Truth, lies, ritual: Preliminary reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone

Human Rights Quarterly

Volumn 27, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 361-391

  Kelsall, Tim ^a  

^a NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HUMAN RIGHTS; INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK;

AFRICA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; SIERRA LEONE; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WEST AFRICA; WORLD;

EID: 20044377479     PISSN: 02750392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. For analyses of the war see, Ibrahim Abdullah, Bush Path to Destruction: The Origin and Character of the Revolutionary United Front/ Sierra Leone, 36 J. Mod. Afr. Srud. 203 (1998);
2. Yusuf Bangura, Understanding the Political and Cultural Dynamics of the Sierra Leone War: A Critique of Paul Richards's Fighting for the Rain Forest, 22 Afr. Dev. 117 (1997);
3. Morten Bøås, Liberia and Sierra Leone-Dead Ringers? The Logic of Neopatrimonial Rule, 22 Third World Q. 697 (2001);
4. Richard Fanthorpe, Neither Citizen nor Subject? 'Lumpen' Agency and the Legacy of Native Administration in Sierra Leone, 100 Afr. Aff. 363 (2001);
5. John L. Hirsch, Sierra Leone: Diamonds and the Struggle for Democracy (2001);
6. Jimmy D. Kandeh, Subaltern Terror in Sierra Leone, in Africa In Crisis: New Challenges and Possibilities 179 (Tunde Zack-Williams et al. eds., 2002);
7. Robert D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of our Planet, Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1994, at 44;
8. Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone (1996).
9. Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act 2000, cited in William A. Schabas, The Relationship Between Truth Commissions and International Courts: The Case of Sierra Leone, 25 Hum. Rts. Q. 1035, 1036 (2003) (providing a detailed account of the thinking behind, history of, and relationship between the TRC and Special Court).
10. See also International Crisis Group, Africa Briffing: Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A Fresh Start? (2002) (hereinafter ICG Briffing);
11. Paul James-Allen et al., Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Special Court: A Citizen's Handbook 15 (2003);
12. Lansana Gberie, Briefing: The Special Court of Sierra Leone, 102 Afr. Aff. 637 (2003),
13. Mohamed Jalloh, Commissioning the Past in Sierra Leone: Whose Commission and What Past? (2002).
14. Figures are based on Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenge of Truth Commissions 303-11 (2002).
15. I b i d. at 137-41.
16. The conclusions of this paper do not necessarily apply to other district hearings in Sierra Leone, nor can they be taken as an assessment of the TRC's work as a whole.
17. Press Briefing, TRC, TRC Marks End of District Hearings (23 July 2003).
18. Because of the difficulty in obtaining background data about Tonkolili, most of this paragraph is based on a witness testimony given on the fourth day of the hearings.
19. Bishop Humper, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (7 July 2003).
20. I b i d.
21. I b i d.
22. I b i d.
23. Interview with Gavin Simpson, Head of Research, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in Freetown, Sierra Leone (22 July 2003).
24. Hassan Forna, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (10 July 2003).
25. The same was not the case at hearings in all districts. At Bonthe it was reported that "almost the entire audience [was moved] to tears" (Informal conversation with Mohamed Carew, at UNAMSIL (7 July 2003)) after hearing the story of an eighty-nine year old woman whose son had been tortured and butchered before her. The soldiers had then removed a piece of her son's heart and given it her to eat, and severed his head for her to breast-feed. Press Briefing, TRC, TRC in Bonthe and Magburaka (19 July 2003).
26. Ballah Sesay, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (8 July 2003).
27. I b i d.
28. Kamba Kamara, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (8 July 2003).
29. Sulay Kanu, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (7 July 2003).
30. Ibrahim Forna, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (7 July 2003).
31. Sesay, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (8 July 2003).
32. See Richard A. Wilson, The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State 109-21 (2001)(discussing this aspect of truth commissions in the context of South Africa).
33. Conversation with anonymous journalist (10 July 2003).
34. Witness & Kamara, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (8 July 2003).
35. I b i d.
36. Kamara, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (8 July 2003).
37. Gabon, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (10 July 2003).
38. Bishop Humper & Witness, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (8 July 2003).
39. I b i d.
40. Apori-Nkansa & Witness, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (8 July 2003).
41. Bishop Humper, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (10 July 2003).
42. I b i d.
43. I b i d.
44. Interview with Bishop Joseph Humper, Chairman, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in Freetown, Sierra Leone (30 July 2003).
45. Rev. Usman J. Fornah, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (11 July 2003).
46. Gabon, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (11 July 2003).
47. See supra section II(A).
48. Tactical, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (11 July 2003).
49. I b i d.
50. See infra note 68 and accompanying text.
51. Bishop Humper, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (11 July 2003).
52. I mentioned in an earlier paragraph that alternative interpretations are possible. At least one member of the audience, a representative from a South African NGO and expert in psychocultural counseling who attended on Thursday and Friday, was not moved by the proceedings. She felt that the confessions of the perpetrators were insincere and that it had cost them nothing to attend the ceremony. "But perhaps I have my own issues with perpetrators," she admitted. Informal conversation with South African NGO representative, at a party in Freetown (Jul. 2003).
53. See Charles Cobb, Jr., Sierra Leone's Special Court: Will It Hinder or Help?, allAfrica.com, available at allafrica.com/ stories/200211210289.html (21 Nov. 2002).
54. ICG Briefing, supra note 2, at 4.
55. For an extended discussion see Schabas, supra note 2, at 1035.
56. Interview with Paul James-Allen, Researcher, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in Freetown, Sierra Leone (18 July 2003).
57. Schabas, supra note 2.
58. I b i d.
59. ICG Briefing, supra note 2.
60. Charlris Brown, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (7 July 2003).
61. Sigmund Freud, The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence, in Standard Edition III (1961), cited in Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering 25 (2001).
62. Christopher Bollas, Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Exeperience 167 (1993), cited in Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering 25 (2001).
63. Personal Communication, Rosalind Shaw. The author is much indebted to Professor Shaw for a number of illuminating conversations around the hearings.
64. A classic reference is Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (Robert Hurley trans., 1990).
65. Mariane Ferme, The Underneath of Things: Violence, History and the Everyday in Sierra Loene 1 (2001).
66. I b i d. at 2.
67. Rosalind Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone 2 (2002).
68. I b i d. at 265.
69. In Temne chiefdoms leopards are "royal" animals to which the chief is sometimes compared. The characteristics of the leopard helped the chief protect his people. However, in twentieth century Sierra Leone, chiefs, among others, were frequently accused of turning themselves into leopards and devouring their subjects. These accusations, believes Shaw, express a feeling that in the context of the slave trade and its aftermath, chiefly power has turned rogue, chiefs abusing rather than protecting their citizens. Temne people have rich images of witchcraft, which provide a commentary on the moral ambivalence of accumulation descending from the traffic in human beings. Prosperous and powerful people in Sierra Leone are sometimes accused of possessing "witch guns"-lethal weapons constructed from natural materials such as papaya leaf and a grain of sand. Women are thought to bear a special relationship to river spirits, which form a focus for their ritual associations. Women, like rivers, link communities to one another and build linkages in society; but they can also be a route through which other communities learn one's secrets and can mount attacks, just as rivers were the arteries along which the slave trade moved. Temne diviners talk in terms of "roads to life" and "roads to death"; during the slave trade and after, roads could be spaces of commerce and wealth but also slavers' channels of attack. See id. at 237-43, 208-09, 168-69, 89.
70. This report was commissioned by Manifesto '99, a local human rights NGO launched in November, 1999, aiming to monitor the implementation of a 1999 Human Rights Manifesto for Sierra Leone. The group was later contracted by the UN's OHCHR to conduct a piece of research into traditional truth-telling and reconciliation.
71. Manifesto '99, Traditional methods of conflict management/resolution of possible complementary value to the proposed Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission 5, Freetown, Manifesto '99 (2002).
72. I b i d. at 23.
73. I b i d. at 22.
74. I b i d. at 25.
75. The author infers this from a conversation about local purification ceremonies with the head of reconciliation at the TRC. One of the ceremonies involves flogging a perpetrator and a dog simultaneously. When the dog defecates, the perpetrator is assumed purged. "There are some things I would rather not see in the TRC," she told me. Interview with Martien Schotsman, Freetown (July 2003).
76. Bishop Humper, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (10 July 2003).
77. For a discussion of the components of ritual, and a spectrum of ritual forms, see Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity 34 (1999).
78. To be open about my own influences, I am the agnostic son of nonpracticing Quakers. It is probable that the drama of turning the other cheek and granting forgiveness struck a few responsive chords somewhere inside me.
79. Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life 162 (Carol Cosman trans., 2001).
80. I b i d. at 157.
81. Note that when I refer to "community" this is an idealized term: the audience was not the community nor genuinely representative of it, as was shown, among other things, by the disproportionate number of older men.
82. Kamara, Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (11 July 2003).
83. Ferme, supra note 52, at 2.
84. Hayner, supra note 3.
85. Shaw, supra note 54.
86. See also Rosalind Shaw, Rethinking Truth Commissions: Lessons from Sierra Leone, Special Report 129, U.S. Institute of Peace (in press).
87. I thank an anonymous reference for this insight.