacerbate the invisibility of and discrimination against certain
sections of the populations due to the unquestioning assumptions that we
maintain of TJ’s capacity to provide justice. Such TJ postulates take for
granted the tribulations of those who have endured structural injustices and
discrimination experienced in intersectional ways. These harms continue to
remain unresolved through laws, policies, politics, economics, and at societal
levels, even within post-conflict TJ contexts. Timorese women experience how TJ
processes overlook these complexities because TJ, according to Pérez Vásquez,
predominantly represents a masculine human rights strategy that intervenes in
the lives of the post-colonial subjects. When this is coupled with gender
blindness in the design and processes of TJ, it culminates in obliterating
women’s realities and contributes to the perpetuation of discrimination against
women.
Within
this broader context, Pérez Vásquez makes two claims. First, she argues that women
are required to meet a higher threshold in accessing justice processes. This
claim is premised on her proposition that TJ is applied to domestic contexts
notwithstanding the barriers found in the laws and policies of implementation,
and at family and community levels. Her second argument is that the
relationship between conflict-related violations and economic justice creates
significant consequences for times of peace. She exposes how these
ramifications arise in connection with what she calls TJ’s insufficient
attention to state-produced welfare structures, such as veteran pensions, that
are established within domestic settings after a conflict. It is the burden of
this central issue of barriers in the administration of TJ that Pérez Vásquez
proceeds to discharge through the eight chapters of her book.
Pérez
Vásquez begins answering this central question with a provocative story from
which she forms a metaphor that runs through her work. She recalls how when one
of her research participants was asked if she knew how to read and write,
rather than saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’, she answered ‘Yes, I went to the school of
blind letters’ (p. 1). This meant that the school was there, but she could not
learn how to read and write because she could not see the letters. Pérez
Vásquez uses this as a metaphor to say, similarly, ‘transitional justice may
also be there, but that due to intersectional forms of discrimination, it is
only accessible for a few’ (p. 1). Using this metaphor, she uses Nancy Fraser’s
tri-dimensional model of gender justice which highlights the need for:
-
better
political representation of women and their interests in public decision-making;
-
an
understanding of the cultural dimensions of recognition, meaning ‘revaluating
disrespected identities and the cultural products of marginalised groups’; and
-
the
economic dimension of redistribution of income and the re-organisation of the
division of labour.
Pérez
Vásquez’s in-depth reflections are on the first dimension of the above model,
and her overall conclusions also take cognizance of the third dimension.
However, she does not offer the reader a nuanced exploration of whether women
perceive themselves as disrespected identities and cultural products of
marginalised groups, which, if provided, would have aligned her work with the
second dimension of Fraser’s model as well. Although Pérez Vásquez notes that
her deeper engagements are with the first dimension (p. 3), the limited
exploration of the second dimension is striking for three reasons. First, the
methodological choices she has made in this monograph. She claims her analysis
is generated through postcolonial feminist approaches (p.15; p.241). Therefore,
an intentional engagement with how Timorese women perceive their identities, intersectionalities, and ontological dependencies that
arise in connection to, for instance, ethnicity, language, and political
factionalism of Timor-Leste could have added value to Pérez Vásquez’s feminist
interventions. To the readers, this analytical limitation becomes observable
because it contrasts with Pérez Vásquez’s own acknowledgement that identities
can be gendered (p.75), and because she concedes that exploring women’s
identities is an important component of women’s law research (p.117).
The
second reason why the insufficient engagement with the second dimension of
Fraser’s model becomes intriguing is because Pérez Vásquez, though not
assessing women’s perceptions of identities, has assigned substantial weight to
women’s perceptions of justice (see her appendix of interview questions, pp.250
- 251). This demonstrates that her research did employ women’s
perceptions as an analytical tool, though not in relation to what they thought
of their own identities. This makes the reader contemplate if the perceptions
of justice would have been articulated differently by research participants had
they been prompted through interview questions to factor in intersectionality
of women's gendered identities.
Third,
the exclusion of the second dimension is also puzzling as the tri-dimensional
model of Fraser is a connected whole. Pérez Vásquez’s own analysis provides
testimony to how the first and third dimension are inherently linked to the
second. Hence, this gap leaves room for analysing how Timorese women’s
perceptions of access to TJ could be nuanced if the ways inequalities intersect
are considered in assessing their identities. Further research could
consequently be generated by exploring these ontological elements that have
remained unassessed in this monograph.
Notwithstanding
these concerns, Pérez Vásquez’s attention to the contextual realities that bear
on its TJ process is commendable. Particularly, in Chapter 2, she provides a
concise, yet comprehensive history of Timor-Leste, inclusive of its colonial
legacies, Timorese experiences of the impact of international legal frameworks,
and how both colonialism and international law matter in the context of
Indonesian interventions that led to large-scale human rights violations. She
uses this chapter as a background that helps the reader understand Timorese TJ
process more vividly.
Building
on this background, Pérez Vásquez reflects on silence and memory as a part of TJ in Chapter 3. She shows how silence
and memory are interwoven with invisibility and discrimination against
women. The chapter is significant for it demonstrates that (often politicised)
official memories inhibit individual memories and narratives thereby
suppressing victim visibility. She contends that such suppressions emanate from
the hypermasculinisation of society and national identity that create a
continuum of violence against women. However, all women do not follow the same
path in coming out of this continuum. For instance, Pérez Vásquez shows that she
met with research participants who expressed interest in learning a skill, ‘an
activity that is sustainable’ as opposed to talking ‘over and over again’ of
traumatic events they had experienced (p. 89). Their choice appears like
‘silence’. Nevertheless, learning something sustainable and deciding whether or
not they want to relive their past trauma is an awakening of their agency. It
challenges the ‘Western idea that talking is healing’ (p. 89). Pérez Vásquez
suggests these choices, which may overtly appear to be a form of silence, are
not representative of disengagements with TJ processes. She claims that they
are in fact alternative TJ engagements that affirm and perhaps even reclaim
women’s agency by letting them redefine what justice means to them or how they
wish to access justice. Given that this contains nuances concerning the
politics of memory and talking therapy as a part of TJ, there is potential here
for a more robust substantiation of this line of argument. It could possibly
build on Lia Kent’s work on Timor-Leste[2]
with which Pérez Vásquez has only cursorily engaged with in the present
monograph.
After
analysing gendered perspectives of silence and memory in Chapter 3, Pérez
Vásquez exposes four gendered administrative complications of TJ in Chapter 4.
These relate to investigations, forensic and medical expertise, post-conflict
international relationships between states, and the public–private dynamics
that affect TJ within the state. Pérez Vásquez says one primary challenge in
investigations stems from investigators refusing to visit sites of violence or
locations where victims reside. For instance, this had happened in Timor-Leste
when investigators were unwilling to leave their comfort zones and travel to
the municipalities from Dili – the capital. Second, she critiques the UN for
not having processes in place for obtaining the services of forensic and
medical experts to deal with allegations of sexual violence. She notes however
that such expertise was available when dealing with the deceased. This
commentary raises the poignant question of whether a living woman’s search for
justice has lesser value in TJ processes, which appear
to employ more sophisticated forensic strategies when dealing with the dead.
Third, the Timorese government’s attempt to develop a diplomatic relationship
with Indonesia has resulted in the undermining of the Timorese TJ process.
Together, these three points reveal how administrative issues in TJ obstruct
women’s access to justice. Fourth, Pérez Vásquez explores how the public and
private dynamics work in Timorese society where the pressures within the
family, that is – the ‘private’, prevent the women from accessing TJ
institutions – the ‘public’.
Building
on these, Pérez Vásquez moves to the second half of her monograph where her
feminist interventions become more defined. Among these, Chapter 5 ‘Women,
Truth, and Reconciliation: Here Comes the Victim’, is emotion-evoking. In it,
Pérez Vásquez presents how the testimonials before TJ institutions have
attracted double victimisation for Timorese women. When women expose their
traumas before these institutions, they are legally defined as victims. Then
when such women are seen in society, others point and say, ‘here comes the
victim’ (p. 160). What this leads to is a feminisation of victimhood (p. 162).
For instance, she says a tortured man would not be considered a victim and be
treated more as a hero who has made sacrifices during the conflict. Yet, the
paradox here lies in how access to reparations within TJ are targeted at men.
As Pérez Vásquez skilfully shows in Chapter 6, this arises from the societal
perception that ‘men were the most affected’ (p. 178). Within that context, it
is thus ironical to label women who have experienced (particularly sexual)
violence as forever victims or ‘mistresses of the bapas’[3]
(p. 213) whose self-worth is considered to have been forcefully taken by
Indonesian men. There is a distinctly gendered ‘us versus them’ narrative here
that merits further inquiry as it may generate a discourse on the worth of a
woman’s body being assessed in relation to the ethnicity/nationality of the
perpetrator who commits such violence.
Having
drawn the reader’s attention to these gendered problems within TJ’s
administration, Pérez Vásquez reminds us that there are benefits in TJ
if we can ensure that existing discriminatory dynamics are not perpetuated and
exacerbated through TJ processes. In other words, gendered challenges of access
to justice in TJ do not mean that one should throw the proverbial baby out with
the bathwater – rather, it is a plea to make TJ work by effectively addressing
TJ’s gaps. Pérez Vásquez’s data, though based on Timor-Leste, accordingly,
generates nuances that can be applied to critiquing and reformulating TJ
processes more generally irrespective of where it is applied. She demonstrates
this possibility by using many comparative examples throughout the monograph.
Pérez Vásquez inspires intellectual inquiry and provides an affirmative way to
think of TJ through her impressively documented monograph that is well-situated
in literature. It is an excellent critical intervention that helps rethink
women’s access to transitional justice globally.
* PhD
candidate, Kent Law School, University of Kent, UK. dm666@kent.ac.uk
[1] Poem
published in W.H. Auden, Another Time (Random House, 1940).
[2] See, Lia
Kent, ‘Engaging with ‘The Everyday’: Towards a More Dynamic Conception of
Hybrid Transitional Justice’ in Joanne Wallis et al, Hybridity on the Ground
in Peacebuilding and Development: Critical Conversations (ANU Press 2018)
145; Lia Kent, ‘Sounds of Silence: Everyday Strategies of Social Repair in
Timor-Leste’ (2016) 42 Australian Feminist LJ 31; Nicole George and Lia Kent,
‘Sexual violence and hybrid peacebuilding: how does silence ‘speak’?’ (2017) 2
Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal 518; and Lia Kent, ‘Local Memory Practices
in East Timor: Disrupting Transitional Justice Narratives’ (2011) 5 Int’l J of
Transitional Justice 434.
[3]
Indonesian men.