Truth be told
Nepal’s decade-long armed conflict was not as destructive as many of the world’s worst civil wars of our time. But it appears neither logical nor wise for our political leadership to constantly call for forgetting the past and moving ahead. In contrast, dealing with the past through truth commissions is a key precondition to enshrine lasting peace and offer a potent future for the nation. The parliament, despite an ostensible lull for the past two years, has been considering setting up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for this purpose. It may soon take a realistic shape. Or, given the current oxymoron polity, it is equally likely to be repressed as well.
The journey from war to peace means confronting the past, and debating about it instead of draping it into artificial rhetoric of national unity. Experience proves that shelving past criminalities emboldens future wrong-doers. The memory of traumatic history from Second World War contributed to the fomenting of ethnic conflict in former Yugoslavia during the early 1990s. They ultimately went on to establish International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to prosecute those war criminals. Many armed groups committed human rights violations in Guatemala during the 1970s and 1980s. It sought to address its past by forming two truth commissions namely Recovery of Historical Memory—an initiative of National Catholic Church—and Historical Clarification Commission on behalf of the state, the later running active until as late as 1999.
Fundamentally, a TRC must provide an opportunity for the people to come together and tell their stories. In Nepal, so far, families and individuals trying to make their cases heard have witnessed only patchwork movement owing to the absence a legitimate instrument that could possibly work to redress their wounds. Family members of the victims of some emblematic cases are publicised by selected human rights organisations. Although this does not embrace the idea of justice in a whole, it has unquestionably catapulted the question of justice to the centre-stage of Nepal’s transitional management. This has also made impossible pardoning all wrongdoings without sincerely uncovering what actually had happened in so many instances of violations during the conflict.
According to peace educator John Paul Ledrach, the process of reconciliation embodies four elemental steps in this order: truth, mercy, peace and justice. Truth, therefore, is the basic tenet without which peace and justice is impossible. Upon discovering the truth, it’s on the part of victims and state to see where mercy needs to be demonstrated. Amnesty is merely an embodiment of mercy, not an ingredient of reconciliation and therefore not the foundation of peace in itself. In contrast, public acknowledgement of abuses leads to reconciliation in society which has to be simultaneously supported by rehabilitation and reparations for victims. Amnest comes only after, if it has to be there at all.
The military as the part of erstwhile state, the Maoist party, and the common people are the three principal stakeholders of proposed TRC. Among them, the issue of amnesty is propagated by two primary sides who remained direct party to the conflict. Former rebels and the state fear that they may be sued for damages caused by human rights violations. Such an act, they resent, prepares ground to dent their legitimacy for future political aspirations. The third party, the common people, caught in between the contest of the two is devoid of voice. For that reason, the problem is not if amnesty is appropriate, but if justice should prevail at all.
The larger goal of TRC is to achieve restorative justice, an approach that focuses on the needs of victims, offenders, as well as the involved community. As opposed to satisfying abstract legal principles by upholding the broken laws of the past or what the present books of law say, emphasis put on the harms meted out to the people and resulting necessities institutes reconciliation. By legitimising the wounds of conflict through TRC, the emerging political dispensation will be able to get endorsement from the victims, even for amnesty to the actors of rights violation at one point. But theatrics about proposed TRC with declared objectives of granting blanket amnesty for all perpetrators shows unacceptable intent.
South Africa’s truth and reconciliation gets so often mentioned in our context. They concentrated on the finding of truth in the first place. It was not that they chose to form the commission with a vested interest to authenticate blanket amnesty. Once truth was bared, they saw deluge of violations and opted to offer amnesty in far majority of cases. But none of the pardons was without establishing what had happened. South African TRC, despite its flaws, serves as an example because it broke legal boundaries, created an exemplary space for truth to get a collective voice, and above all everyone cooperated in the process.
Proceedings of South African TRC in themselves were beyond what we see in usual law courts. They opened with collective prayers and national songs. The victims and alleged perpetrators prayed and sang together, hand in hand, before sitting for hearings. The office bearers and translators, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu who chaired the TRC, broke into loud tears many times while facing stories of the witnesses and victims. The emotions, feelings and sensibilities resonated deep down with the virtues of humanity. By the time the TRC completed its job, a deeply divided nation had already stood in unity. And this was the greatest benefit that no laws and constitutions could have provided in healing South African Wounds.
For us, we are still waiting for truth to be told.
Dhakal has a background in human rights research and training
Tika_dhakal@att.net
Posted on: 2012-01-06 09:41
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