A Displaced Scholar Visits Chile to Explore Paths to Transitional Justice
Columbia Global Emerging Scholars Fellow and Yemeni researcher Adel Dashela visited historical sites in Chile and met with local experts to learn what lessons he could take home from Chile's transition to democracy.
What can the history of a nation that has transitioned to democracy teach displaced scholars about their own native countries' struggles? A recent visit to Chile by a Columbia Global Emerging Scholars Fellow shows how these lessons resonate through in-person experiences.
Adel Dashela, a displaced Yemeni researcher who is currently based at Columbia Global Center Amman, used his two-week visit in late January and early February to examine Chile's innovative approaches to transitional justice, reparations, national reconciliation, and the protection of human rights. Adel explored historical sites and attended discussions with local experts, looking for insights that Yemen, which has been devastated by war and political fragmentation, can draw from Chile's transition from dictatorship.
Adel said the insights he gained could help his research "develop culturally appropriate frameworks for engaging Yemeni tribal structures and social groups—such as women, youth, and marginalized communities—in reconciliation processes, truth-telling mechanisms, inclusive national dialogue, and sustainable peace-building initiatives.”
Historical Sites
Led by his hosts at Columbia Global Center Santiago, Adel visited sites that played a pivotal role in Chile's 17-year dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. These included the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago’s General Cemetery, and former clandestine detention and torture centers, such as Villa Grimaldi, Londres 38, Casa de Memoria José Domingo Cañas, and the National Stadium, which once served as the country’s largest detention and torture site. He also explored the Fundación de Documentación y Archivo Vicaría de la Solidaridad, an institution that preserves critical evidence of the crimes of the Pinochet regime.
Expert Discussions
Adel met with local scholars and human rights advocates who played instrumental roles both under Pinochet and during Chile’s transition to democracy.
Elizabeth Lira, who played a critical role in shaping Chile’s transitional justice policies, addressed the concepts of reparation and amnesty, the social process of reconciliation, and how the Chilean dictatorship sought to ensure impunity before the transition to democracy.
Adel also met with Boris Hau, a professor at Universidad Alberto Hurtado and a member of the Transitional Justice Observatory at Universidad Diego Portales, who discussed the work of truth commissions that documented cases of executions, disappearances, political imprisonment and torture, as well as the critical role victims' families had in demanding justice.
Other discussions focused on how communities reclaimed properties that the dictatorship had used for torture and detention, and the vital role played by legal and social assistance groups during the Pinochet regime.
From Thinking to Doing
Adel is now planning articles and media engagements in Arabic will ensure that the experiences and knowledge he gained in Chile spreads to broader audiences who are concerned with justice, memory, and human rights in Yemen.
