Truth Commissions

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Truth Commissions
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How do you reckon with massive state crimes and
abuses?
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Goals?

• Peace
• Reconciliation
• Justice
• Truth
• Reparations
• Healing
• Reform of institutions
• Rebuilding trust in government, police, armed
  forces
• Prevention

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Conflict among the goals?
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What does Hayner say is the first and most
prominent of demands?

• What inherently makes achieving justice so
  difficult?

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The Courts

• Why might the courts be a less than satisfactory
  venue to achieve these goals?

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What is the practice of lustration?

• Why is it problematic?

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How does Hayner define/distinguish truth
commissions?

• FOUR CHARACTERISTICS
• focus on the PAST
• investigate a pattern of abuse over a period of
  time, rather than a specific event
• temporary bodies that complete with work with
  published report
• officially sanctioned and authorized by the state

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In what ways are truth commissions different than
judicial bodies?What are its advantages?
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What are historical truth commissions?
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Why does Hayner suggest that the term
commissions of inquiry might be better than
truth commissions?

• Why not truth and reconciliation commissions
  like South Africa?

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Hayner Five Aims of TC
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1) To discover, clarify, and formally acknowledge
past abuses
South African context? Excerpt from Antjie Krog
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(No Transcript)
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It would be a cloth bag that would be submerged
in water to get it completely wet...I get the
person to lie down on the ground on his
stomach...with that person's hands handcuffed
behind his back. Then I would take up a position
in the small of his back, put my feet through
between his arms to maintain my balance and then
pull the bag over the person's head and twist it
closed around the neck in that way, cutting off
the air supply to the person... On occasions
people have, I presume ... lost consciousness.
They would go slack and every time that was done,
I would release the bag."
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What point is Hayner making when she
distinguishes between knowledge and
acknowledgment?What example do we see of this in
the 5 TRCs?
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2) To respond to the specific needs of the victim

• What examples in the 5 Illustrative Truth
  Commissions?

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3) Contribute to justice and accountability

• Problems and difficulties
• The question of naming the guilty

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4) Outlining institutional responsibility and
recommend reforms
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5) Promote reconciliation and reduce tension from
past violence

• What tension exists between these goals?

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Five Illustrative Truth Commissions

• What were the limitations and successes of the
  commissions?

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Sixteen Minor Commissions

• What problems or factors seem to have limited the
  effectiveness of these commissions

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Antjie Krog Country of My Skull

• I have told many lies in this book about the
  truth. I exploited my lives and textsI hope you
  will all understand.

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Gibson

• ReconciliationWhat is it?

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Four sub-components

• Inter-racial reconciliation
• Political tolerance
• Support of principles of human rights
• Recognition of the legitimacy of national
  institutions

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Gibsons Hypotheses?

• Core Hypothesis Truth leads to reconciliation

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SA TRCs stated goals

• 1. Promote national unity and reconciliation in a
  spirit of understanding which transcends the
  conflicts and divisions of the past.
• the MEANS?
• Establish a collective memory (how?)

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SA TRCs stated goals

• 2. Facilitate the granting of amnesty to persons
  who make full disclosure of all the relevant
  facts related to acts associated with a political
  objective

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SA TRCs stated goals

• 3. a. Establish and make known the fate and
  whereabouts of victims and
• b. restoring the human and civil dignity of such
  victims
• i. by granting them an opportunity to relate
  their own accounts to the violations...
• ii. by recommending reparation measures in
  respect of them

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SA TRCs stated goals

• 4. Produce a report addressing these three issues
  and making recommendations of making the
  political culture of SA more respectful of human
  rights

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Gibsons Five Hypotheses

• The greater the participation of the the
  individual in the creation of the collective
  memory, the more likely the person is to be
  reconciled.
• AWARENESS of the TRCs activities

• The more a person has interacted with a person of
  the other race, the more likely they are to be
  reconciled.

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Gibsons Five Hypotheses

• Political tolerance will precede any sort of
  interpersonal reconciliation.
• As perceptions of threat diminish political
  tolerance will increase.

• The level of direct injury the individual
  experienced will influence the level of
  reconciliation they experience.

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Gibsons Five Hypotheses

• The less institutional legitimacy the less likely
  democratization will take place.