3
the sustainability of the return, which includes attention to, inter alia, aspects regarding
land ownership.4
16.
In line with the jurisprudence in statu nascendi of this Court on the matter
(supra), in recent years an international practice in the area of restitution of property
has been developed on various continents (e.g., Guatemala, South Africa, Cambodia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Croatia, among others). The Executive Programme
Committee of the UNHCR concluded, in October 2004, that all returnees have the right
to have returned to them “any home, land, or property of which they were illegally,
discriminatorily or arbitrarily deprived, before or during exile, or to receive indemnity
for it”; additionally, it underlined the need for creation of “just and effective
mechanisms” for the return of property and for granting compensation to the
returnees.5
III.
The Need for Reconstruction
and Preservation of Cultural Identity.
17.
The delimitation, demarcation and tilting of communal territories of the N’djukas
of the Moiwana Community, as a form of non-pecuniary reparation, carries much
greater repercussions than one can prima facie anticipate. The Inter-American Court
has recognized, in its Judgment of 6/15/2005 in this case, the relationship between the
N’djuka community with their traditional territory as of “vital spiritual, cultural and
material importance,” even in preserving the “integrity and identity” of their culture.
The Court has warned that “larger territorial land rights are vested in the entire people,
according to N’juka custom; community members consider such rights to exist in
perpetuity and to be unalienable.” (para. 86(6)).
18.
In my Separate Opinion (which I originally wrote in English) to that Court’s
Judgment in the present case of the Moiwana Community versus Suriname, I recalled
that the members of the Moiwana Community, at the public hearing before the Court of
9/9/2004, indicated that the massacre of 1986, planned by the State, had “destroyed
the cultural tradition (…) of the Maroon communities in Moiwana” (para. 80). Beyond
moral damages, in my Opinion I referred to the occurrence of a truly spiritual damage
(paras. 71-81) and, beyond damages to the project of life, I dared to elaborate
conceptually on the damages to the project of after-life (paras. 67-70 and the
following).
19.
The Inter-American Court should, in my opinion, say what the law is, and not
simply limit itself to resolving a matter in controversy. This is my ample understanding
of an international tribunal of human rights, - and in this particular issue I am aware of
UNHCR, document EC/GC/02/5, del 25.04.2002, pp. 1, 3, 5-6 y 11; y cf. UNHCR,
document EC/54/SC/CRP.12, del 07.06.2004, pp. 1-2 y 5 (restitution and compensation). And cf.
also U.N./G.A., document A/AC.96/887, del 09.09.1997, pp. 1-3 y 7; U.N./ECOSOC, document
E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, del 11.02.1998, p. 8; UNHCR, The Problem of Access to Land and
Ownership in Repatriation Operations - Inspection and Evaluation Service, document EVAL/03/98,
May 1998, pp. 1-31.
4
5
U.N./G.A., document A/AC.96/1003, of 10.12.2004, p. 3.