6620-week x-records & rights

8/6/2019 6620-Week X-Records & Rights

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RECORDS & RIGHTSNov 5, 2010


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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN

RIGHTS

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

What does this document mean?

What are rights?
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/


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TRUDYH. PETERSON

ARCHIVES IN SERVICE TO THE STATE

Scavengers

How to return or regain (or both) the records

armies have seized?

Every major national archival system at somepoint has or will have seized materials.


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WHY DO ARMIES SEIZE RECORDS?

To gain info on the plans of their opponents

To understand the organization of the opposing

government

To protect the records from destruction by theopposing state

To obtain documents to make public (the horrors

of their enemies)

To destroy evidence


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THE CHARACTER OF SEIZED RECORDS?

WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq

Categories of Records:

Government records

Records from governments other than the one in conflict

Records from political parties

Holdings from archives

Records from Cultural Institutions

Records from local governments, private businesses and

other organizations

Records from individuals with some sort of connection to

combatant


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MUST RECORDSALWAYS FALL IN THE

HANDS OF THEVICTOR?

Laws of War/International Law

Treaties

Records of the State

Papers of Prisoners of War What about Archives???


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SIMPLIFY THE RULES

No Personal Pillage,

Turn Over to Military or Occupational Authorities

ASAP all Documents Seized,

No Destruction of Seized Documents,After Analysis, Return All Documents NOT Required

for Military or Intelligence Needs,

No Seizure of Records of Neutral Parties (Such as

Embassies & UN Establishments), No Seizure of Historical Archives & Manuscript

Collections


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QUESTIONS???

Without access to records, rights and memory all

cease to exist. So, who do records belong to?

Those with power over the records maintain some

level of control over those the records pertain to

(And conversely gaining access to those records

empowers people who can use those records to

hold government accountable).

What right then does the victor have? What

right does the loser have?


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WHAT HAPPENED IN 1948?

UN Decision to Create a Jewish State after WWII

November 30, 1947 UN votes to terminate

British Mandate of Palestine

1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine (alsocalled the Arab-Israeli War)

Five Arab States (Eqypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and

Syria)

Israel won but aftermath is still being debated

among scholars and historians today


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PHOTOGRAPHING LOSS

Memorial Books sometimes resemble albums

Focus on a gesture, a pointing finger, repeated

throughout the images

Where a house or mosque once stood?

The site of an ancestors grave?

Family farmlands? Village lands?

What is now versus What once was

Here of exile opposed to the distant There ofthe past homeland

Goes beyond words???


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RECORDS OF DISPOSSESSION:PALESTINIAN REFUGEE PROPERTY& THEARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT

1948 Britain Left Palestine causing a

distribution of land documents/records:

2,160 films in Britain alone

Registers dealing with Jewish land were given to the

Jewish Agency for Palenstine

Those from Palestinian areas given to the Supreme

Muslim Council

The UN created International Zone had the

Jerusalem YMCA where the Jerusalem recordsresided

Other land records other than registers were left in

the land departments headquarters at the Russian

Compound in Jersualem


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WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RECORDS???

Fighting resulted in several things happening

Registers for Beersheba district lost

Bulk of land registers given to the Supreme Muslim

Council bounced around from place to place

Officials on both sides would transfer items or takepersonal control of records (again going from one office to

another)

Films in London became more and more attractive (since

they were not going anywheremore stable)

Both Israel and the UNCCP (United Nations ConciliationCommission for Palestine) wanted the records

British wanted to give the originals to Israel and copies to

the UNCCP

Started a 20 year effort of the Arab League to get paper

copies of these records from the UNCCP


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FEBRUARY3, 1967

Reps from Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syriarequested copies from the UNCCP (a week andhalf later Israel launched the June 1967 war)

George H.W. Bush (US Ambassador), UNCCP

and the UN legal council basically got togetherand agreed to provide copies (Nov 6, 1972)

Egypt was the first to start receiving copies

Jordon was next

The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization)requested copies in 1982 and received thefinished copies in May 1984

Would this lead to actions of the PropertyIssue???


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QUESTIONS???

Was the UNCCP justified? Or was too much of it

based on bad feelings?

Who did the records really belong to? The British

just because they put them in film format? Does

preservation or ownership prevail?


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WHAT JUSTICE? WHOSE JUSTICE?

FIGHTING FOR FAIRNESS IN LATINAMERICA

Truth & Reconciliation (Four Roles):

Establishing Truth

Acknowledging Victims Stories to Promote Healing

Bringing Justice

Creating Collective Memory to AVOID Repeating the

Past

The role of memory is crucial to both individual

and society healing

Without memory the authoritarian regime becomesthe victor

Forgetting the extermination is part of the

extermination itself


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DIRTYWAR

Argentine War Against Subversion (1976-83)

30,000+ Murders & Disappearances

Leaders after 1983 voted to protect lower-ranking

officers from prosecution for their human rightsviolations

Pardon was granted to top officials in 1989-1999

Four Argentine confessions examined

Scilingo & the Remorseful Confession Astiz & the Heroic Confession

Julian the Turk & the Exchange Confession

Pernias & Rolon Deposed


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TEAMACTIVITY

Three teams each will take one of the first

three cases

You have 15 minutesgive me

Pick a team leader

Give me a brief summary

Tell me how this case works with the authors

argument:

Audience responses to the confession, rather thanthe confessional text and setting alone, have a

profound impact on truth-telling,

acknowledgment, justice and collective

memory


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QUESTIONS???

In the chapter on confessions in What Justice?

Whose Justice?, the belief of confessions helping

to lead to reconciliation is tested by four

Argentine confessions. Murder and torture is

instead justified. The writings from Fischbachand Peterson seem to hint that to the victor go

the spoils (in this case, records). These three hint

that justice is truly in the eye of the beholder.

How then can laws truly guarantee justice? In one country or many?

Is justice a right?

Could the title have been What Record? Whose

Record?


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JAMES DICKERSON

DIXIES DIRTYSECRET

Watchdog Commisions

Secret Police Force

Memphis one of the most powerful crime cartels

Edward Hull Boss Crump Mayor of Memphis (3 Times)

U.S. Representative (2 Terms)

Owned Senator Kenneth McKellar

(served from 1916-1952) and acting VP

after FDRs death

The election of Truman, Senator Estes

Kefauver and Senator Albert Gore

spelled the end of Crumps power


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MEMPHIS GATHERING

J. Edgar Hoover (FBI)

Carlos Little Man Marcello (Kingpin of the

Dixie Mafia)

Both friends with NY mobster Frank Costello

Both unrepentant racists

Federation for Constitutional Government

Surprisingly enough, McKellar did not like

Hoover and confronted him openly (but this also

showed the power of Crump and McKellar)

Memphis cartel had a more liberal view of race

relations that did not go along with Costellos

bigotry


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QUESTIONS???

Do they (FBI or the state of Mississippi in the

case of the Sovereignty Commission) have the

right to the organizations collective memory via

the viewing of the records they kept?

As part of the nations collective memory, should

the information be available to everyone?

Why on page 218 does the author say that it was

civil rights activists mainly interested in blocking

access?