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International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War (2000)

Chapter: Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention

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Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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9
Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention

Priscilla B.Hayner

The subjects of transitional justice and historical memory have received increasing attention in recent years, as many countries representing a wide range of political contexts and transitional circumstances have confronted the legacy of widespread abuses by a prior regime or armed opposition group.1 States have turned to a range of transitional mechanisms in an effort to confront past crimes, hoping to achieve some measure of accountability, advance national reconciliation, and secure necessary institutional reforms to prevent future human rights abuses or the return to violence. The various mechanisms that have been used include prosecuting perpetrators in national and international courts; lustration or purges of those affiliated with a previous authoritarian government; the imposition of other noncriminal sanctions; material or nonmaterial compensation for victims; and official truth seeking, usually in the form of temporary investigative bodies that have acquired the generic name of “truth commissions.”2

Each of these transitional measures serves different (although sometimes overlapping) ends, and each has its strengths as well as its limitations. The decision to undertake one of these approaches over others will be determined by a wide variety of factors. These various mechanisms are not mutually exclusive, however, and there can be a positive interplay between the different structures or processes put in place. A number of states have attempted to prosecute perpetrators while also creating a truth commission, for example, sometimes using a truth commission to collect evidence for later prosecutions. Some truth commissions have been tasked with designing a follow-up reparations program.

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

To date, these accountability mechanisms have been studied and advanced primarily by those with an interest in combating human rights abuses and responding to abuses of the past. However, these various mechanisms are typically turned to at the point of transition out of a period of violent conflict or authoritarian rule, sometimes following a bitter civil war. During a negotiated transition, the means and manner by which accountability will be addressed are usually discussed directly at the negotiating table. This paper looks more closely at the role of one of these mechanisms—that of officially sanctioned truth investigations—in the resolution and prevention of violent conflict. After an introduction to the use of truth commissions in the past, their function, purpose, and limitations and their relationship to other transitional accountability mechanisms, this paper proposes three ways in which truth commissions may contribute to halting or preventing violent conflict. It then proposes how the “success” of truth commissions might be evaluated and the outside factors that influence their strength and effectiveness. The paper concludes by suggesting unanswered questions and areas of research in need of focused attention.

THE EMERGENCE OF TRUTH COMMISSIONS AS A TRANSITIONAL TOOL

At the point of transition following a brutal and repressive regime, a state and its people are left with a legacy of violence, bitterness, and pain and often many hundreds or thousands of perpetrators who deserve prosecution and punishment for their crimes. But successful prosecutions after a period of massive atrocities have been limited, as underresourced and sometimes politically compromised judicial systems struggle to confront such widespread and politically contentious crimes. Given limited options for confronting past atrocities, and with an eye toward the need for healing and reforms, many new governments have turned to mechanisms outside the judicial system to confront horrific crimes of a prior regime. The increasing attraction to official truth seeking as a transitional tool is partly a result of the limited reach of judicial-oriented approaches to accountability. As truth commissions have been more widely used and studied, however, it has become clear that they fill a very different role from judicial inquiries and trials. Truth commissions, defined as official, temporary mechanisms that are established to investigate a pattern of past human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law, are tasked with investigating, reporting, and recommending reforms, and in the process serve to formally acknowledge past wrongs that were silenced and denied.

Truth commissions have no prosecutorial powers (and only the South African truth commission had the power to grant amnesty), although a

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

few to date have chosen to name perpetrators in their reports, in part to instill at least a sense of public and moral accountability. But while a truth commission cannot impart judicial decisions or punishment for wrongdoers, their strengths are in those very areas that fall outside the parameters or capabilities of a court. While trials are aimed at achieving individual criminal accountability, truth commissions are focused on describing patterns of crimes over a period of time, recommending policies to prevent the repetition of such abuses, and proposing measures to formally recognize or make reparations for past wrongs. Trials are narrowly focused: they typically do not investigate the social or political factors that led to the violence or the internal structure of abusive forces, such as death squads or the intelligence branch of the armed forces, all of which might be the focus of a truth commission. While some trials help shed light on overall patterns of human rights violations or may engage the public more broadly in confronting and reevaluating its past, this is generally not their focus or intent. Courts do not submit policy recommendations or suggestions for political, military, or judicial reforms. Finally, while the records of a trial may be public, judicial opinions are generally not widely distributed or widely read, as is the intention of truth commission reports.

A truth commission should be distinguished from a government human rights office set up to watch over current human rights abuses and also from nongovernmental projects documenting past abuses. Likewise, these truth-seeking bodies should be distinguished from international tribunals, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, both created by the United Nations (UN), or the permanent International Criminal Court that may soon be established. These international tribunals are also designed to respond to abuses by the state, but they function with the purpose and powers of a court.

Truth commissions differ as well from other mechanisms that have been used in recent years to confront past human rights crimes after a political transition from authoritarian rule. Several East European countries have turned to a policy of lustration, which removes persons who worked with the prior government or intelligence service from employment in the public sector. These lustration policies generally have relied on information in the files of the former intelligence service. But because some of these files may contain incorrect information and because of the limited rights of appeal and due process that have been granted, lustration has been criticized by international observers.3 This strategy also requires that detailed files were kept by the previous government (and not destroyed in the transition), that the new authorities have access to them, and that the new government has the political power to sustain a policy of

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

discharging civil servants, factors that would not be present in most postauthoritarian transitional states outside Eastern Europe.

Other approaches to documenting past rights crimes include investigation and reporting by a specially appointed rapporteur of the UN or by a national or international nongovernmental organization. These two approaches do not depend on governmental sponsorship of an inquiry (although a UN rapporteur must receive a formal invitation from the government before visiting a country for a special investigation), but they are also unlikely to have access to extensive official documentation. While they may overlap to some degree, all of these various mechanisms or approaches to confronting past human rights abuses have different aims, powers, and outcomes and complement rather than replace each other.

Transitional truth-seeking bodies became much more common in the 1990s and only in the past few years have taken on the generic name of truth commissions. Each of the 20-odd truth commissions to date has been unique, with considerable differences in the form, structure, and mandate used to carry out their work. Not all, in fact, are formally called truth commissions: in Guatemala, for example, there was a Historical Clarification Commission created under the UN-negotiated peace accords; Argentina set up a National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons; and in some countries these bodies are called Commissions of Inquiry (see Table 9.1). All of these commissions share certain common elements and are created for similar purposes. Truth commission is now a term of art that refers to a fairly specific kind of investigatory commission, identified by four common characteristics. First, a truth commission focuses on the past. Second, it investigates not a singular event but the record of abuses over a period of time (often highlighting a few cases to demonstrate and describe patterns). Third, a truth commission is a temporary body, concluding with the submission of a final report that is intended to be made public. Finally, a truth commission is somehow officially sanctioned by the government (and by the armed opposition where appropriate). This official sanction allows the commission greater access to information and greater security to undertake sensitive investigations and increases the likelihood that its conclusions and recommendations will be given serious consideration.

Differences between commissions should be expected, as each country must shape a process out of its own historical, political, and cultural context. Unlike courts, which generally stand as permanent bodies and about which there are many international norms regarding their appropriate structure, components, and powers, and minimal standards under which their proceedings should be undertaken, there are many aspects of truth commissions that will vary from country to country and about which there are no established standards. Some are given subpoena powers or

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

TABLE 9.1 Truth Commissions to Date (in chronological order)

Country

Name of Truth Commission

Title of report (Publication Date)

Date of Commission

Dates Covered

Empowered by

Uganda

Commission of Inquiry into the Disappearance of People in Uganda Since the 25th January, 1971

Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Disappearance of People in Uganda Since the 25th January, 1971 (1975)

1974

1971–1974

President

 

Did not complete report

 

Bolivia

Comisión Nacional de Investigación de Desaparecidos (National Commission of Inquiry into Disappearances)

 

1982–1984

1967–1982

President

 

Nunca Más

 

Argentina

Comisión Nacional para la Desaparición de Personas (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) (“The Sábato Commission” or “CONADEP”)

(Never Again) (1985)

1983–1984

1976–1983

President

 

Informe Final de la Comisión

 

Uruguay

Comisión Investigadora sobre la Situación de Personas Desaparecidas y Hechos que la Motivaron (Investigative Commission on the Situation of “Disappeared” People and Its Causes)

Investigadora sobre la Situación de Personas Desaparecidas y Hechos que la Motivaron (Final Report of the Investigative Commission on the Situation of the “Disappeared” People and Its Causes) (1985)

1985

1973–1982

Parliament

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

Zimbabwe

Commission of Inquiry

Report kept confidential

1985

1983

President

Uganda

Commission of Inquiry into Violations of Human Rights

The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Violations of Human Rights: Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendations (Oct. 1994)

1986–1995

Dec. 1962– Jan. 1986

President

Chile

Comisión Nacional para la Verdad y Reconciliación (National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) (“The Rettig Commission”)

Informe de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (Report of the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) (1991)

1990–1991

Sept. 11, 1973–March 11, 1990

President

Chad

Commission d’Enquête sur les Crimes et Détournements Commis par l’Ex-Président Habré, ses co-Auteurs et/ou Complices (Commission of Inquiry on the Crimes and Misappropriations Committed by the Ex-President Habré, his Accomplices and/or Accessories)

Rapport de la Commission (Report of the Commission) (May 7, 1992)

1991–1992

1982–1990

President

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

Country

Name of Truth Commission

Title of report (Publication Date)

Date of Commission

Dates Covered

Empowered by

South Africa (ANC)

Commission of Enquiry into Complaints by Former African National Congress Prisoners and Detainees (“The Skweyiya Commission”)

Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Complaints by Former African National Congress Prisoners and Detainees (Oct. 1992)

1992

1979–1991

African National Congress

Germany

Enquete Kommission Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland (Study Commission for the Assessment of History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany)

Bericht der Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland” (June 1994)

1992–1994

1949–1989

Parliament

El Salvador

Comisión de la Verdad Para El Salvador (Commission on the Truth for El Salvador)

De la Locura a la Esperanza (From Madness to Hope) (March 1993)

1992–1993

Jan. 1980– July 1991

United Nations-moderated peace accord

South Africa (ANC)

Commission of Enquiry into Certain Allegations of Cruelty and Human Rights Abuse Against ANC Prisoners and Detainees by ANC Members (“The Motsuenyane Commission”)

Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Certain Allegations of Cruelty and Human Rights Abuse Against ANC Prisoners and Detainees by ANC Members (Aug. 20, 1993)

1993

1979–1991

African National Congress

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

Sri Lanka

Commissions of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons (three geographically distinct commissions)a

Final Reports of the Commissions of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons (three distinct final reports, plus eight interim reports from each commission) (Sept. 1997)

Nov. 1994– Sept. 1997

Jan. 1, 1988– Nov. 13, 1994

President

Haiti

National Commission for Truth and Justice

Si M Pa Rele (If I Don’t Cry Out) (Feb. 1996)

April 1995– Feb. 1996

1991–1994

President

Burundi

International Commission of Inquiry

Report never released publicly

1995–1996

Oct. 21, 1993– Aug. 28, 1995

United Nations Security Council

South Africa

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report (Oct. 1998)

Dec. 1995– 2000b

1960–1994

Parliament

Ecuador

Truth and Justice Commission

Did not complete report

Sept. 1996– Feb. 1997

1979–1996

President

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

Country

Name of Truth Commission

Title of report (Publication Date)

Date of Commission

Dates Covered

Empowered by

Guatemala

Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (Commission for Historical Clarification) (Formal name: Commission to Clarify Past Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence that Have Caused the Guatemalan People to Suffer)

Guatemala: Memory of Silence (February, 1999)

Aug. 1997– Feb. 1999

1960–1996

United Nations-moderated peace accord

aIn Sri Lanka there were three geographically distinct commissions that operated simultaneously and with identical mandates: Commission of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons in the Western, Southern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces; Commission of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons in the Northern and Eastern Provinces; and Commission of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearance of Persons in the Central, North Western, North Central and Uva Provinces. When these three commissions ended, a follow-up body was formed to close the outstanding cases, called the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Involuntary Removals and Disappearances.

bAlthough the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission submitted its main report in 1998, the commission continued to operate, with fewer staff and only a few commissioners operationally involved, into 2000, with an expected completion date in late 2000. This extra time was necessary for the Amnesty Committee to process all applications and has also allowed reparations policies to be put in place and victims’ lists to be finalized.

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

even strong search and seizure powers and hold public hearings in front of television cameras or covered live on national radio (such as in South Africa or in the 1986 commission in Uganda). Others hold all investigations and interviews of victims and witnesses behind closed doors, may not have the power to compel witnesses to testify, and release information to the public only through a final report (such has been true of all such commissions in Latin America). Commission mandates also differ on the types of abuses to be investigated, perhaps including acts by the armed opposition as well as government forces, for example (as in Chile, El Salvador, or South Africa), or are limited to certain specific practices such as disappearances (as in Argentina and Sri Lanka). Such variations are a natural reflection of the variations between countries and their distinct political contexts, political cultures, histories, and needs.

Truth commissions can play a critical role in a transition. Some past commissions have been notable successes: their investigations have been welcomed by survivors of the violence and by human rights advocates alike; their reports have been widely read; their summaries of facts have been considered conclusive and fair. Such commissions are often referred to as serving a “cathartic” effect in society and as fulfilling the important step of formally acknowledging a long-silenced past. But not all truth commissions have been so successful. Some have been significantly limited from a full and fair accounting of the past—limited by mandate, by political constraints or restricted access to information, or by a basic lack of resources and have reported only a narrow slice of the truth.

Truth commissions have been multiplying rapidly around the world and have gained increasing attention in recent years.4 Although there have been about 20 such bodies in the past 25 years, many have received little international attention—such as those in Chad, Sri Lanka, and Uganda—despite considerable interest from the press and public on a national level as the inquiries were under way. The few that have received considerable international attention have helped define the field and shape the truth commissions that followed elsewhere—particularly the Commission on the Disappeared in Argentina, which ended in 1984; the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, completed in 1991; the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, which finished in 1993; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, which released its report in October 1998; and the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission, which completed its report in early 1999. Only since the early 1990s have countries begun to look closely at the experiences of previous truth commissions before designing their own. For example, South Africa crafted its Truth and Reconciliation Commission after studying the truth commissions that preceded it, particularly in Latin America. Those who crafted the legislation for the South African

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

commission were particularly conscious of the blanket amnesties awarded in many Latin American countries and the failure of most truth commissions to gain the cooperation of perpetrators in their search for the truth. These reflections contributed to the crafting of the truth-for-amnesty formulation in which perpetrators who disclose all they know about politically motivated crimes during the apartheid era are granted amnesty for those crimes. Table 9.1 provides an overview of the truth commissions that have existed to date.

There are a number of other examples of official inquiries into past human rights violations that fill many functions of a truth commission but that for various reasons do not fully qualify as a truth commission by the definition used here. For example, some of these inquiries have been undertaken at the initiative of a permanent governmental human rights office, created to monitor present-day human rights matters but that began to look into the past after receiving complaints. The important initiatives of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in Australia, which in 1997 reported on a long-term state policy of forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their families,5 and of the National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras, which in 1994 reported on 179 people who disappeared in the 1980s and early 1990s, are examples of such projects. This Honduran national commissioner received no assistance from authorities during his inquiry into disappeared persons, and he continued to call for a full truth commission even as he published his own report documenting extensive abuses.6

A broad official truth-telling exercise might also take place as an extension of a judicial inquiry. In Ethiopia the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) intended to thoroughly document the broad pattern of abuses under the Mengistu regime in the course of preparations for trials of hundreds of accused perpetrators and to publish a truth commission-like report. For several years it maintained an extensive computerized system and dozens of staff members to cull names and incriminating details from the extensive documentation that was left behind as the Mengistu regime crumbled. While the SPO continues to rely on this documentation in its strategy to show a broad pattern of events pointing to an overall policy of genocide under Mengistu, ultimately the plan for a truth report was dropped as it turned its attention to prosecutions alone.

There are other important differences that distinguish these ad hoc inquiries from formal truth commissions. In contrast to truth commissions, these ad hoc investigations generally do not work under a written mandate, which would define what period and exactly what acts are to be investigated, under what investigative powers, and by what deadline it must finish. These projects may operate without a budget for inquiries into the past and are thus forced to divert funds from other responsibili-

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

ties of the office or raise funding independently, sometimes from private foundations. Because a truth commission is created by authorities with the explicit purpose of investigating past human rights abuses and making this history known through a final report, it carries an air of explicit state acknowledgment of a silenced past, which many of these ad hoc projects lack. But these alternative approaches should not be automatically discounted. Indeed, some of these quasi-truth commissions have been more effective in bringing the past to light and in engaging the larger population in the need to confront a silenced past than some formal truth commissions. Examples of these quasi-truth commissions are listed in Table 9.2.

There are also important examples of nongovernmental projects that have documented the patterns and practices of abuses of a prior regime, usually sponsored by national human rights organizations or churches. Despite some limitations to such private investigations, particularly restricted access to government information, these unofficial projects have sometimes produced remarkable results. In Brazil, for example, a team of investigators was able to secretly photocopy all of the official court papers that documented prisoners’ complaints of abuse. Working quietly and with the support of the archbishop of São Paulo and the World Council of Churches, the team produced Brasil: Nunca Maís, a report analyzing the military regime’s torture practices over a 15-year time period, based entirely on official records.7 In Uruguay the nongovernmental Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) published Uruguay: Nunca Más, which is far stronger than the report resulting from the parliamentary inquiry, which was given a significantly limited mandate.8 The Human Rights Office of the archbishop of Guatemala undertook an extensive project to document decades of abuses and massacres in advance of the official truth commission there, hoping to both complement and strengthen the commission’s work.9 In Russia the nongovernmental organization Memorial was set up in 1987 around the question of accountability and fact finding over past events. Its staff has collected extensive archives on state abuses back to 1917 and published several books with lists of victims’ names and analysis of state policies of repression.10

In Latin America the truth has often been a first and fundamental demand as repressive regimes or bitter civil wars have come to an end. As one of the first acts of the new civilian government, Argentina crafted the first truth commission that was to attract significant international attention. Over nine months, beginning in late 1983, the National Commission on the Disappeared documented close to 9,000 disappearances of people that took place under military rule from 1976 to 1983 (though even the commission understood this was not an inclusive total; the real number of people who disappeared is estimated to be 15,000 to 30,000). With

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

TABLE 9.2 Quasi-Truth Commissions—Alternative Forms of Official or Semiofficial Inquiry into the Past

Country

Name of Investigative Body

Title of Report (Publication Date)

Date of Inquiry

Dates Covered

Description of Investigative Body

Rwanda

International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda Since October 1, 1990

Report of the International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda Since October 1, 1990 (March 1993)

1993

Oct. 1990– 1993

Sponsored by four international nongovernmental organizations; granted quasi-official status

Ethiopia

Office of the Special Prosecutor

Prosecutions ongoing; plans for overall “truth” report have been dropped

1993– present

1974–1991

Special prosecutor focused on crimes of prior regime

Honduras

National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras

Los Hechos Hablan por sí Mismos: Informe Preliminor sobre los Desaparecidos en Honduras 1980–1993 (The Facts Speak for Themselves: Preliminary Report on the Disappeared in Honduras 1980–1993) (Jan. 1994)

1993

1980–1993

Government human rights ombudsman: inquiry into disappeared persons taken at his own initiative

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

United States

Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experimentsa

Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1995)

Jan. 1994– 1995

1944–1974

Established by U.S. energy secretary to inquire into radiation experiments on unknowing patients and prisoners

Australia

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (May 1997)

1996–1997

1910–1975

Special inquiry undertaken by permanent government human rights monitoring body

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland Victims Commissioner

We Will Remember Them (April 1998)

Nov. 1997– April 1998

1967–1997

Special one-person commission established by British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

aIn fact, this U.S. commission of inquiry into radiation experiments fits closely into the definition of a truth commission but seems to be of a different nature. All of the truth commissions listed above took place at the point of and as part of a political transition, and most focused on grave violations of human rights affecting great numbers of people, and reflecting statewide policies of violence and abuse. This inquiry and the other inquiry like it on the syphilis experiments in Tuskegee (and perhaps the inquiry into the internship of Japanese Americans during World War II) represent what we might call mini truth commissions. Calling a body a truth commission is helpful for classification terms, but a clear and precise definition of what is included in this classification is still in the process of being fine-tuned.

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

the assistance of survivors of detention and torture, the commission surveyed over 300 former torture centers, primarily in police and military installations. The commission’s report, Nunca Más, is one of the bestselling books ever in Argentina and is still sold in kiosks in the streets of Buenos Aires.11 Perhaps most importantly in the eyes of Argentineans, the commission’s files were handed directly to prosecutors, providing the backbone of evidence and a pool of witnesses for the successful high-level trials that followed.12

When the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet ended in Chile seven years later and after the government of Patricio Aylwin concluded that it could not overturn the Pinochet-installed amnesty that prevented prosecution and punishment for the great majority of crimes, Chile also turned to official truth seeking to confront acts over the prior 17 years by state forces or the armed opposition. Chile’s years of repression resulted in greater numbers of survivors of torture and fewer executions and disappearances compared to Argentina, but the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation was restricted from documenting cases of torture unless the torture resulted in death. Instead, it focused on close to 3,000 cases of disappearances and killings and a number of political kidnappings and only described practices of torture in general terms. As a result, the extensive reparations policies that were put in place by a follow-up commission did not reach torture survivors, who constituted the majority of the victims. But the commission’s formal acknowledgment of state responsibility for disappearances and abuses, including an emotional plea of apology by President Aylwin at the time he released the report, was a critical turning point in gaining respect for victims and advancing public understanding of the country’s past.

Shortly after the Chilean report was released in 1991, the parties in the peace talks in El Salvador agreed to a Commission on the Truth, to be appointed and administered by the UN, to investigate abuses on both sides of the country’s 12-year civil war. Due to political polarization and continued insecurity and fear about reporting human rights crimes, the commission would have only international commissioners and staff, in sharp contrast to the truth inquiries that preceded it elsewhere. The commission’s report, released in a UN ceremony in 1993, was criticized on some grounds, particularly for an imbalance in identifying which sectors of the armed left were implicated in abuses and for failing to address who was behind the country’s death squads. But the commission’s naming of dozens of high-level perpetrators and its strong and detailed policy recommendations helped force the retirement of abusive officers and eventually push through important judicial reforms. The political leadership, however, was not ready to accept, acknowledge, or apologize. The high command of the armed forces openly rejected the report as biased

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

and unfair, and the government passed a sweeping amnesty law just five days after the commission report was published.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa has brought a whole new level of interest to the subject of healing through confronting past pain, reconciling through admitting wrongs, and washing even the worst of past crimes in the public view of television cameras and public audiences. The commission was established in 1995 through national legislation after over a year and a half of public debate and input from all political parties and many sectors of civil society. It was given two and a half years to collect information about gross human rights violations by state bodies or the armed opposition between 1960 and 1994, to hold public hearings, and to publish a report with recommendations for reparations and reform. Over 20,000 victims came forward to give testimony, some 2,000 in public hearings. In addition, the commission held a number of thematically focused hearings to examine the role of the churches, the medical establishment, the legal sector, the business community, and other institutions in passively or actively contributing to the human rights violations of the past. With the use of a strong subpoena power, the ability to grant amnesty to perpetrators who confessed their crimes, and with many high-level political leaders appearing before it, the commission was in the center of the news almost daily.

Truth commissions are often proposed in part to serve a cathartic effect for victims and society at large. There is much anecdotal evidence to support the claim that some victims are greatly served by the opportunity to tell their stories and to have their suffering formally acknowledged. But it should not be assumed that truth always leads to healing. For many victims and survivors, healing will require access to longer-term structures for psychological and emotional support, either community based or through more formal health care services. Likewise, it has yet to be proven that reconciliation will always be advanced from confronting the pains of past conflicts. Healing and reconciliation are both long-term processes that go far beyond the capacity of any one short-term commission. But given the scarcity of transitional mechanisms and the limited resources to pour into peace-making projects, many national leaders pin high hopes on the ability of truth commissions to carry a country down the path of reconciliation, healing, and peace, and many couch their support for such a commission in those terms.

Clearly, some skepticism about the inherent healing qualities of truth commissions is deserved. Many questions remain that demand greater study and exploration. But this skepticism should be tempered by indications of quite positive contributions from national truth seeking in some circumstances. For example, I have spoken with many victims who say that only by learning the full truth about their past horror can they ever

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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begin to heal. Only by remembering, telling their story, and learning the full details about what happened and who was responsible are they able to begin to put the past behind them. In South Africa many survivors told me that they could only forgive their perpetrators if they were told the full truth; almost incomprehensibly, hearing even the most gruesome details of the torture and murder of a loved one somehow brought them some peace.

When is a truth commission an appropriate mechanism to help prevent, resolve, or at least mitigate violent conflict? Not all countries will choose to institute official truth seeking. Because of political constraints and resistance from those in power or because of the nature of a conflict, cultural factors (such as indigenously rooted community-based mechanisms to address past conflicts and pain), or because of an urgent priority around rebuilding after a devastating and exhausting war, some countries may decide against any form of truth body.13 Each situation must be evaluated independently, and this decision should always, ultimately, be made by the country itself. Outsiders can offer suggestions and comparative experience from other countries and can and should support those civil society actors and victims communities that may push for an accounting, but the international community should not impose or be perceived as imposing the decision to undertake such an exercise. Even if the international community were able to do so, the results of such an exercise would likely be disappointing, as national ownership would be lacking and cooperation with the commission may be minimal. Past experience suggests, however, that a truth commission is especially appropriate or advisable to the extent that one or more of the following three conditions or circumstances exist (in many countries a combination of these three indications may be found, though one is likely to be more prominent):

  • A silenced or denied past, where there is an all-encompassing silence around past events and where it seems unsafe to talk about past abuses.

  • A contested past, where two or more contradictory versions of the past vie for acceptance. In El Salvador fervent denials of abuses from the Salvadoran government, together with their backers in the U.S. government, fundamentally skewed the truth about major massacres during that country’s 12-year civil war. Only with the submission of the truth commission’s report were some of these lies put to rest.

  • An unknown or undocumented past, where much information is not known or where certain sectors of society are unaware of the details of the dark side of their country’s recent history. In South Africa the truth commission documented practices that were unknown to a good number of whites in the country, such as widespread practices of torture

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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against political opponents in police stations. It is often only by capturing verbal testimony from victims that this past can be documented and preserved.

In many countries issues around past abuses continue to bubble to the surface in the public or political arena long after a democratic transition, with or without a truth commission. The experiences of Uganda, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, Haiti, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere have made it clear that the conclusion of a commission does not end the interests in and tensions around past conflicts; rather, they have generally opened the space for the public to confront a previously taboo subject. In most of these countries, even many years after a democratic transition, there remains a demand for further attention to the atrocities of the past, and these interests continue to affect the politics of the present for years into the future. In Chile, for example, a follow-up commission called the National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation was established to investigate cases left unresolved by the truth commission and to put a reparations policy into place. Years later the arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London, on an extradition request from Spain, resulted in intense attention being refocused on the years of Pinochet’s rule and the still contentious issues of responsibility and national recovery. In Argentina, 15 years after the end of military rule, nongovernmental victims organizations, particularly the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and other groups representing family members of the people who had disappeared, continue to hold regular public protests and push for judicial action, further investigations into the location of those missing, and reparations for those illegally imprisoned or for families of people who disappeared or were killed.

Confronting, recording, understanding, and recovering from a brutal national past of dictatorship or civil war can be a process of many years, decades, or generations. It is not a process that can be closed in one or two years, the typical tenure of a truth commission. Thus, while a truth commission can fill the important role of bringing official acknowledgment to past state crimes, documenting previously denied events, and outlining needed reforms, its work should be seen as one part of a much broader process. Rather than closing the subject of the past, a successful truth commission should open up the issue to facilitate a more free and public discussion and help spark a longer-term process of national healing and reconciliation.

Truth commissions might be categorized according to various over-arching and defining characteristics, such as the following three means of classification, which are useful in recognizing the different forms that truth commissions take:

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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  • Sponsorship. A commission may be created through an international body, such as the UN (as in El Salvador and Guatemala) or may result from a national initiative of a president or parliament (as in Haiti, Chile, Argentina, and South Africa).

  • International or national membership and staff. Likewise, a commission may be staffed entirely with nationals and be appointed with national commissioners (as in Chile and Argentina); it might employ and be appointed with only nonnationals (as in El Salvador); or it may use a mixed model of both national and international staff members and commissioners (as in Haiti and Guatemala).

  • Public hearings or confidential inquiries. Those commissions that hold public hearings (South Africa, Uganda II, Germany) are able to engage the attention and interest of the public much more than those that hold all investigations and take all testimony behind closed doors (such as all Latin American commissions to date).

But while these categories are descriptively accurate, they are not necessarily prescriptively useful, since the experience of commissions to date does not argue that any one type (national versus international, UN versus presidential or parliamentary, etc.) is inherently better than another. A more useful typology of past commissions might focus instead on some of the more specific qualities of each commission that reflect its real capacities and contextual constraints. Table 9.3 summarizes the critical qualities of truth commissions and notes what is the ideal in most circumstances (the outside factors that affect a commission are addressed further below).

TRUTH COMMISSIONS AND THE PREVENTION OR RESOLUTION OF VIOLENT CONFLICTS

The study of truth commissions has been framed to date around the issue of accountability for past human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law and an interest in the prevention of such abuses in the future.14 Little focused attention has been given to the interplay between truth seeking and the resolution or prevention of violent conflict per se.15 A distinction is in order: human rights abuses and violations of humanitarian law often include violence, including violent and illegal arrests, torture and abuse in police stations and prisons, the disappearance or killing of activists or other political suspects, large-scale massacres, or harassment of minority communities. These are generally unilateral forms of repression against all too often unarmed opponents of a regime. Most of this type of violence is relatively covert, neither carried out in public spaces nor in competition between

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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armed groups. Some of these practices, such as torture and police abuse, may continue long after a formal transition to peace or democracy. While recognizing the urgency of combating such unilateral state violence against individuals and the need to build protections for the respect of basic human rights and the rule of law in the future, those matters can be distinguished from the challenge of resolving or preventing overt violence between armed groups. How a truth commission might play a role in helping to resolve or prevent such overt violent conflict remains largely unaddressed, even while these bodies are often discussed in the course of formal negotiations for peace.

Before proposing the potential peace-making qualities of official truth seeking, it must first be recognized that by its very nature an exercise in digging up the crimes of powerful perpetrators—who often maintain considerable de jure or de facto power during the course of a transition—is almost by definition an exercise that will create conflict. The point of seeking the truth is that it has been intentionally well hidden, often silenced through force, and usually remains hotly contested. The full truth is likely to be a threat to those who were in power—those same persons whose cooperation is critical to reaching or maintaining peace. In a politically unstable period when these perpetrators are angling to maintain some measure of power and keep themselves out of jail, it is also virtually a given that a serious truth-seeking exercise will be met with threats aimed at curtailing the inquiry. Usually, these threats, including bomb scares and death threats, are targeted at the commission itself, though to date none of the serious threats have been carried out. In at least one case there was a threat or rumor of a military coup if the truth commission went too far.16 It is also very common for victims to fear retaliation if they give testimony to the commission, especially if they name their assailants.

In addition, there is sometimes reason to fear that a strong truth commission report could spark revenge violence from victims and survivors or exacerbate tensions between ethnic or other groups that are already fragile. In Haiti the National Commission on Truth and Justice decided not to name perpetrators in its report in part because of concerns that those named could become victims of street justice, especially given the degree of general frustration and anger in the lack of prosecutions in court.17 In Zimbabwe some have worried that releasing a long-closed human rights report could spark further conflict between groups. In Burundi, where the Commission of Inquiry’s report was finished on the day of a military coup, the UN explicitly chose not to release the report publicly because of concerns that it could further inflame violence. Even in South Africa, the national organization representing victims and survivors, Khulumani, warned that many of the thousands of victims that it worked with were intensely frustrated, and they expected there might be

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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TABLE 9.3 Qualities or Characteristics of Truth Commissions: What Works Best?

 

Large/ Strong/ Broad

 

Small/ Weak/ Narrow

Comments

Budget

>$35 million

South Africa

*$5–$35 million

Guatemala

$1–$5 million

Chile, El Salvador

$500,000– $1 million

Uganda II

<$500,000

Chad, ANC (I and II)

 

Size of staff

*>200

South Africa, Guatemala

*101–200

Haiti

57–100

Argentina, Chile

11–50

El Salvador, Uganda II

1–10

Length of commission

>3 years

Uganda II

2–3 years

South Africa, Sri Lanka

*1–2 years

Guatemala

Nine months to 1 year

Argentina, Chile, Haiti

<9 months

El Salvador

Commission should always be given a deadline, even if extendable

Mandate: period of time to be investigated

>30 years

South Africa Guatemala

15–29 years

Chile

10–14 years

El Salvador

5–9 years

Argentina

<5 years

Haiti

Must be determined by circumstances

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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Mandate: powers of investigation (subpoena, search and seizure, witness protection)

*Strong: South Africa

 

Some powers: Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Uganda II

Few powers: Chile, Argentina

Few powers: Argentina, Chile, Haiti, Guatemala

 

Mandate: powers of reporting (name perpetrators, make mandatory recommendations)

*Very strong: El Salvador

Strong: South Africa

Some powers: Sri Lanka

Much excluded: Chile

Clear restrictions: Guatemala, Haiti

 

Mandate: breadth of investigation

*Very broad: El Salvador, Chad, Guatemala

*Some abuses excluded: South Africa

Sri Lanka

 

Narrow focus: Argentina

Sometimes necessary and appropriate to narrow mandate

Mandate: what parties to be investigated

Complex conflict of three parties or more: South Africa

 

Two sides of conflict: El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile

 

One side only: Argentina, Chad, Haiti, ANC I and II

Must be determined by individual cases

*Ideal in most circumstances.

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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some violence against known perpetrators after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission finished its work.18

These examples suggest that a strong truth commission report can spark violence if it is not backed up by reasonable and fair institutional responses to gross and widespread human rights crimes. This is most likely to be true where there is intense frustration with the lack of justice, little outlook for change, and no sign of remorse, apology, or even symbolic reparation from former perpetrators and beneficiaries of the abusive rule. This is hardly an argument to weaken truth accounts, however, as it may also be true that a very weak truth report could increase tensions. Where victims have no doubt about the widespread abuses they suffered, a weak or compromised report could meet an angry response from organized victims’ communities, especially if the account is seen as an intentional effort to rewrite history or whitewash the truth. While there are no clear examples of this occurring, it is easy to imagine such a situation in countries where a sense of history plays a powerful role in politics and nationalism.

In Rwanda a prominent international inquiry in 1993 revealed the extent of abuses perpetrated by government forces against Tutsis across the country. While this commission was created as a result of an agreement between the government and rebels calling for such an inquiry, the government showed no serious intention of curtailing its anti-Tutsi and inflammatory rhetoric. The commission’s hard-hitting report, which named the president of Rwanda and other senior officials as playing a direct part in the atrocities, caused an uproar in the policy-making circles of Europe, especially in those countries that were then actively supporting the Rwandan government. The Belgium government recalled its ambassador for consultation, and France pulled its troops back from regions where fighting was ongoing. The commission’s report was the first widely distributed report to clearly spell out the abusive practices of the Rwandan forces. While it had a short-term impact on international policy and made it difficult for the international community to claim ignorance of the severity of the situation as the 1994 genocide began, this knowledge did not produce the international political will to step in to prevent the unfolding tragedy. Where national or international will is lacking, knowing the truth alone is insufficient to halt further atrocities.

Some truth commissions begin their work even while political violence continues. While a truth commission is usually part of a peace agreement or other formal transition, sometimes certain regions continue to see fighting, perhaps as part of a separate conflict (as in the fighting in northern Sri Lanka that continued even while the disappearances commission proceeded with its work). This situation places constraints on a commission’s work, in some cases making information collection difficult

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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in certain regions of a country and raising questions about the impact of an inquiry on the ongoing violence. While a solid inquiry could perhaps play a positive role in bringing the conflict to a close, it is also possible that speaking the truth in the context of continuing battles could further inflame tensions (such as in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, as described below). Ongoing overt violence or the threat of violence has sometimes dampened enthusiasm for digging up truths and hampered investigations. Because of a fear of retaliation, victims who live in the same community as their former perpetrators may hesitate to tell their stories, especially if those persons are still armed. For example, many victims in Haiti and Guatemala gave testimony to their respective commissions even while expressing fear of possible repercussions for doing so.19

In some countries the resolution of intercommunal violence may be so fragile that communities resist national efforts to dig into exactly what took place. In the eastern South African region of KwaZulu Natal, for example, intercommunity violence has continued long after the end of apartheid and the transition to democracy.20 In recent years some communities have patched together local peace agreements and established “peace committees,” which have ended the vicious cycles of violence and allowed refugees who fled the violence to return home. The idea of pointing out those who were responsible for previous killings was widely considered by villagers as certain to spark another round of violence, and thus they had little interest in a visit by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.21 Because of continuing violence throughout the region, some of the commission’s public hearings that took place in KwaZulu Natal were sparsely attended.22

Given the clear threat of greater conflict and potential violence resulting from a serious inquiry into past abuses, it is ironic that truth commissions have come to be seen as a peace-making tool. But the fact that they have is a testament to the power of a silenced and forbidden history, the great demand from victims to know the full truth behind their suffering, and a widespread perception that such a history, if left unaddressed, could be an even greater source of conflict for years to come. Official truth seeking into past abuses will never by itself be enough to end or prevent the reoccurrence of violent conflict, but it can be a central piece of a peace-making strategy. A truth commission is likely to affect conflict resolution and prevention in three distinct ways. First, when official truth seeking is agreed to as part of a peace accord between warring parties, it may be seen as a concrete and positive initiative that can serve as an incentive for reaching peace. Second, a commission may help prevent the return of violence by confronting and defusing tensions around past conflict. And third, a truth report helps outline the needed reforms of state

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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institutions so that conflicts can be mediated nonviolently and disenfranchised groups might be better represented in the political sphere.

Halting Ongoing Violent Conflict: Addressing the Past at the Negotiating Table

When a war ends in a negotiated peace, mechanisms to address past human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law are likely to be addressed at the negotiating table. A truth commission may be proposed by the moderator, as took place in El Salvador, or might be pushed by one of the parties. But the idea of an official inquiry into past abuses is usually an attractive entity to at least one of the negotiating parties and may thus serve as an incentive to agreeing to a final peace accord.

UN-moderated peace talks led to an end to the civil wars in both El Salvador and Guatemala; the resulting peace accords committed the parties to institutional and policy reforms and set out the structure of new state entities. Among these agreements were the terms for a Commission on the Truth in El Salvador and a Historical Clarification Commission in Guatemala. Both of these commissions represented the central transitional mechanism for addressing past abuses, and reaching agreement on the powers of these commissions was a critical point in the respective negotiations.

Because of the intense passion around these issues, negotiations for a truth commission are usually very difficult. There is often a struggle between those who want a strong and in-depth inquiry and those who want to limit its terms. As there is an increasing understanding in recent years of the potential powers and constraints that can be written into a commission’s terms of reference, negotiating parties and outside advocates can be expected to press hard to shape a commission’s mandate to fit their interests, and the parties may be put under considerable pressure by their various constituencies. Former perpetrators may insist on favorable terms to any truth body before agreeing to leave power, such as a prohibition on naming the persons who carried out atrocities.

When a truth commission was discussed for Guatemala in 1994, there was serious pressure from civil society organizations on the parties and the UN negotiators. The agreement that was signed in Oslo, Norway, in June 1994 included a number of limitations on the commission that human rights and popular organizations in Guatemala considered unacceptable (their most serious concerns were that the commission was prohibited from “individualizing responsibility,” was given only one year to complete its work, and was restricted from having any “judicial aim or effect”).23 While there had been several previous accords on other mat-

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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ters and a number of issues yet to be negotiated before arriving at a final peace accord, the agreement for the Historical Clarification Commission was by far the most contentious. The disappointment and protests from these groups after the accord was signed, and their intense pressure on the armed opposition that agreed to the accord, came close to derailing the peace talks altogether.

In other countries there have been negotiated peace agreements that have not included either the creation of a truth commission or any other measure to address past crimes. In Mozambique, for example, the government and armed opposition insisted on one unwritten but fairly explicit condition before even sitting down for talks on the terms of peace: that the issue of past abuses would not be addressed at the negotiating table. Almost no one has raised the issue since, as there is a wide perception that digging into the past might spark further violence. In Cambodia, as well, the issue of past abuses—including the 1 million to 2 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s—was only obliquely referred to in the 1991 Paris agreements, which set the stage for a democratic transition, stating that “the policies and practices of the past shall never be allowed to return.”24 But the parties to the agreements, many of whom were closely connected to past abusive forces, had no interest in a thorough truth-seeking process.25 Some discussion of a truth commission has arisen in recent years but has not gained momentum in the country.26

Thus, we are left with the paradox that the proposition of inquiring into the truth about past horrors may intensify conflict and risk violence, at least in the short term. It will sometimes be wholly rejected for fear of these repercussions. But where it is used, it is usually presented as an incentive to reaching peace and as a means for building a foundation for peaceful coexistence between former enemies in the future. Which of these seemingly contradictory dynamics develops around any particular set of negotiations will be determined by a number of real or perceived conditions: (1) What are the interests of the parties to the peace talks or those with the power to influence such talks? Are they served by truth seeking, or would they feel threatened by such investigations? (How powerful and vocal is civil society, and what are its interests, for example?) (2) Is there a widespread perception that violence would increase or could be resparked by such investigations, especially if perpetrators are identified? (3) Are there other community-based or indigenous mechanisms that may fill the demand for a reckoning with the past (such as firmly rooted traditional cleansing ceremonies prominent in Mozambique), which may reduce the felt need for a national-level initiative? The answers to these questions will help to determine the role that a proposal for truth seeking will play during the course of negotiations toward peace.

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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To the degree that a truth commission is an inducement to reach a peace settlement, the commission’s work will of course not be taken up until after the agreement is reached, and thus the peace agreement will be affected more by the idea of and commitment to truth revealing rather than by the actual quality of the commission’s work or report. However, it is generally possible to gauge the seriousness with which a commission will be able to undertake its task by the mandate and powers it is given, and these factors will usually affect the negotiations. The intensity of protest over the Guatemalan truth commission accord, for example, as described above, shows the delicacy of those negotiations, the danger of misreading the popular demand, and the importance of carefully considering the terms of any agreement for a truth commission.

Preventing Future Violence: Defusing Conflicts Over the Past

A denied and silenced past is likely to lead to simmering conflict, especially where former victims or survivors feel unheard and uncompensated. Even in countries such as South Africa, with the relative freedom to speak out and to approach the courts for legal recourse, there would surely be much more tension around the legacy of apartheid if the country had not instituted a strong and very public truth commission. While all complaints certainly have not been resolved by the commission, it has opened the space for demands and tensions to be aired and has explicitly recognized the pain and loss of victims on all sides of the violence.

Reconciliation is the stated goal of many transitional initiatives, and none more so than truth commissions. But despite often being stated as an aim in a truth-seeking exercise, what is intended by “reconciliation” is rarely spelled out. It is often unclear, for example, whether those hoping to find reconciliation through truth are referring to reconciliation on the national level among political leaders and the elite or a local and individual reconciliation between perpetrators and those who have been harmed, which may require a very different kind of truth process. Conceptions of reconciliation differ widely, including nonlethal coexistence; healing, forgiveness, and acceptance of one’s former enemies, sometimes based on religious grounds; the narrative incorporation of contradictory events or stories; or the harmonization of contradictory world views.27 For purposes of maintaining peace between groups, the simplest form of reconciliation—that of establishing ground on which conflicting groups can coexist side by side in a peaceful manner—should be the first priority.

Leaving aside these basic questions of how reconciliation is defined, which will not be explored further here, it is nonetheless reasonable to

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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assume that understandings and conceptions of past conflicts will help shape future relationships and, as a corollary, that fundamentally different understandings of recent history and events can prevent former opponents from moving beyond the conflicts of old. Elsewhere I have proposed that reconciliation can be measured by the answers to three basic questions: How is the past dealt with in the public sphere? Are relationships between former opponents based on the present or the past? Finally, is there one version of the past or many?28 Countries that carry competing versions of history are apt to see tensions simmer around these disagreements, which may then merge with fundamental conceptions of community or ethnic identity and nationalism. There are obvious examples today of the calamities that can result from using history—and the need to protect and avenge one’s own understanding of history—to justify violence against opponents (the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East are but two examples). While a truth commission cannot be expected to resolve all historical misconceptions or even to win the support of all communities or parties it is directed to, past experience makes clear that a solid investigation and public report immediately after the cessation of conflict can virtually remove “the past” as a point of major conflict between political opponents, especially where abuses on both sides are investigated. Members of a commission, or those who originally craft its terms, should keep in mind these goals when weighing the question of how long the commission should continue its work before concluding its report. There is always a tension between the desire to undertake an extensive and in-depth investigation—and the need to do so in order to produce credible results—and the importance of finishing more quickly in order to contribute to the spirit of the political transition and to support the concrete reforms that may follow.

On the other hand, deeply rooted reconciliation may require acknowledgment and even sincere apology by those representing former perpetrators. Some commissions’ reports have been rejected by the armed forces under investigation or have met with silence. Unfortunately, resistance to the truth will all too often continue, and serious efforts by former perpetrators to reach out to their victims or their families are rare. Some recent commissions have begun to address this problem in the course of their work, but much more serious and creative thinking is needed on how official truth seeking can consciously be used to initiate a wider process of community- and national-level reconciliation.

In addition to agreeing on basic history and a process of acknowledgment or apology from wrongdoers, reconciliation can be advanced through a process that airs differences between perpetrator or victim or where there are indigenous procedures in place to cleanse perpetrators of their wrongs and welcome them back into society, as exists in some Afri-

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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can cultures. Ultimately, however, reconciliation is most likely where there were preexisting ties between the parties before the rift or conflict took place. Where racial, ethnic, or deep political or class differences separate victims and perpetrators, or separate two or more groups emerging from war, and where there was no genuine connection or understanding between these groups before the conflict started, the idea of any deep “reconciliation” developing from a truth-telling process is probably impractical. In contrast, in those societies where conflicting groups or individuals are connected by family, community, or ethnic ties, for example, a natural forgiveness and reconciliation might take place quickly. Experiences in South Africa (where some former black perpetrators have been forgiven and welcomed back into their home communities), Mozambique, and Sierra Leone (where, in both countries, children abducted into the war sometimes fought against their brothers on the opposing side) show this clearly to be true. Thus, a truth commission can facilitate a process that is supportive of reconciliation between opponents, but such reconciliation will also depend on other factors and existing circumstances that are largely outside a commission’s control.

In stark contrast to South Africa and Chile, it should be noted that some truth commissions have held no presumption of promoting or achieving reconciliation as part of their work. The commissions on forcibly removed and disappeared persons in Sri Lanka, for example, which finished their reports in late 1997, used no rhetoric about reconciliation; they saw their task as documenting who had disappeared and recommending which families should receive reparations.29 To suggest individual reconciliation would have been unreasonable, since virtually no perpetrators in Sri Lanka have stepped forward to express regret or even acknowledge their responsibility. Instead, the commissions called for legal justice and forwarded the names of the accused to prosecutors for further action.

Outlining Reforms to Mitigate Conflicts and Protect Human Rights

Beyond simply describing the past, truth commissions usually dedicate a portion of their reports to propose institutional and policy reforms to help prevent abuses in the future. Some commissions have included a full and detailed outline of specific reforms across many sectors of government. These have included changes needed in the judiciary, armed forces, police, and political sector; the need to prosecute perpetrators or purge them from active military or police duty; the promotion of a national human rights culture through educational and other programs; and the need to commit to international human rights norms through the

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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ratification of international rights instruments. Other recommendations have included reparations for survivors and memorials for those killed, reconciliation initiatives, and follow-up measures to further investigate those matters not closed by the current commission. Where relevant, a report may make explicit reference to the urgency of stopping ongoing abusive practices, but the emphasis is usually on long-term institutional protections in order to prevent a slide back to the dark days of repression.

Many of these recommended reforms are relevant here, pertaining directly or indirectly to conflict prevention. For example, these reforms may lead to increased political representation of disenfranchised groups; more fair and transparent political competition in an appropriately structured electoral system; the halting of any ongoing harassment of groups or individuals of particular political, ethnic, or regional affiliation; or the enactment of compensation and other measures to assist those injured and to lessen the anger over previous wrongs. Reforms that pertain to the reduction of violent conflict might be grouped into two types. First are those that aim to strengthen structures and laws that protect against abuses or to respond to abuses when they take place, including changes in the police or armed forces or in systems to hold accountable and punish those responsible for past abuses. These reforms are clearly intended to act as a deterrent to future abuses and discriminatory practices, including those patterns that may feed into broader intergroup conflict. A second kind of reform are those that create or strengthen institutional structures to facilitate democratic conflict management, reduce the marginalization of any one group, and advance a sense of justice and equal participation by all groups in society. These may pertain to changes in the electoral system or institutional structures to give minorities or other underrepresented groups a voice. Other papers in this volume address the conflict reduction aspects of these kinds of mechanisms in some detail.

Clearly, strong and useful recommendations are most likely to result from a strong and thoughtful truth commission, one with sufficient staff resources and expertise to think through the implications of its findings and to craft relevant recommendations in response. A commission that structures its work to allow it to investigate and better understand prominent patterns of past abuses and the causes and consequences of past policies and practices will be much better suited to suggest broad changes, compared to commissions that focus the bulk of their energies on individual case investigations. In addition, many past commissions have turned to the recommendations for reform suggested previously by foreign donor agencies, intergovernmental agencies, nongovernmental organizations, or independent scholars. The most conducive environment in which to expect strong recommendations flowing from a truth commission is where considerable attention and thought have already been

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

given to designing solutions to the country’s difficult problems—in fully understanding the weaknesses of the judiciary, for example, or in thinking through how elections could be better structured to bring in all minority parties—thus laying the groundwork for the commission to reiterate or build on this foundation. Finally, in designing new recommendations a commission will greatly benefit from reaching out to experts and interested parties for ideas and assistance.

Despite the best of intentions, however, most commissions can only make recommendations, leaving implementation to the initiative of the state president or legislature. Many countries have seen solid commission recommendations that go largely unimplemented. To date, only the truth commission in El Salvador had the power to make mandatory recommendations, per its mandate spelled out in the peace accord. Even there implementation of many of the reforms required significant pressure from the international community (and even under such pressure some of that commission’s recommendations still were not implemented). Elsewhere, the momentum of a political transition and pressure from nongovernmental organizations and the international community can help push through reforms, but ultimately the most important factor is the existence of national political interest and the will to make changes, at least for the vast majority of recommendations that are usually directed at governmental actors. Without the political will, such recommendations are not likely to be put in place. Those designing future commissions should give careful thought to how they might empower the concluding recommendations of a commission so that they are more likely to be given serious consideration and the most appropriate or urgent recommendations are fulfilled.

GAUGING SUCCESS

There can be a wide range of expectations regarding a truth commission, and when observers and critics begin to evaluate the degree to which a commission was a “success,” it is sometimes not clear which set of expectations they are responding to. Although these expectations are usually not clearly articulated, they will shape reaction to a commission’s work and will define how it is judged. It is appropriate for the success of a truth commission to be evaluated on a number of different levels. Perhaps most importantly, the members of a truth commission should themselves consider these wide-ranging goals when outlining their work plan and methodology. In addition, these differing goals should be considered by the government or international agency that sponsors or facilitates the creation of the commission, nongovernmental advocacy groups pressing for improvements in a commission’s work, international donor agencies

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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that may provide it with financial assistance, as well as researchers studying these bodies from a more academic perspective. The three general areas that should be considered—that of process, product, and impact of the commission—suggest a number of questions:

  • Process

    • Positive process for victims and survivors: Did the commission reach out to all victims to invite them to give testimony? Did it include psychologically supportive procedures or services for traumatized victims? Did the commission offer a witness protection program?

    • Encouraging broad public understanding of the past: Did the commission hold public hearings? (Not all commissions are able to hold public hearings, but where they are possible such hearings will engage the public much more in the commission process.) Was the commission perceived to be unbiased and fair?

    • Broad participation in search for truth: Did the commission invite the participation of all sectors of society, such as churches, the armed forces, former civilian leaders, nongovernmental organizations, and others? Did the commission gain the cooperation of former perpetrators or others that are affiliated with abusive forces in its investigations?

  • Product

    • Quality of the report: Is the report accurate, accessible in style, unbiased, and reasonably complete? Does it fairly represent the evidence and the victims’ testimony collected by the commission? Are there appropriate and specific recommendations outlined for reforms and other measures to deal with the past?

    • How much truth is revealed? Are some important or representative cases resolved? Does the report fairly describe patterns of abuses? Does it outline institutional and/or individual responsibility? (Not all commissions will name perpetrators, but those that do will generally be judged to be stronger and more powerful than those that do not.)

  • Postcommission impact

    • Healing and reconciliation at the individual and community levels: Has the tension and conflict over the past been reduced? Is there now less fear in speaking about the past? Has community or individual healing been advanced? Have state officials or those representing former armed opposition groups acknowledged and apologized for past abuses? Have perpetrators themselves apologized for their wrongs? Has the report been widely distributed? Is memory kept alive in the long term? Did the commission spark broader and longer-term processes for communities to address the past?

    • Prevention of future abuses and reparations for past wrongs at the policy level: Have the recommendations of the commission been imple-

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

mented? Have prosecutions resulted or been strengthened as a result of the commission’s report? Are reparations offered to victims?

This paper does not evaluate every truth commission according to each of these criteria, but a review of past experience leads to a number of basic conclusions. First, it is clear that most commissions have understood their primary responsibility to lie in their product and have thus structured their work around the investigation and resolution of key cases and the production of a final report. Questions of how the truth-seeking process might impact on society, especially how the commission’s work might be structured to advance national-, community-, or individual-level reconciliation or healing, have usually not been seriously considered by past truth commissions as they designed their work plans (South Africa stands as the major exception). Meanwhile, the longer-term impact of a commission’s work, especially in the implementation of its recommendations, lies largely outside the commission’s control, since much of this will be determined by actions and decisions taken by others after the commission has closed its doors. Nevertheless, many critics have judged the success of past truth commissions in part by developments that do or do not take place long after the commissions have ended. While this is a fair, indeed an important, means of evaluation, political realities and outside actors should be recognized for the failure or success of a commission’s long-term impact, as much as the work of the commission itself.

A commission’s contribution to conflict resolution and prevention will be determined primarily by the criteria for evaluation listed earlier under process and impact. A commission report sets the stage for reforms through its recommendations, and an unbiased and far-reaching report can best encourage further societywide processes confronting past crimes. But the real effect on conflict reduction will be in how the process of truth seeking is undertaken, how and whether the recommendations are implemented, how public actors and participants in past violent conflict respond to the process and the report, and what other efforts follow that institute a longer-term process for grappling with this history.

Factors Influencing the Strength and Success of a Truth Commission

There are a number of factors that together determine a truth commission’s strength and success. Most of these factors are elements that a commission itself cannot control, such as the degree of governmental political backing it receives (which will determine the commission’s access to official documentation and the cooperation of officials in assisting its inquiries), the degree of operational independence it is granted, the level of resources it is given to undertake its work, and the written mandate that

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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defines its powers and investigatory focus. The strength and success of past commissions were most influenced by the following (this list excludes some important internal factors that are largely determined by management decisions, such as the quality of the staff and the commission’s methodology for investigation and information management):

  • Domestic political will. A strong commission depends on political backing and operational independence from authorities as well as access to official documentation in its investigations. Additionally, the impact of a truth commission will be greatest where civilian authorities hold the power to implement recommended reforms and have the political interest to do so and the willingness to accept and acknowledge the commission’s conclusions and make its information broadly available to the public.

  • Role of perpetrators. In some countries, perpetrators of old continue to hold significant power and are able to restrict a commission’s mandate and powers. In addition, they may continue to justify their past wrongs and refuse to cooperate with investigations. The strongest commissions operate in circumstances where the power of former perpetrators has been significantly weakened and where perpetrators have clear incentives to acknowledge and apologize for past wrongs.

  • Role of civil society. A strong and organized civil society is often critical to the creation of a strong commission, as human rights and victims’ groups push for a strong mandate. In addition, the files from human rights monitoring groups, turned over to a truth commission when it begins its work, can help map out the patterns and concentration of abuses and help target investigations. In some countries, experienced staff from human rights groups have been recruited to staff commissions, providing the backbone of expertise and investigative experience. During the course of a truth commission’s work, advocacy groups can play an important role in pushing to improve the reach or substance of the commission’s work, and a range of civil society groups may be in a position to evaluate a commission’s contributions both during its tenure and after its completion.

  • International role. In some cases the international community may play an important role in the creation of a truth commission, in providing information and funding for the commission, and in pressing for implementation of its recommendations.

  • Available resources. Some commissions have operated on very restricted budgets, several even running out of funds during the course of their work and spending considerable time on fund raising from international sources. Ideally, in order to avoid any appearance of inappropriate influence, all funds should be available or committed at the start of a

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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commission’s work, especially when they come from the government that will be a target of investigation.

  • Mandate of a commission. Many of the basic limitations and powers of a commission will be spelled out in its written mandate (usually a presidential decree, legislative act, or peace accord), which generally includes exactly what acts or events are to be investigated, over what period of time, and whether the commission has any powers such as an enforceable subpoena or witness protection capacity.

  • Composition of a commission. Who the members of a truth commission are will ultimately have the greatest effect on the actual work of the commission, as they must shape out of whole cloth its procedures, priorities, methodology, work plan, and ultimately its final report.

  • Political climate. A commission can have the greatest effect where there has been a loss of support for the old regime on both the popular and the elite levels, where there is a lack of polarization between sectors differently affected by the violence, and where the level of fear from reporting past abuses has lessened.

Each of these factors influences the success of a commission not only during its work but also before it begins (in the design of its mandate and in the preparatory stage) and after it ends (in implementing its recommendations and responding to, making use of, and distributing its report). How the influence of these factors changes through these different stages is outlined in Table 9.4.

Interim Indicators

If one ultimate goal of a conflict resolution exercise is to prevent further violence in the future, it would be useful to be able to point to markers along the way that might indicate whether violent conflict was more or less likely to develop. Interim indicators can also influence policy by suggesting what positive developments should be encouraged and what signs of potential problems should be addressed. The time frame in which these indicators should be watched will depend on each case. It would be important to gauge these indicators immediately after the cessation of violence and then immediately after a truth commission has finished its report. But since it is common for communities to hold on to their history (especially their grievances of wrongdoing) for many generations, some of the indicators listed here would be useful almost indefinitely or as long as there is a threat of conflict arising in part as a response to past events.

The kinds of indicators that should be watched are discussed below. While these indicators point to the potential for conflict based on how and

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

whether the past is addressed, whether such conflict turns violent depends on a whole host of factors separate from the question of truth seeking. Most importantly, this depends on whether there are actors present in the political mix whose interests are served through violence and who have the means to turn their grievances into violent action. In Bosnia, Rwanda, and elsewhere “the past,” mixed with an exaggerated fear of the future, has very much been used as a tool by which to shape public opinion and rally followers into brutalities. Elsewhere, armed opposition groups have pointed to past injustices and abusive policies to win popular support.

But if neither armed resistance, a military coup, or inter group fighting is likely, even severe frustrations and unacknowledged pain may not lead to political violence. For example, according to Table 9.5, Chile shows the potential for conflict around issues of the past. When questions around the legacy of the Pinochet regime arise in Chile, it is with much conflict—including police violence against demonstrators at least twice in 1998, for example—but serious political violence in the form of a civil war, armed opposition, or military coup is considered extremely unlikely.

Likewise, an analysis of the implementation of reforms and institutional protections could be done to gauge whether conflicts can be addressed fairly through legal means and whether groups that may have previously turned to violence are now given a fair voice in the political process.

CONCLUSION

The field of truth seeking as an official transitional mechanism is still relatively new. As more and more states begin to turn to truth commissions or similar bodies as a means to address a difficult past, researchers and academics are just beginning to understand the complexity of questions and difficulties around this subject matter and to grapple with it seriously. The primary limitations in this field to date are as follow: (1) Most who have written on the subject have in-depth experience pertaining to only one country or one region, and may not always be in a position to cull lessons from these experiences that are applicable in very different contexts and regions. This field is best served by a broadly comparative approach. (2) Most of the articles to date that analyze any one truth commission in depth have been written by participants in the commission—a commissioner or senior staff person. While these articles have been extremely valuable, there may always be a potential for bias or blind spots when a comission’s activities are recorded by participant-observers. This in part is a reflection of the parallel problems that (3) most commissions have not been monitored closely by an outsider while the commissions

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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TABLE 9.4 How Strong and Effective a Truth Commission? Influencing Factors Over Time

Factors

Precommission

During Commission

Postcommission

Domestic political will

Political interest in strong inquiry

Political backing for commission’s work; respect for commission’s independence; access to official documentation

Political interest and investment in implementation of commission’s recommendations; symbolic acts of contrition

Role of perpetrators

Power of perpetrators in shaping or limiting inquiry

Willingness of perpetrators to cooperate with commission

Willingness to acknowledge or apologize for wrongs done

Role of civil society

Civil society and victims’ role in lobbying for a strong inquiry

Contacts, case files, and assistance from civil society

Lobbying for implementation of recommendations and broad distribution and use of report

International role

International pressure, as necessary, for a fair and strong inquiry

Funding for commission; declassification of foreign government information to assist in commission’s investigations

Pressure for implementation of commission’s recommendations

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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Available resources

Resources available for preparation and planning

Commission’s financial resources; expertise and experience of commissioners and staff

Resources for implementation of recommendations, including reparations policy

Mandate of commission

Is a preparation period stipulated before commission begins?

What powers and limitations in commission’s investigations; how much time to complete work?

Are recommendations mandatory? What happens to commission’s archives?

Composition of commission

Transparent appointment procedure?a

Perceived to be unbiased, knowledgeable, and trustworthy?

Political climate

Broad public and political support for reckoning with past

Level of fear and protection for victims and witnesses to speak out

Public interest and political space for broad discussion of report

aIn fact, with the exception of South Africa and to some degree Guatemala procedure and with public input. Most are appointed at the sole discretion In South Africa the commission resulted from a months-long selection interview the final candidates. A transparent appointment procedure most truth commissions to date have not been appointed through a transparent of the president or parliament or in consultation with parties to a peace accord, process that collected public nominations and culminated in public hearings to should be encouraged for future commissions.

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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TABLE 9.5 Is the Past Likely to Be a Source of Future Conflict? A Few Indicatorsa

Indicators

Tensions Reduced; Violence Over the Past Unlikely

Tension Over the Past Likely to Remain

More Serious Tension; Potential for Future Violence if Unresolved

How is a truth commission’s report used?

Broad distribution of commission’s report (or summary) and extensive media and public discussion of conclusions and recommendations (South Africa)

Report released but not broadly available; little public discussion (El Salvador, Chile)

Report kept sealed; discussion of past discouraged (Zimbabwe)

Government attitude and policy: acknowledgment of wrongs?

Formal acknowledgment and apology on behalf of the state (Chile)

Prefer silence on the topic (Argentina-Menem)

Denial and disinformation about past conflict (Rwanda, 1993)

Perpetrators’ response to truth commission’s report

Willingness of perpetrators to accept and apologize for wrongs and to contribute to symbolic reparations to victims (some in South Africa and Mozambique)

Silence about past wrongs (Argentina until 1995)

Continued denial of or justification for past abuses (Chile, El Salvador, Serbia, Sri Lanka)

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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Are victims formally recognized?

Memorial built in honor of victims; days of remembrance honored; individual or symbolic reparations for victims

Disagreements about who and what should be remembered; lack of political interest in honoring victims

Unwillingness to acknowledge victims or continued denial that there were unjustified victims; memorials remain in place that honor abusive forces

How is history taught in schools?

Use of truth report in schools; fair and balanced treatment of subject

Silence about the past; recent conflict not integrated into teaching (El Salvador, Chile)

Different versions of the past are taught in different schools and to different communities (Bosnia)

Societal consensus about past wrongs?

Apparent societal consensus that abuses were wrong (South Africa, Argentina)

Lack of consensus but silence on the matter (Chile until 1998)

Lack of consensus and open conflict based partly on different conceptions of past violence (Rwanda, Bosnia)

aThis table includes examples of countries where there both have and have not been truth commissions.

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

were under way, and some commissions severely restrict access by outsiders for confidentiality reasons. In addition, (4) truth commissions to date have been studied and described largely on an anecdotal and impressionistic level, with little scientific rigor or theoretical modeling that may propose generic lessons for future cases.

There is much room for more thorough and in-depth studies of these processes. The needs are many, but include the following:

  • Case studies. A thorough and lengthy write-up of key cases would be useful for scholars and practitioners alike. Very little of this has been done.

  • Comparative and theoretical research, including monitoring ongoing truth-seeking processes and those now in development. Some questions that call for attention include the following:

  • When will conflict around the past turn to violent conflict around the past? What serves as a spark to long-held grievances? What role do memory and history play in the ongoing conflicts of today (Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Middle East, Kosovo, etc.)?

  • The cases examined here are all conflicts that took place within national borders (although sometimes with the help of outsiders, like U.S. funding and arms for Central American and Southern Cone militaries, or with violence that spilled over borders, such as the South African attacks against activists exiled abroad). Is there a role for official truth seeking following international wars or conflicts? How might such bodies be created and by whom would they be overseen? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict may eventually approach the subject of the past and would need to consider new models that take into account the different perceptions of history across the political and national divides.

  • What is the range of alternate forms of truth seeking (here labeled quasi-truth commissions) and in what circumstances are they most appropriate?

  • What will be the relationship between the future International Criminal Court and national truth commissions, especially around legal questions of sharing evidence, confidentiality of investigations, and the use of witnesses?30

  • What kind of international guidelines might be proposed, both to assist those designing future truth commissions and to hold commissions to reasonably high standards? In drafting such guidelines, attention should be given to the elements of evaluation outlined earlier (process, product, and impact).

  • What are the real psychological and emotional impacts on victims and witnesses of truth inquiries, and how can the healing effect be strengthened? How do these effects compare with the impacts of victims’ participation in judicial inquiries?

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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  • Historical research

  • What does history tell us about the legacy of unaddressed pain and unacknowledged events? What can we learn from France after World War II, Spain after Franco, the Armenian genocide early in this century, Native Americans throughout the Americas, and other uncommissioned but unforgotten periods of authoritarian rule or brutality? Why in some cases was there no demand for truth seeking, while in other cases the wounds of the past remain open?

The most useful contribution of a truth commission is to open, rather than close, a difficult period of history. Ideally, it should lead to other processes or institutions, such as memorials, museums, new educational curricula, and perhaps other commissions of inquiry or reparations bodies, all of which may better integrate a silenced and conflicted past into a respectful and peaceful memory. How these national pains are best addressed and how a society and its political life will be affected by this legacy will differ in every country. But as new and creative approaches to building peaceful relations are explored and developed further, the question of how to best respond to the full texture of past conflicts will continue to demand attention.

NOTES

1  

The field of “transitional justice” is in rapid development, although writers and commentators have used the term in different ways. Some have focused primarily on newly democratized states or those recently emerging from civil war. Others have inferred a broader sense of responding to a widespread practice of human rights crimes or violations of humanitarian law, including those that may have taken place under a democratic government or those that may have taken place many years before. In some cases, fully democratic and nontransitional countries grapple with these very same issues (as in specific events or practices that have taken place in the United States, or in European states that today are still grappling with the legacy of World War II).

2  

For an overview of the transitional justice approaches available and experiences in a number of transitional countries, see Neil J.Kritz, ed., Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, Vols. I–III (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995).

3  

See Herman Schwartz, “Lustration in Eastern Europe,” Parker School of East European Law, vol. 1, no. 2 (1994), pp. 141–171.

4  

For a more detailed treatment of the subject of truth commissions, including descriptions of over 20 commissions to date, see Priscilla B.Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity. (New York and London: Routledge, 2000).

5  

This Australian policy, which between 1910 and the early 1970s forcibly removed as many as 100,000 Aboriginal children from their homes, was based on the racist notion that mainstreaming Aboriginal children into white society would be to their benefit. This government inquiry concluded that the policy was “genocidal” and urged reparations and apology. See the report of this goverment inquiry, Bringing Them Home: Report of the Na-

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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tional Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997).

6  

Leo Valladares, National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras, in conversation with the author, October 1995.

7  

Brasil: Nunca Mats (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Vozes Ltda., 1985). For a description of the Brazilian project, see Lawrence Weschler, A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers (New York: Penguin, 1990; reprint with postscript, Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Because the Brazil project was carried out secretly, church backing not only provided financial support but also lent legitimacy to the published report.

8  

Servicio Paz y Justicia, Uruguay: Nunca Más: Informe Sobre la Violación a los Derechos Humanos (1972–1985), 1989. The parliamentary commission was mandated to investigate disappearances only, which missed the great majority of abuses in the country (illegal imprisonment and torture).

9  

The Archbishop of Guatemala’s Office of Human Rights project resulted in a four-volume final report, published in 1998. See Guatemala: Nunca Más, vols. I–IV (Guatemala City: Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala, 1998). A summary of the report has been published in English as Guatemala: Never Again! (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1999).

10  

See, for example, Links: Historical Almanac, Volume I (Moscow: Progress Phoenix, 1991) and List of Executed People: Volume I: Donskoi Cemetery 1934–1943 (Moscow: Memorial, 1993), both in Russian. For a description of Memorial’s activities, see “Making Rights Real: Two Human Rights Groups Assist Russian Reforms,” Ford Foundation Report, Summer 1993, pp. 10–15, or Nanci Adler, Victims of Soviet Terror: The Story of the Memorial Movement (New York: Praeger, 1993).

11  

National Commission on the Disappeared, Nunca Más: Informe de la Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparición de Personas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1984), or, in English, Nunca Más: The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986).

12  

A number of high-level members of the military junta were convicted and jailed based in part on files from the commission on disappeared persons. But trials in Argentina were limited by pseudo-amnesty laws that prevented the prosecution of many perpetrators. Those who were convicted and imprisoned were freed several years later under a presidential pardon.

13  

The author has looked into the question of why some states may prefer to leave the past alone in her book, Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity (New York and London: Routledge, 2000), Ch. 12.

14  

Human rights abuses generally refer to abuses by the state against an individual and in some cases also to abuses by armed opposition groups, such as when they control territory. Violations of international humanitarian law refer to crimes against the laws of war as articulated in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, committed by either government or opposition forces.

15  

While little serious research has been dedicated to this question, two recent important studies—by the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict and by the Aspen Institute’s Justice and Society Program—have identified official truth seeking as a central component to be considered in peace-making endeavors. See Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Executive Summary of the Final Report (New York: Carnegie Corporation, 1997, p. 27), and Alice H.Henkin, ed., Honoring Human Rights: From Peace to Justice: Recommendations to the International Community (Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute, 1998, pp. 17–19, 35–37).

16  

A coup was threatened in El Salvador if the Commission on the Truth named perpetrators. The commission proceeded to publish names, but the coup threat was not carried

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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out (though a sweeping amnesty was passed immediately, perhaps to pacify the armed forces).

17  

The Haitian commission suggested that trials ensue first and that their list of persons responsible for crimes might be made public at a later date.

18  

Interviews by author with staff of Khulumani, September 1997, Johannesburg, South Africa.

19  

Interviews by author with commission staff in Haiti (December 1996) and Guatemala (May 1998).

20  

The intercommunity violence of KwaZulu Natal has roots in the struggle against apartheid; the Inkatha Freedom Party was funded and armed by the apartheid state to attack supporters of the African National Congress.

21  

Based on the author’s interviews in Isipingo, South Africa, including members of the Nsimbini KwaNkonka Local Peace Committee, September 1996.

22  

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was well aware of these tensions and tried to choose its hearing locations partly in response to these localized dynamics.

23  

See the “Agreement on the Establishment of the Commission to Clarify Past Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence that Have Caused the Guatemalan Population to Suffer,” United Nations Document A/48/954/S/1994/751, Annex II. Once under way, the commission’s period of work was extended to 18 months.

24  

“Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict,” signed in Paris on October 23, 1991, Article 15.

25  

See Stephen P.Marks, “Forgetting ‘The Policies and Practices of the Past’: Impunity in Cambodia,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, vol. 18, no. 2 (Summer/Fall 1994).

26  

A UN-commissioned Group of Experts recommended in early 1999 that a truth commission be considered in Cambodia, suggesting especially the need for discussion and due consideration by Cambodians themselves on the question. See “Report of the Group of Experts for Cambodia Established Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 52/135,” United Nations Document A/53/850/S/1999/231, pp. 52–54. For a discussion of recent developments and debates around truth seeking and justice in Cambodia, see Brad Adams, “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?,” Phnom Penh Post, January 23, 1999; Balakrishnan Rajagopal, “The Pragmatics of Prosecuting the Khmer Rouge,” Phnom Penh Post, January 8–21, 1999; and Stephen P.Marks, “Elusive Justice for the Victims of the Khmer Rouge,” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 52, no. 2 (Spring 1999), pp. 691–718.

27  

For further discussion of these different conceptions of reconciliation, see Susan Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists”; David Crocker, “Reckoning with Past Wrongs: A Normative Framework”; and David Little, “A Different Kind of Justice: Dealing with Human Rights Violations in Transitional Societies,” all appearing in Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 13 (1999). See also Donald W.Shriver, Jr., An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Kader Asmal, Louise Asmal, and Ronald Suresh Roberts, Reconciliation Through Truth: A Reckoning of Apartheid’s Criminal Governance (Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 1996).

28  

For a full exploration into this concept of reconciliation, see Priscilla B.Hayner, “In Pursuit of Justice and Reconciliation: Contributions of Truth Telling,” in Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America, Cynthia J.Arnson, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), pp. 363–383.

29  

Interview by the author with Manouri Muttetuwegama, chair of the Commission of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removals and Disappearances of Persons in the Western, Southern, and Sabaragamuwa Provinces of Sri Lanka, on September 18, 1998, in Brighton, England.

30  

The question of the relationship between the future International Criminal Court and national truth commissions has been raised in discussions of a truth commission for

Suggested Citation:"Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

   

Bosnia. The chief prosecutor and president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia strongly opposed the idea of a truth commission, seeing such an inquiry as likely to damage the tribunal’s prosecution efforts. Others disagree with this view, seeing a truth commission as potentially advantageous in helping to gather information and material for later use by the tribunal. All agree, however, that these issues raise many questions that are likely to arise in the operations of the permanent International Criminal Court. For further exploration of this issue, see Priscilla B.Hayner, Unspeakable Truths, Ch. 13.

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The end of the Cold War has changed the shape of organized violence in the world and the ways in which governments and others try to set its limits. Even the concept of international conflict is broadening to include ethnic conflicts and other kinds of violence within national borders that may affect international peace and security. What is not yet clear is whether or how these changes alter the way actors on the world scene should deal with conflict:

  • Do the old methods still work?
  • Are there new tools that could work better?
  • How do old and new methods relate to each other?

International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War critically examines evidence on the effectiveness of a dozen approaches to managing or resolving conflict in the world to develop insights for conflict resolution practitioners. It considers recent applications of familiar conflict management strategies, such as the use of threats of force, economic sanctions, and negotiation. It presents the first systematic assessments of the usefulness of some less familiar approaches to conflict resolution, including truth commissions, "engineered" electoral systems, autonomy arrangements, and regional organizations. It also opens up analysis of emerging issues, such as the dilemmas facing humanitarian organizations in complex emergencies. This book offers numerous practical insights and raises key questions for research on conflict resolution in a transforming world system.

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