Join the Somaliland Field School: Deadline is November 15!

 

Field School: Unearthing Evidence of Siyad Barre-era War Crimes in Somaliland

 

- This week the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF - epafperu.org), in partnership with the government of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, completed the first phase of an international forensic training program in Hargeisa, Somaliland. The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA - cja.org) is a proud sponsor of this program, which will help determine the universe of missing people through a systematic approach, ante mortem data collection and research of mass and clandestine graves.

 

EPAF is accepting applications until November 15, 2012 to join the second phase of this project, which will run from February 5 to March 3, 2013.

 

Applicants from all disciplines are welcome: Participation in the field school represents a fundamental experience for anybody interested in post-conflict studies, peace studies, human rights, forensics, transitional justice, memory, gender, or any related subject.

 

From 1969 to 1991, president and military dictator Siad Barre oversaw a campaign of widespread atrocities that decimated Somali civil society. To quash separatist movements in the 1980s, the Somali Armed Forces targeted civilians in the northwest, modern-day Somaliland, culminating in the bloody 1988 siege of the regional capital Hargeisa, which claimed at least 5,000 civilian lives.

 

This past August, U.S. Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema awarded $21 million in compensatory and punitive damages against former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar for his role in the slaughter. This judgment marks the first time that any Somali government official has been held accountable for the atrocities perpetrated under that regime

 

» For more information, click here.

 

» For an application, click here.