NAME OF MECHANISM

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

PERIOD OF OPERATION

February 2000 – August 2003. Established by law in February 2000, the commission began its work in 2002. The commission’s mandate stipulated the length of operation as one year, with the option of a six-month extension authorised by the president. It entered its preparatory phrase on 5 July 2002, began investigations in April 2003 and held its closing hearings in August 2003. The final report, Witness to Truth, was released in October 2004.

MANDATE AND OPERATIONS

Mandate: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established by parliament through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act of 2000, in accordance with the Lomé Peace Accord, to investigate and describe the causes, nature and extent of the abuses committed from the war’s beginning in 1991 until the peace accord’s signing on 7 July 1999.

The commission had the power to compel persons to appear before it.

Staff: Four Sierra Leonean commissioners – Rev. Dr. Joseph Humper (chair), Justice Laura
Marcus-Jones, John Kamara and Sylvanus Torto – and three international commissioners – Yasmin Sooka (South Africa), Ajaaratou Satang Jow (Gambia) and William Schabas (Ireland).

Budget: The commission began with an operational budget of US$4.5 million.

RESOURCES

Lomé Peace Accord [1999]
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act [2000]
Witness to Truth, vol. 1 [2004]
Witness to Truth, vol. 2 [2004]
Witness to Truth, vol. 3A [2004]
Witness to Truth, vol. 3B [2004]
Witness to Truth, appendices [2004]
TRC Children’s Report [2004]

RESULTS

The TRC took statements from 7,706 Sierra Leoneans, including individuals living in Sierra Leone and refugees in Gambia, Guinea and Nigeria. The final report includes 3,500 pages of testimonies and 1,500 pages on the history of the conflict, human rights violations (with statistical apportioning of blame and names of people responsible), external factors, recommendations and so forth.

The commission found that corruption is one of the main issues to be addressed by Sierra Leone, with one of its main recommendations being that government must fight corruption, along with implementing constitutional reform, processes to ensure the judiciary’s independence, decentralisation and improved service delivery and participatory political processes.

Civil society organisations criticised the government for the long delay in the implementation of the TRC’s recommendations, including a reparations programme and an official apology to the victims of sexual violence [AI | Mar 2008]. Following a two-day consultation in Freetown in November 2007, the United Nations (UN) and Sierra Leone’s Human Rights Commission urged the government to produce a completion strategy for the implementation of the TRC’s recommendations.

In January 2008, the government of Sierra Leone mandated the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) to implement the recommendations, particularly regarding reparations, in order to fulfil its obligations under the Lomé Peace Accord. NaCSA began overseeing a national reparations programme later that year.

BACKGROUND

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group engaged government in armed conflict beginning in 1991, mainly in opposition to multiparty politics and for control over the country’s diamond resources. After the UN’s intervention, the war ended with the signing of the Lomé Peace Accord, which called for the establishment of the TRC [USIP]. The commission ran concurrently with the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a move criticised for causing confusing within Sierra Leone and preventing high-ranking perpetrators from testifying before the commission. Liberia’s former president, Charles Taylor, was put on trial by the SCSL for his involvement in the conflict.

SOURCES

[Amnesty International | Mar 2008] 
[United States Institute of Peace]