We recognize that reconciliation is not easy to achieve: it is among the most difficult emotional acts. people are Never called upon to embrace. The process of reconciliation is often long and laborious. Reconciliation occurs one person at a time.

Reconciliation Forum Program

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18

The ABC Reconciliation Forum begins the evening of Wednesday, March 18 at the National Portrait Gallery at 7pm with a cocktail reception. The Archbishop Desmond Tutu will inaugurate the Forum with an opening address alongside Rabbi Lau, the Chief Rabbi of Israel and the President of Yad Vashem. This address will be followed by a dinner, produced by world-renowned hostess Jennifer Rubell. The evening will end with a keynote address by Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

THURSDAY, MARCH 19

Formal discussions commence on Thursday, March 19 at the Inter-American Development Bank, with remarks by Forum Co-Chairmen: IADB president Luis Alberto Moreno and Televisa Chairman and CEO Emilio Azcarraga. The premiere of a short film on reconciliation by Jesse Dylan will follow. The Thursday morning sessions fall under the rubric "Reconciliation in the Americas."

Aldo Civico, director of Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution, leads a discussion about balancing justice and reconciliation. Panel members include former Peruvian Prime Minister Yehude Simon, who was jailed during Alberto Fujimori's dictatorial regime and Oded Grajew, president of the Ethos Institute of Business and Social Responsibility. Brazilian pop music star and former culture minister Gilberto Gil will also offer his experiences during this session.

This session will be followed by a session on the Power of Repentance, which will feature Frank Meeink, a former skinhead and founder of the Hockey for Harmony Foundation whose life inspired the film American History X.

Next the Forum will hold a session on “Inclusive Justice: Transforming Fear to Hope” featuring Karen Tse, Founder and CEO of International Bridges to Justice, an organization that promotes systemic global change in the administration of criminal justice.

Also Thursday morning, David Adams, the Latin America correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times, moderates "Cuba's Reconciliation Inside and Out," a discussion between Philip Peters, vice president of the Lexington Institute, Damian Fernandez, professor of Latin American and international relations and author, as well as Julia Sweig, Director for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Damian Fernandez, Provost of Purchase College.

Thursday's events conclude at the Holocaust Museum, with the series, "Remembering the Holocaust and Modern Genocide." Speakers for this afternoon include former Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Sara Bloomfield, Director of the Holocaust Museum and Nesse Godin, Holocaust survivor and human rights activist.

FRIDAY MARCH 20

Discussions resume Friday morning at the Inter-American Development Bank with a joint presentation by Zogby International, PODER Magazine and Newsweek Magazine, "Zogby Reconciliation Poll: Americas' Young Globals." The session will feature John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International, Jonathan Tepperman, a journalist for Newsweek Magazine and Daniel Eilemberg, US Editor for PODER Magazine.

This will be followed by a session entitled "Children: The Most Innocent Victims of Conflict." The session will be moderated by Emilio Azcarraga, Chairman and Founder of the Americas Business Council with speakers including Ishmael Beah, former child soldier in Sierra Leone, Francis Bok, who was enslaved in Sudan when he was a boy, and Lina Marcela Ortiz Restrepo, a victim of Guerrilla violence in Colombia.

Thursday morning, the Forum will feature a session entitled "When the Walls Came Down" -- an interview of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev by Moises Naim, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy Magazine.

Next, the forum will feature a session on Native Peoples, featuring Russell Charles Means, who served as the first national director of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and became one of the organization's best-known spokespeople.

On Friday afternoon the Forum delves into one of its most troubling themes with "Closing the Chapter of Genocide." Featured speakers for this session include Paul Rusesabagina, founder of the Paul Rusesabagina Hotel Rwanda Foundation; Manute Bol, a former NBA basketball star now helping to build schools in his native Sudan; and John Prendergast, founder of the ENOUGH Project to End Genocide Everywhere. This session will be moderated by John Heffernan, Director of the Genocide Prevention Initiative of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee on Conscience.

Steve Killelea, the creator of the Global Peace Index and chairman of Integrated Research Ltd, presides over "Leveraging Profits Through Business, Peace and Reconciliation," which will explore the humanitarian potential of capitalism. He will exchange ideas with international business experts, including Ethan Allen Interiors CEO Farooq Kathwari, Frederick Barton, senior advisor in the CSIS International Security Program, and Georg Kell, executive head of the United Nations Global Compact.

This session will be followed by a session featuring James Nachtwey, a world-renowned and award-winning photojournalist who will provide images for many of the narratives of conflict of the Forum. Nachtwey has been covering global conflicts for over 30 years. In 2001, he became one of the founding members of the VII photo agency.

Friday afternoon will also discuss one of the world's most reconciliation-proof conflicts in a session entitled “Closing the Chapter in the Middle East." The session will feature James Zogby, Arab-American Institute president, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. and Israel’s former Chief Negotiator with Syria, as well as Kamal Beyoghlow, Professor at the National War College and previously part of the Office of the US Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the US Department of State.

The final session will be “A Profile in Reconciliation,” which will feature Ted Sorensen, of counsel at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and a writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel and advisor.

The 2009 ABC Reconciliation Forum closes Friday night at 6pm at the Inter-American Development Bank with a final reflection by Archbishop Tutu.
The 2009 ABC Reconciliation Forum closes Friday night at 6pm at the Inter-American Development Bank with a final reflection by Archbishop Tutu.

 

The 2009 ABC Reconciliation Forum closes Friday night at 6pm at the Inter-American Development Bank with a final reflection by Archbishop Tutu.