For the first time this semester, I can finally button my bottom blazer button and strut alongside Thane. We agree on something; the truth about truth and reconciliation commissions is that they don’t work. These commissions have failed in numerous post-conflict transitional countries — namely, El Salvador, Chile, Haiti, Peru, and, most recently, Northern Ireland (they can’t even get their TRC off the ground). The reason for these failures is quite simple: the truth alone is insufficient to achieve restorative justice. Victims need vindication, they need moral revenge, and they need retribution.
In 1996, the Haitian National Commission of Truth and Justice drafted a confidential list of alleged perpetrators who took part in the oppressive regime led by Raoul Cedras from 1991-93. After this list leaked to a Haitian newspaper, the government feared the publication of the list not only would force those named to go into hiding or flee Haiti to evade punishment, but would also encourage victim reprisals. The Haitian government was forced to abandon the truth-alone model and sought an alternative approach.
Similarly, in 1991, the Commission of Truth of El Salvador initially decided to “name and shame” those allegedly responsible for serious acts of violence occurring between 1980-91 in its final TRC report. This decision to reveal the names of alleged perpetrators, however, troubled former Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani. He warned that he could not guarantee the safety of witnesses if the report were published.
What’s the commonality between these two TRC failures? Both the Haitian and Salvadoran government recognized that empty, immune confessions were insufficient to satisfy victims’ desires for revenge, punishment, and retribution. There was a universal acceptance of the idea that once the truth was revealed, those victims seeking revenge would get it. After all, they needed it.
So, the difficulty remains in striking the right balance between purging the truth and delivering punishment. The Special Court for Sierra Leone’s recent trial of former Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, has accomplished this quite well. Dozens of victims and witnesses of his reign have been afforded a platform to look the dictator in the eye and tell their story. Stories of Taylor eating victim’s livers, forcing women to dispose of the bodies of their own children, and violent rapes were all presented this summer. Taylor, too, has told his side of the story, and all of this has been made available to the public through http://www.charlestaylortrial.org. The site contains daily trial updates, blog posts, FAQ’s, live video streams of the trial, and even layman’s definitions of legal terms.
The SCSL really knows how to deliver justice. Through truth and transparency, victims have been given a platform to be heard, they have been given the opportunity to hear the dictator speak, and they will soon be delivered the verdict in the trial of Charles Taylor.
If I were a victim of Charles Taylor’s reign, this is the justice I would want — truth + punishment. Truth alone cannot fill the void in the victim’s soul. Call me a retributivist or label me lex talionis, but if Charles Taylor ate my slain father’s liver as a weekday entree, my appetite for justice would call for more than an empty, immune confession. I’ll take the words from his heart for the truth and his head for the punishment.
+ Matt Buchwach
