The war, besides the physical harm it causes, also impacts people’s consciousness. It leaves a mark on people’s values and worldviews. The constant suffering and dying forces us to think about humanity and the value of a human life.
“… Vital pieces of infrastructure such as airports, bridges, buildings, roads, power lines and water pipes were ruined. Tens of thousands of landmines and unexploded shells contaminate a big share of the valuable black earth and damage its fertility. The material damage exceeds 500 billion dollars and the lives of 6 million people, who live in the conflict zone, were turned into a nightmare, specifically for the nearly 300.000 people living along the contact line. Some places have been affected so badly that they are no longer inhabitable…” This is how the journalist Christopher Miller sees wartime Donbas.
To those, who observe this suffering and destruction from the outside, some pretty simple questions arise: Who will take responsibility for this? Who will compensate the losses? How to live on after what has happened?
In the course of the public discussions about the text of the law “on special state policies to restore Ukraine’s sovereignty in the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts” the topics of reintegration, peace building, de-occupation and amnesties were often mentioned. It was generally assumed that these processes in eastern Ukraine would be regulated by this very law. This is also why among civil society organizations the law was for a short time dubbed “reintegration law”. In practice, the law did a good job in ignoring the vital questions for life after the liberation of the now occupied territory.
Within the ministry for the temporally occupied territories, the question of peace building is on the agenda and there are even discussions about the formation of peace and reconciliation commissions. Officials in the ministry stated that it will be inevitable to think about how to lead a dialogue with the inhabitants of the territories currently not under the control of the Ukrainian government. They want to achieve peace through a dialogue led by respected social figures. However, on the government level, a tangible strategy for the reintegration has not yet been suggested. It’s therefore worth to take a look at some initiatives coming from civil society.
The NGO “Sila Prava” (the power of law) is fostering a legal project it has drafted, “On pardoning”. In its take on the conflict the NGO specifies that “… an important factor for the de-occupation would be to overcome the psychological barriers that exist for the reunification of the country after having been artificially divided for four years. The construction of such a barrier for the people living in the parallel reality of the occupied territories is consistently enabled by the Russian propaganda, by their secret services and by all sorts of traitors. Similar psychological problems, perhaps less manifestly, are also characteristic for many inhabitants of the free Ukrainian territory. They are in many ways linked to the incessant attempts to force the Minsk scenario on the country, which envisages a nearly complete amnesty for people, who acted in the interest of the aggressor state and against their own country…” So far, this initiative has not yet received broad support.
Instead, human rights organizations focus on the problems of transitional justice. The office of the former special commissioner for human rights formed a working group that laid out a human rights concept to overcome the consequences of the armed conflict. This concept would have to show the government how to act after the end of the conflict, how to relate to the victims and how to build peace.
On how to return Donbas into the fold of Ukraine, journalist Mariana Petsukh has to say the following: “… to all questions and discussions about the future of Donbas I have always only one answer; the children. The future will depend on who these children will become once they grow up, the children who continue to live there and will once save Donbas. That is, they will save it if they get the right kind of support…”
Now, we have to say clearly that one has to think about life after the conflict already now in times of war. We already see that peace will not come easy, one needs to achieve it first. It will be tainted in blood and will require quite some atonement from both sides towards those who have been hurt and those who have been killed. Looking on this process from a legal point of view, Ukraine now needs to define the following elements:
These key moments are reflected in the conceptualization of transitional justice, as a model for how a society can pass from a situation of conflict into a situation of peace. The United Nations has worked out general recommendations for the conduction of key reforms for peace building. However, for the realization of these principles it is important to remember that each armed conflict is unique and that there are no universal recipes for their settlement. This is why for Ukraine at the moment it is paramount to understand that its citizens want to end the bloodshed, retain a united country, and that the government listens to the citizens. Without listening to the citizens and taking their position into account it will be impossible to move on and to enter a more peaceful future.
On October 2 at 16:00 in Poltava Art Museum human rights defenders presented the publication "City, where the war had started" about...
On October 2 at 16:00 in Poltava Art Museum human rights defenders will present the publication "City, where the war had started" ab...
Interactive exhibition of testimonies "On the Rift" about the violation of rights of civilians during the war in Donbas was presente...
The Secretariat of the Coalition «Justice for Peace in Donbas»
04060, Kyiv, Ryzhska str., 73 G