Why truth commissions offer uncertain promises of justice

This is my 200th Business Daily column, and over the last seven years I’d like to think I’ve done a reasonable job of holding on to the truth, being just and helping to reconcile people.

When I reluctantly agreed to become a columnist, I never imagined I’d be able to keep going for this long. But it is now an integral part of my life, forcing me to be forever on the lookout for how I can usefully fill my next quota of a thousand words.

Speaking of truth, justice and reconciliation, in my article on Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) last week I promised I’d write more about the launch I recently attended of ‘‘Stretching the Truth: The Uncertain Promise of TRC’s in Africa’s Transitional Justice,’’ by George Wachira, together with Prisca Kamungi and Kalie Sillah.

In my last article, I largely reproduced what I had written six years before on the subject of TRCs, as a result of Mr Wachira and others having educated me on the many reasons why such grandiose projects—never mind one like ours that added the “J” alongside the “T” and the “R”— were high risk ventures.

Those who spoke at the book launch posed many questions about transitional justice. Why do we want the truth? What will we do with it?

Whose, truth, whose justice, whose reconciliation are we seeking? While acknowledging the right of victims to establish the truth, how do we go beyond that to handle the expectations of reparation and reconciliation?

What institutions do we have to deal with the truth revealed by a TRC? Are they sufficiently disconnected from the past from which we are trying to move on? Do TRCs merely buy time and postpone hard decisions? And have we been afraid to confront perpetrators?

As with many other topics, we heard, with TRCs “we are first entertained, then bored… and then we simply forget”. Our new Constitution led us to expect that we would implement the recommendations of our TJRC, but have already forgotten about them?

Airing the truth may have been somewhat helpful, but for sure anger and injustice will persist unless solutions are pursued. Indeed, the project rekindled emotions that had cooled over the years, and unreasonably raised victims’ expectations.

Mr Wachira’s motivation for studying TRCs came from the drama in South Africa and the performance of Desmond Tutu, who inspired many to pull themselves and others forward from earlier atrocities (even though subsequently we have seen that the impact was perhaps not so great after all).

Mr Wachira sat through some of the TRC hearings in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana, and he was disturbed by how unimpressive they were, motivating him to address the challenges raised. Were they really victim-centred? Did they contribute to reconciliation?

Was truth merely being rushed at without sufficient concern for the unique needs of each situation? Surely, there was need for deeper thinking, he felt, to help prepare for future TRCs and see how they could support transitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes, from violence to peace.

The first TRC took place in Chile, where General Pinochet handed over power to a democratically elected government.

But before doing so he ensured a full amnesty for himself and others and made himself senator for life —allowing him to go along with the establishment of the commission. It was, as a result, just a political tool to buy time, pretending to do something while actually encouraging impunity.

At least there the truth that had been hidden was revealed, even if no justice resulted. By contrast in Kenya we already pretty much knew who did what, as other reports had fully investigated many of our historical injustices.

Conflict and injustice

What we wanted to know here was what would happen next, in which so far we have been sorely disappointed.

There have been 32 TRCs in the last ten years, and since the South African one we have seen 17 in Africa alone. 30 per cent of African countries have had TRCs, but none has made a difference.

In South Africa it’s thanks to the leadership rather than to the TRC as such that transition took place showing that politicians must be driven by an ideology, by certain values and beliefs, by a certain vision of the future, if a country is to emerge from conflict and injustice.

Otherwise a TRC may merely deflect public attention from core issues.

Mr Wachira was adamant that we must work on resolving the conceptual conflict between the human rights perspective, with its emphasis on the language of law and order, justice and accountability, and the conflict-resolution and peace-building perspective.

Next, we can’t hold the commissions themselves accountable for a failure to implement their recommendations. So who must do so, and how?

TRCs can only consolidate changes already under way. It is only if a society is agreed about its future that a TRC can play a role in reconciling the past.

One must not confuse desirability with feasibility, warned Mr Wachira and it is better not to launch a TRC if is unclear how it will make its impact. Most importantly, it is dangerous to raise expectations that cannot be fulfilled.

The chair of Kenya’s TJRC, Bethuel Kiplagat, was among those who spoke, urging us to keep pushing for the implementation of the report.

The deep wounds, the trauma, are still there and the victims need counselling and help for them and their families. Above all, he said, we must deal with the pain and the suffering that has resulted from the historical injustices.

Let us still make some use of what has been invested in our TJRC. And let us learn the lessons offered by the experience.