A truth commission goes abroad: Liberian transitional justice in New York

African Affairs

Volumn 110, Issue 438, 2011, Pages 35-53

  Steinberg, Jonny ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DIASPORA; HUMAN RIGHTS; LOCAL PARTICIPATION; SOCIAL CONFLICT; SOCIAL JUSTICE;

LIBERIA [WEST AFRICA]; NEW YORK [UNITED STATES]; UNITED STATES;

EID: 78650723572     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adq059     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Act to Establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, 2005, 'Mandate', Article 4, Section 4.
2. Dulce Foster et al., 'A house with two rooms: final report of the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission Diaspora Project' (Advocates for Human Rights, Minneapolis, 2009).
3. Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The destruction of Liberia and the religious dimension of an African civil war (second edition) (New York University Press, New York, NY, 2007), pp. 1-29.
4. Priscilla Hayner, 'Negotiating peace in Liberia: preserving the possibility of justice' (Report, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, 2007).
5. Aaron C. Sleh, Samuel G. Toe, and Aaron B. Weah, Impunity under Attack: The evolution and imperatives of the Liberian Truth Commission (Civic Initiative, Monrovia, 2008).
6. See note 1.
7. 'We've amnesty', New Democrat, Monrovia, 26 August 2009,.
8. Amnesty International, 'Liberia: towards the final phase of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission' (Report, London, July 2008), p. 29.
9. Jonny Steinberg, 'Liberia's experiment with transitional justice', African Affairs 109, 437 (2010), pp. 135-44.
10. Interview, TRC senior official, New York, 19 December 2009.
11. Lansana Gberie, 'Truth and justice on trial in Liberia', African Affairs 107, 428 (2008), pp. 455-65.
12. Aaron Weah, 'The TRC struggles for control: unpacking the conduct of the institutional and thematic hearings', The Perspective, 7 October 2008, p. 3, .
13. Gberie, 'Truth and justice on trial in Liberia'.
14. Phil Clark, 'Establishing a conceptual framework: six key transitional justice themes' in Phil Clark and Zachary D. Kaufman (eds), After Genocide: Transitional justice, post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation in Rwanda and beyond (Columbia University Press, New York, 2009), pp. 191-205.
15. Interview, Commissioner Pearl Brown Bull, Monrovia, 1 November 2008. 17. Interview, TRC Chairperson Jerome Verdier, 30 October 2008.
16. Republic of Liberia, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Consolidated Final Report, Volume II, unedited (released 30 June 2009), p. 268, .
17. Yvonne Malan, The Spectre of Justice: The problematic legacy of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (University of Oxford, D. Phil thesis, 2008).
18. Richard Wilson, The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the post-apartheid state (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001).
19. Audrey R. Chapman and Hugo van der Merwe (eds), Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Did the TRC deliver? (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2008).
20. Interview, senior TRC staff member, Monrovia, 23 October 2008.
21. Stephen C. Lubkemann, 'Remittance relief and not-for-profit entrepreneurship: the case of Liberia' in Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff (ed.), Diasporas and Development: Exploring the potential (Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO and London, 2008), p. 49.
22. Laura Young and Rosalyn Park, 'Engaging diasporas in Truth Commissions: lessons from the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission Diaspora Project', International Journal of Transitional Justice 3, 3 (2009), p. 343, n. 7.
23. The TRC did later extend its diaspora work to Budumburum, Ghana and to the United Kingdom, but primarily at the behest of its American partner, Advocates for Human Rights. Interview, Jennifer Prestholdt, Advocates for Human Rights, Minneapolis, 30 September 2009.
24. Amos Sawyer, 'Emerging patterns in Liberia's post-conflict politics: observations from the 2005 elections', African Affairs 107, 427 (2008), pp. 185-6.
25. 'Forgotten UP partisans detest Ellen's "imported" government; violence at headquarters', Front Page Africa, Monrovia, 3 November 2009.
26. Between January 2008 and December 2009 I interviewed approximately 140 Liberians at churches, football clubs, and other venues in several American cities and Liberian counties.
27. See also, Merran Fraenkel, Tribe and Class in Monrovia (Oxford University Press, London, 1964).
28. Togba-Nah Tippoteh, Democracy: The call of the Liberian people (Tofters Tryckeri, Östervåla, Sweden, 1981).
29. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, This Child Will Be Great (Harper, New York, 2009).
30. Interview, Massa Washington, Monrovia, 30 October 2008.
31. See .
32. Between January 2008 and December 2009 I interviewed 31 Staten Island-based Liberians about the origins and development of the Park Hill settlement.
33. Interview, David R, 18 February 2008, New York.
34. Interview, Rev. Q, 1 December 2008, New York.
35. The oral testimony I have gathered would thus seem to temper Stephen Lubkemann's view that in the period prior to the coup of April 1980, United States-based Liberians constituted 'a transient and socioeconomically privileged population of some few hundred students, diplomats and businesspeople whose stay in the United States was relatively short-term'.
36. Lubkemann, 'Remittance relief,' p. 48.
37. Emmanuel Akyeampong, 'Africans in the diaspora: the diaspora in Africa', African Affairs 99, 395 (2000), p. 187.
38. Bruno Riccio, 'From "ethnic group" to "transnational community"? Senegalese migrants' ambivalent experiences and multiple trajectories', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27, 4 (2001), pp. 583-99.
39. John Mollenkopf, A Phoenix in the Ashes: The rise and fall of the Koch Coalition in New York city politics (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992), pp. 1-61.
40. Nancy Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's two great waves of migration (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2000).
41. New York City Planning Commission, 'Staten Island development policies, programs and priorities' (History Library and Archives, Staten Island Museum, June 1966).
42. Ellen Barry, 'Exiled to a war zone, for his safety', New York Times, 14 December 2007.
43. City of New York, Department of City Planning, 'Staten Island, the North Shore study: a comprehensive overview' (History Library and Archives, Staten Island Museum, December 1983), p. 7.
44. Interview, Liberian student resident in Liberia, 9 May 2009, New York.
45. Africa Watch, 'Liberia: the cycle of abuse' (Report, 21 October 1991), p. 20, .
46. Interview, Jack Saul, International Trauma Studies Program, New York, 17 February 2008.
47. Interviews, Park Hill community leaders, January 2008-November 2009, New York.
48. See also, Barry, 'Exiled to a war zone, for his safety'.
49. This information is culled from 11 interviews conducted with Rufus A between April 2007 and December 2009, and from considerable periods of observation both in New York and in Monrovia.
50. On Doe and football, see Jonny Steinberg, Little Liberia (Jonathan Cape, London, 2011, forthcoming).
51. Tippoteh, Democracy.
52. Interviews, New York, February 2008-December 2009.
53. This account of the conflict is drawn from interviews with its protagonists over a two-year period between January 2008 and December 2009. Aspects of the conflict have also been recorded in the press.
54. In the Staten Island Advance: 'Liberians debate past issues, future hopes', 18 April 2005.
55. 'Cheers, jeers resound in Liberian debate', 17 April 2006.
56. 'Incumbent wins election as head of Liberian group', 24 April 2006.
57. 'Liberian association awaits court ruling on it new president', 1 August 2006.
58. '60 days until a court ruling on Liberian elections', 17 August 2006.
59. 'Liberian leader wants to get community back on track', 23 September 2006.
60. 'Thieves deprive hundreds of food', 10 April 2007.
61. See also 'Political dissention troubles Liberian groups on Staten Island', New York Times, 28 July 2008.
62. Steinberg, Little Liberia, Part II.
63. I listened to conversations in these restaurants once or twice a week throughout 2008.
64. Notes, Park Hill Avenue, 26 February 2008.
65. Interview, New York, 3 May 2009.
66. Interviews, senior TRC staff, Monrovia and New York, 2009.
67. Steinberg, 'Liberia's experiment with transitional justice'.
68. Indeed, many in the Park Hill community greeted the TRC's Final Report with great enthusiasm. There is now a campaign afoot among Staten Island Liberians to have the TRC's recommendations implemented. In retrospect, it seems that if Liberian Staten Islanders had been aware that the TRC was going to name perpetrators and recommend that they be prosecuted, they would probably have come forward to testify in greater numbers.