Comparing Truth Commissions

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is not to detail every single truth commission that has come into being or been initiated over the last twenty years or so. The purpose is more to look at some of the trends which have given rise to truth commissions and the search for historical truth. Why and how has this become more important in the closing stages of the twentieth century and the opening of the new century? What are some of the facets of truth commissions that we can study and hope to learn from? What is the context in which they emerge? Is the past negotiable? Can we negotiate history to arrive at a common sense of memory? Is it possible to have a collective memory which avoids hindering the way in which we can reconcile past differences and grow? What kinds of institutions would be appropriate to deal with this? These are very large and pertinent questions and this book can only try to partially answer them and allow us to ponder them and the context in which the TRC emerged and worked. In April 1999, I attended a conference in Lund, Sweden, which dealt with the theme of ‘Remembering and Forgetting: the Political and Social Aftermath of Intense Conflict in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe’ in which academics (mainly historians) dealt with the ways in which both people and peoples had tried to deal with their pasts. These included the crimes and misdemeanours on a grand scale that took place in the following countries: Finland (The Finnish Civil War of 1918); the Baltic States; China (the cultural revolution and the Nanking atrocities); Mongolia; Cambodia and Indonesia – among others. There was no closure on any of the conference debates.