Mr President-elect,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to .
Welcome to a Stockholm clothed in spring.

Those of you who attended the Stockholm International Forum on Conscience and Humanity in past years will remember a quite different – cold and snowy – city.

For us who live in northern Europe , spring is an important time of the year, a time when life returns to grass and flowers, when the sun returns with its warmth, filling people with love and laughter.
* * *
One mild spring evening eight years ago I was walking home. The water glittered under the bridges and the air was filled with birdsong.

When I got home I switched on the TV to watch the news. The scenes on the screen have remained in my memory ever since. From a mountain, the camera zoomed in on the river below. It might have been a beautiful shot of an equally beautiful African landscape. But this time the camera lens was taking in something utterly horrifying. The river water, that at first sight seemed muddy, was filled with bodies, the bodies of children.

This was in April 1994, and the whole world was watching.
Day after day was in the spotlight.
We were witnessing a horrendous slaughter, a genocide.

At roughly the same time, the Balkan conflict caught the world’s attention. Not a day went by without reports of rape and mass murder.
Not a day went by without reports of atrocities – atrocities beyond our comprehension.

Today, the eyes of the world are on the Middle East . From the top floor of a hotel the TV cameras are trained on the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the tanks moving outside. In another report we get news of wounded and dead after a terror bombing in a market place.

The entire world watches.
The focus is on the conflict, the shooting, the horror and the pain.

It is both logical and necessary that the current dramatic developments in the Middle East catch our immediate attention.
The violence must stop!

But, ladies and gentlemen,

is still an open wound.
still needs the world’s attention.
As does every other traumatised country trying to find a way back to a normal life in peace.

Every conflict contains the seeds of a new one.

We must see this.

As I put it at earlier conferences, quoting Elie Wiesel:

“Will our past become our children’s future?”

We need to work more attentively and efficiently at discovering and preventing conflicts.

We need to cooperate and to share knowledge and experience.

We need to put the process of reconciliation on the political agenda.
* * *
The first Stockholm International Forum dealt with the Holocaust, with the importance of remembrance, education and research.

Last year, the Stockholm International Forum discussed how best to combat anti-democratic forces and the evil ideologies of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in our societies today.

Recent events in Europe show the importance of this.

Let us now, for the next two days, concentrate specifically on the difficult period of after.
On what happens after genocide, massacres, mass atrocities and violation of human rights.
On the complex political, social and psychological process of reconciliation.
There are no models – only examples.

What about Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Rwanda?
Cambodia?

What experience has been gained from these countries; what can be learned from them?

What are the mechanisms of reconciliation?
How much truth can a society digest about its past?
How far can the quest for justice be pursued?

Forgiveness – is there really such a word when neighbour has been pitted against neighbour?
Dear friends,

The questions are many.

There is no easy way.
There is no single road.

Those of you with experience of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in know this.

Those of you from the former with experience of bridging hostility and distrust know this.

Those of you from with experience of re-using the traditional Gacaca system know this very well.

Reconciliation is an arduous task – a long-term process.

It contains the quest for “transitional justice” that can lay the ground for democratic development and respect for human rights.

It demands from us – from politicians, researchers and others – courage, awareness and the will to share responsibility.
* * *
Dear friends,

In a small village east of Kigali in lives a woman called Donnata. I read about her in Amnesty Press.

Along with five other women – three of them widows since 1994 – Donnata manages to grow rice and earn enough to support their children. She says:

“When my husband was imprisoned I felt lost, didn’t know how to go on. Now the other women help me, and I have never felt that they treat me differently because my husband is accused of genocide. When I visit him to bring him extra food, I can leave my son with my neighbour whose husband was killed.”

And she emphasises, full of hope:

“To me, this proves that reconciliation is possible.”

What Donnata is talking about is democracy in everyday life.

When we come close, meet and work together – this discovery is not far away;

there are more similarities between us than differences.
* * *
There are hopeful signs, and less hopeful ones.

Deliberately infected by aids, a large number of mothers are now dying in , leaving an increasing number of orphans behind.

Deliberately infected – and unable to testify.

Ms Esther Mujawayo-Keiner, survivor of the genocide, will testify shortly.

Please, accept a warm welcome to Stockholm .
* * *
Hope is undoubtedly brought by the news that over 60 states now have ratified the Rome Statute.

At last, the dream fostered by so many, of a permanent international criminal court with a mandate to implement justice against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, can come true.

At last, we will have a court that can bring justice when states fail to do so.

In the future, no one should be beyond the reach of justice. I call on all other states to ratify the Rome Statute.
* * *
Dear friends,

Hope we will need.
Patience we will need.
But also strength.

Reconciliation can never be forced on people.
It has to grow from inside.

It has to grow out of the mountain of disparate feelings, which is the burden of the survivors.

It can grow only when there are no longer “we” and “they”, when there are no “others”.

It will grow when we meet as equals in dignity and rights.
* * *
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Freedom. Unity. Independence .

Many beautiful words fit the man I now turn to.

It is a great honour to introduce the President-elect of East Timor, Mr Xanana Gusmão. I would like to congratulate you Mr President on the overwhelming victory in the recent elections. You personify the long struggle for freedom and the striving towards reconciliation.

Welcome to Stockholm .

Welcome to you all.

Welcome to the Stockholm International Forum on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation.

Thank you.