2.2.3 Complex violations and shared responsibility

Solving the problem presented in the previous section can cause other problems. Continuing with the previous example, you can see that the representation must admit the possibility that each victim may have suffered execution, torture, and detention. Adding another layer of complexity, the responsibility for each separate violation within an event may have been shared between perpetrators. For example, how should the organization represent information that George and Lisa Jones were detained by the National Guard, but that they were tortured and killed by the Federal Police? Consider the possibility below.

This representational scheme shows that John Smith was detained, tortured and killed. Therefore this representation avoids the problem described in Section 2.2.1. It appears that the perpetrators of the crimes against John Smith were the National Guard and the Federal Police. Following the table, George and Lisa Jones suffered the same fate committed by the same perpetrators. However, there is a problem in the representation. From this structure, it is unclear whether the National Guard committed the execution, the torture, or the detention of John Smith: the Guard may have committed one, two, or all three of the violations. The responsibility of the Federal Police in this case is equally ambiguous. Note that our original information from the deponents may have been utterly clear about which perpetrator (the National Guard or the Federal Police) committed which violation: it is the representation which has introduced the ambiguity.

The assignment of responsibility for each violation must be as clear and unequivocal as the original sources permit. Information about an alleged perpetrator must not be separated from the violation the perpetrator was alleged to have committed. The only simple solution to both problems is presented below in Example 2.2.3.2.

In this example, it is clear that John Smith was detained by both the National Guard and by the Federal Police. The Police tortured him, and the Police and the Guard together killed him, that is, the two organizations shared responsibility for the act. An officer of the Guard may have ordered soldiers from the Police to commit the act, or a combined unit may have carried out the execution. In the cases of George and Lisa Jones, it seems that the National Guard detained them and then the Federal Police tortured and killed them.

This representation is neither elegant nor complete: for example, it is sloppy to repeat the names of victims who suffered abuses by more than one perpetrator. We may also want to know more about each victim, e.g., her or his age and sex. Furthermore, it is not immediately clear how to count total victims of any kind of violation: John Smith, George Jones, and Lisa Jones are each repeated, so to get the number of victims of particular kind of violation, we cannot simply count the number of lines in the table since violations with multiple perpetrators will be counted twice. Finally, the event in which George and Lisa Jones were detained, tortured, and killed together, not separately, is artificially divided between the two victims: we have lost the coherence of the event. There are solutions to these problems, but they lead the discussion into much more complex structural issues. These will be briefly addressed in Section 3.4.

In summary, the basic rule for all representations is

the victim and the violation s/he suffered must not be separated from the information about who committed the violation, when and where it happened, and in what context the violation happened. The connection must be made at the level of the violation (the act), because any other level leaves open the possibility of confusing who did what to whom.