You say that Ukraine is already using transitional justice. What does that mean?
Transitional justice is based on four pillars: compensation for victims, the right to the truth, justice, and guarantees that the tragedy will not be repeated. I analyzed Ukrainian legislation (I needed it in my work on memorialization) and learned that for the first time the Ukrainian parliament applied an element of transitional justice in 1991 — it voted the “Chornobyl” law.
Then the state realized that it had to evacuate citizens from the Chornobyl zone, resettle them, and most importantly is to compensate for what was lost as a result of the disaster.
In April 1991, the parliament passed a law on the rehabilitation of politically repressed people in the USSR. In essence, the law made it possible to realize the right to truth and ensure justice. The parliament recognized that the Soviet regime had committed crimes against Ukrainians.
Two thousand families of "Chornobyl survivors" were forced to protest to defend their right to benefits and social assistance.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
Back then, the Soviet parliament, six months before the declaration of independence, set a certain legal framework. It turned out to be imperfect, though.
When it comes to compensation for “Chornobyl victims”, the law does not say that it was a crime, although there was already a criminal case [about the causes of the Chornobyl accident], there were convictions [against the leaders of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant].
The law called the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant a “catastrophe”. And the law on those politically repressed by the Soviet regime mentions a crime, but there is nothing about compensation.
And when my colleagues now tell me, letʼs develop legislation from scratch, I answer: "What about previous experience? Letʼs study it!"
For example, when society discusses the reintegration of veterans, letʼs analyze our mistakes and lessons, with those who fought in Afghanistan as part of the Soviet troops.
But the state provided some social support, benefits to soldiers who returned from Afghanistan.
Yes. But that was later, in 1993. At first, the state did not know what to do with them. The “Afghans” united themselves, mostly they fought for compensation and benefits, and not for reintegration programs, because in the 1990s the economy was in crisis.
And this was one of the key mistakes that the state and civil society made. And we already know its price, understanding it, we must build modern programs for our veterans.
In September 2011, the "Afghans" from "Nobody but Us" and other categories of beneficiaries demanded the resignation of the parliament, which wanted to limit benefits. Protesters stormed the Rada several times.
So when Iʼm told that we need to start from scratch and build a separate ecosystem for transitional justice, I want to joke that transitional justice requires a separate Cabinet and a separate parliament...
Why? Other countries didnʼt have separate parliaments for transitional justice, and they somehow managed.
Can we say that other countries have truly transitioned from civil wars or dictatorships to sustainable peace? That they have solved all the problems associated with the transition? No, that is why there is a problem.
In 2014, I was in Bosnia, we were in Srebrenica, where Bosnian Muslims were being killed. The genocide there was made possible, in part, by those who were supposed to protect Bosniaks but didnʼt. And they were partly responsible for it.
After the peacekeepers left Srebrenica, the Republika Srpska troops killed 8 000 Bosniaks.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
Itʼs about Dutch peacekeepers, obviously. But they were later tried in the Netherlands, and the country later apologized to the Bosniaks, if Iʼm not mistaken.
There were suicides among these soldiers, and there was a court decision in The Hague. But this happened 20 years after the tragedy and did not give the local population a sense of justice. Local experts told me that Bosnia itself did nothing and waited for the Dutch peacekeepers to be brought to justice somewhere abroad.
It seems to me that this weakened Bosnia, which effectively replaced its own institutions with international ones. Later, they began to investigate war crimes themselves, but too much time passed.
An important conclusion I drew from that trip: the end of war does not guarantee lasting peace. Positive peace, as it is also called.
What do you mean?
In the 1960s, Norwegian researcher Johan Galtung identified two types of peace: “negative” and “positive”. “Negative peace” occurs when armed conflict ends. But this does not guarantee that people will stop suffering from psychological violence, repression, injustice, or that they will be able to exercise their rights.
Therefore, “negative peace” is not enough. Instead, “positive peace” occurs when the state creates conditions for equality, justice, and development, and society can move on.
Transitional justice was used in countries where there were internal conflicts, and we have an international conflict. There have been no similar situations in history. So why do we say that we need transitional justice? Maybe we need something else?
I would explain it this way. Our problems began to accumulate from the Maidan and the Revolution of Dignity, even earlier. The state during Yanukovychʼs time built a dictatorship, law enforcement officers persecuted activists.
Then Yanukovych fled, and here — 70 kilometers from me (and Iʼm from Kherson) — the occupation of Crimea begins, then the war in the east.
Russia was preparing the occupation of Crimea when the Maidan was burning. And already on February 26, 2014, Russian military personnel without insignia seized the Crimean parliament.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
The transition from an authoritarian regime required transitional justice. International experts also campaigned for this. We created both state agencies and the Ministry of Reintegration. There is the Representation of the President of Ukraine in Crimea, which, despite the fact that Crimea is occupied, has developed excellent policies.
They are now being used for other occupied territories. For example, programs of assistance and support for internally displaced persons, programs of education for children with disabilities. Letʼs audit everything that has proven effective, and we will scale it up.
Okay, whatʼs stopping you from doing that?
It is necessary to build a dialogue between different groups. There are conventional conceptualists — academia, civil society, politicians, foreign advisors. And there are practitioners who do it all by hand. The proposals of conceptualists often sound cool, but in practice they do not work.
For example, after de-occupation, people need to restore their documents. Here, the migration service at a meeting says that it will close this issue without any problems in seven days. Practice shows that sometimes people have to wait weeks and months, at best.
What should people do? Without documents, they can’t do anything: apply for assistance, repair damaged houses, apply for support programs, give testimony.
Or, for example, supporting victims of conflict-related sexual violence. They are helped by NGOs, and the state withdraws when it sees this. However, NGOs cannot do this forever and cannot cover all the needs of victims. The state does not even always understand which NGOs to refer victims to.
There have been attempts to change something, even a law has been passed, but without money and institutions, it is an emptiness. This is a vicious practice of both the public sector and politicians: to pass laws and then nullify them through bylaws, either through complicated procedures or in other ways.
Діма Вага / «Бабель»
If we have already talked about sexual violence related to conflicts. Now its victims are paid urgent, interim compensation so that they can pay for psychologists or doctors. But victims of other terrible crimes are also waiting. There is a case of Sierra Leone: first of all, compensation was given to people who lost limbs during the war. The amounts were small, the money quickly ran out, other victims received nothing, society is dissatisfied.
Moreover, people inflicted self-mutilation to raise themselves in the conditional ranking of applicants for compensation. It is important that groups of victims do not compete with each other. As soon as we single out a certain category, we launch a competition.
Letʼs also be honest: the driver of these competitions in Ukraine was, in particular, civil society. I remember (especially until 2022) how much traumatic experience was brought by the actions of organizations that were used to working with victims of sexual violence, but with a focus on women.
During the great war, we got a completely different portrait of victims: they are mostly men, and working with them requires different approaches. Crimes against children are also terrible, but we have neither interim reparations nor compensation for them.
We adopted the law "On Reparations", received stars on the fuselage from experts, public organizations, donors. But how to implement it? It is unclear, because it was adopted on the basis of conceptual beauties, and not based on the real situation. And the victims of CRSV continue to be off the radar of the system.
Another thing is that we often perceive help as a promise of money, rather than through services and amenities. A person under stress, with PTSD, may use money ineffectively and remain in emptiness and even greater frustration.
We need to analyze our experience, but who should do it? The state, public organizations?
Formally, this is the authority of the Ministry of Development, but it is not moving much. This topic is being promoted by experts and donors. The state should definitely investigate what it is doing and what public organizations are doing, and somehow align it.
Now this topic is important for a part of civil society that says that we need to act. Unfortunately, there are those who openly make money on these topics: you can always hold conferences in luxurious hotels, bring in a few more international experts, conduct a new online course.
There are politicians who use this to publicize and earn points with quick and easy solutions that do not actually help the victims.
Діма Вага / «Бабель»
Until there is a body that will develop a comprehensive vision, we will not move. Right now, everyone agrees that transitional justice is needed, but when you get into the details, the problems begin. Theory is different from reality, and there is no single constructive vision.
In general, no one is ready to have an adult conversation. Donors often care about formal indicators, not results. It is also important for them to involve their foreign experts who do not have relevant experience or are not ready to take into account a different context. It is important for others to push their own idea. And no one is ready to compromise.
Besides, there are things that need to be changed, but it wonʼt be popular. For example, try to change the article of the Criminal Code on collaborationism now. It wonʼt work. And most importantly, we have a lot of ideas, but few people who will implement them.
Do we need transitional justice for reconciliation with Russia? Do we need reconciliation with Russia at all?
I donʼt want to think about Russia, I have my own country. Russians live in a dictatorship, let them think about their own transition.
But we need to think about the problems that the occupation of our territories has created. For example, in the context of memorialization. What will we do with the “Alley of Angels” in Donetsk?
It is about children who have died since 2014 in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Russians are using them to the maximum in their propaganda against Ukraine. But these are Ukrainian children who became victims of the armed conflict that Russia started. And it made this memorial.
What will we do with it?
Since these are Ukrainian children and they died during the war, I think we should leave it, but investigate who died and how, and tell about it all. In particular, about Russian propaganda.
Itʼs just you and I have talked about it. But in reality, there are a lot of questions here, and there are a lot of such monuments in the occupied territories. We need to work with this.
We have a unique experience that others will adopt. For example, colleagues from the Revolution of Dignity Museum said that at some point, colleagues from Taiwan and Hong Kong (which became part of China in 1997) began to come to them en masse and were interested in our experience, because there were also street confrontations there.
And the last thing I want to say. We have enough analytics, recommendations, and advice. But there is a crisis in applying them in practice. There is no desire to take responsibility and make "long-term" decisions instead of temporary ones.