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[Sunniva]: [Automatic captions by Autotekst using OpenAI Whisper V3. May contain recognition errors.]
 Great. Thank you so much for joining and doing this interview. I'll just start off with the first question. So what conclusions did you draw when examining the experiences and views of families of victims killed by the state during the Northern Ireland conflict? Thank you for inviting me today. I am very sorry, but I will speak in Spanish and you will

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[Maria Jose]: read the translation in the subscription. My name is Maria Jose Gembe. I am from Argentina. I am from an organization whose name is CELS, Center for Legal and Social Studies. It's a historical human rights organizations in my country and has been a part of the struggle on proof justice and reparations about the

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grave violations of human rights that occurred during the last military, civic and military dictatorship. I'm going to continue in Spanish. The investigation we did with the survivors and the families of victims of the armed conflict in Northern Ireland

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They demonstrate multiple failures on the part of the State in relation to the investigation of crimes committed by state agents. In particular, it shows the failure to comply with the minimum legal standards established to protect and safeguard the rights of the victims and their families in such cases.

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For example, the testimonies denounce the lack of significant participation by the family members and their legal representatives in the investigations of the facts. This implies, on the one hand, the negative so that they can access official information, which is essential to carry out adequate investigations of the situations that are reported.

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On the other hand, the protection of the identities of people who are suspected of serious violations of human rights, which causes the impossibility of interrelating the cases in order to be able to have an idea of how the repression was, what was the scope, what was the systematization and what were the agencies that participated and under what mechanisms.

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Although anonymity is something that is foreseen in the law, that is, it is something legal, it has consequences in the investigation of serious violations of human rights. On the other hand, the victims denounce serious delays in the cases, and what they mean is that these delays have been deliberate, that is,

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the beginning of the processes has been delayed, the processing has been delayed, and in the cases in which there has been to reiterate some research due to failures that occurred, it has taken too long and more decades and decades have passed in some cases without the investigations advancing.

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These delays are translated into a feeling that some testimonies have transmitted

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that the state authorities are waiting for the survivors to die, for the relatives to die, and even for the accused to give up the treatment of the past once and for all. This is something that appears repeatedly in the testimonies that we take from the panel.

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On the other hand, the families of the victims also manifest that there has been a situation that has been reiterated in almost all cases of state murders, which is the guilt of the victims themselves for their death. This comes from the lack of recognition by the state for its responsibility.

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and the lack of an apology to the victims and even to society. There is no recognition of state responsibility

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which is the first instance that is expected and that is needed so that the victims can obtain some kind of reparation. This has not happened in the case of Ireland, there have been no apologies, in some cases there were apologies privately through a letter or a private communication, but it did not happen publicly and this is related to the guilt of the victims because there was never a

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the names of the victims who were accused of their own deaths were never redeemed. On the other hand, the family members also say that they have not received any kind of rehabilitation measures. The death in violent situations and by state agents, followed by this negative to investigate or to blame anyone for those deaths, has brought a very

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strong and affect physical and mental health and the state did not provide, did not establish any rehabilitation mechanism for those families. Family groups were affected and this also translated into economic affections, because many times it was

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the support of the household, who was no longer there, and on other occasions who had been in charge of the household was not in working conditions, in conditions to support the family, and yet there were no economic compensations.

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fair and adequate. I remark that there was no fair and adequate because some families received sums of money that they register as sums that were delivered arbitrarily because they did not know what were the criteria that were applied to determine the amounts.

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and because there was no legislation or administrative program that would allow access to these economic compensations. So this is something that the victims also register, the relatives register as problematic.

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I talk about victims and I talk about family members, and in some cases indistinctly, because I consider that family members are also victims in these situations. They are victims of the lack of justice, the lack of compliance with state obligations.

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The situation is aggravated or the pain has been aggravated by the intransigence and indifference of the state authorities during all these years. And in many cases we have been able to hear from those who lent us their testimony, with whom we are very grateful because we know how difficult it is to testify over and over again and do it in different areas, we know that it is painful.

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That is why we are from the panel very grateful to all those who came to lend us their experience and revived it. Many of the people recognize that in recent years, through the inquest procedure or other state procedures that had been established from the agreement with the European Human Rights System,

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what is known as the Package of Measures, had begun to advance some investigations and had obtained, in some way, some first... They felt that, in some way, they had started an instance that was sanctioned at the beginning of this year, in May of this year,

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a law that completely closed the investigations. The new political scenario generates, in some of these cases, the expectation that there may be some progress or some modification in this scenario that completely blocked the investigations.

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[Sunniva]: Thank you. And then my second question as well is, would you describe the experiences of families as unique when compared to families in other countries where the state has committed gross human rights violations?

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The truth is that every situation is unique in the individual experience, but unfortunately the situation that we know from the investigation in Northern Ireland does not differ so much from others that occur in other parts of the world. The truth is that impunity is a fairly generalized situation at a global level,

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and the problems that attract the problems that victims face are also common. Impunity is a part of those who committed violations of human rights, many times they continue to occupy positions of power at the time of reviewing what has been done or the past,

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and use that influence to prevent investigations from progressing or because the judicial systems have not been cleared or are corrupt or are still under the influence of those who committed the violations and avoid

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investigations or impartial trials. On the other hand, in many situations, the lack of political will is also noticeable, or even the fear that there may be destabilization of the social or political order, and this also contributes to the fact that concrete actions are not implemented to investigate and sanction those responsible.

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In some situations, the complicity of international actors or the lack of pressure from international actors also goes to the detriment that serious or impartial investigations can be carried out and produce the perpetuation of victimization. The question is that the burden always falls on the victims. It is always the victims who demand justice, many times

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are the victims themselves or the organizations that have formed the ones that carry out the investigations. An example in my country is that of the grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, for example, who for many years, what should have been a public policy in search of the children who were robbed during the dictatorship,

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ended up being the action of a small organization carried out by family members, who were the ones who mostly found and were able to recover the identity of many children who had been robbed. Just in the last 20 years the state took charge of that as a real public policy, and this happens in a lot of places,

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In Rwanda del Norte, civil society organizations have been fundamental in accompanying victims, in fighting all the time to overcome obstacles, and even in carrying out investigations or memory policies of what happened.

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However, despite this situation, what we could notice is that there is a trust in justice as a value on the part of the victims in Northern Ireland or the families. Although there are also all these failures on the part of the state, of the authorities in compliance with their obligations, justice continues to prevail as a value to be sought.

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and also the expectation that some responsibility can be recognized, that response mechanisms can be implemented. They expect to see the accused behind bars, but what is most expected

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demonstrated in being able to clarify the facts, in being able to, themselves, their families, their close groups and the society in which they live, have a clear idea of what happened and who were responsible for those events. That seems to be, in the testimonies we take, what stands out as a general perspective.

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[Sunniva]: Great, thanks again for that. And unless you have anything else final you'd like to add? If you do, if not, I would just like to say thank you so much for joining the event and giving an interview. And thank you for the participating in the in the report in general. Okay, thank you.