Truth Commissions

Truth commissions are an international phenomenon that first developed in the last few decades of the twentieth century as nations attempted to deal with past histories of violence and oppression. Prior to this time, nations resorted to a kind of collective amnesia about past violence, but following World War II, a consensus [Page 1526]arose in the international community that merely putting the past behind with no accounting was no longer acceptable. This impulse gave rise to the Nuremberg trials, in which perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity were tried by the international community.

Yet, as other nations began to emerge from periods of internal violence, often perpetrated by the government against its own citizens (the “dirty war” in Argentina, the Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile, the apartheid era in South Africa, for example), traditional forms of retributive justice—investigations, prosecutions, trials, imprisonment—were sometimes thought to be unworkable or unwise. Thus, the idea of a truth commission, a group of people charged with investigating a period of past violence and writing a report about it, became an alternative means of accounting for the past. These commissions engage in a three-pronged task: establishing an impartial record of the human rights violations of a circumscribed past; promoting healing and reconciliation among the people who have been enemies to each other; and preventing repetition of the harms of the past.

The first significant truth commission, the National Commission on the Disappeared, was formed in Argentina in 1983. Prior to that time, two commissions had existed, but they were seen as ineffective: the Commission of Inquiry into “Disappearances” of People in Uganda Since the January 25, 1971, and the National Commission of Inquiry into Disappearances in Bolivia. The Ugandan commission, formed by dictator Idi Amin to investigate his own government, was regarded as a self-serving attempt to appease the critical international community. The commission took its work seriously, heard witnesses, documented cases, and issued a report, but Amin did not publish the report or implement any of its recommendations. The Bolivian commission disbanded without issuing a report. Thus, the Argentinian commission (known as CONADEP) is recognized as the first legitimate truth commission.

Since 1983, there have been about thirty recognized truth commissions in a wide variety of countries: Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, South Africa, Kenya, and Northern Ireland, to name a few. In many other countries—Bangladesh, Spain, Mexico, for example—citizen groups are actively pursuing the creation of a commission. The concept of truth commissions, as evidenced by their ubiquity, has captured the international imagination.

Truth commissions may be formed in a variety of ways and means: by presidential fiat, legislative bodies, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, even churches. Newly elected President Raul Alfonsin created CONADEP in Argentina by presidential decree in 1983; the Chilean commission was likewise created by President Patricio Aylwin in 1990. In South Africa, the post-apartheid Parliament enacted the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act in 1995, which established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In El Salvador, the commission was created by the United Nations following the signing of an interim peace accord between the Salvadoran government and the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front; FMLN) in 1991. In Guatemala, the Catholic Church created a truth commission. In Northern Ireland, Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed a single British peer, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, to act as a truth commission for the “troubles” in Northern Ireland.

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