World Fact Research

The parties to the Peace Accords who created the TC recognized the need to narrow the
mandated scope of the investigations in order to focus the commission’s attention on that which
would be the most effective towards the TC’s goals. Investigating all of the human rights
violations that occurred during the twelve years of intense civil conflict in El Salvador would
have been humanly impossible. The mandate specified that the TC was to examine “serious acts
of violence” committed after 1980, and which “outraged Salvadoran society and/or international
opinion,” or exemplified a “systematic pattern of violence or ill-treatment.” 91 However, time
limitations did not allow for an adequate investigation of the infamous death squads.
92
The CEH
found it did not have the time, nor the appropriate investigative jurisdiction, to delve deeply
enough into information about the death squads. 3 More time and expertise would have been
required to understand death squads in order to prevent resurgence: their clandestine nature of
action, members’ hidden identities, intricate connections to the State and Intelligence Services,
and covert financing (including from Salvadoran exiles living in Miami). 93
The CEH faced a similar, potential dilemma of a broad, nondescript mandate. Their
objective was to “clarify…the human rights violations and acts of violence that have caused the
3
Excerpted from From Madness to Hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador: Report of the Commission on the Truth
for El Salvador, 1993. http://www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/el salvador/tc es 03151993 casesD1 2.html#D2
Between 1980 and 1991, human rights violations were committed in a systematic and organized manner by groups
acting as death squads. The members of such groups usually wore civilian clothing, were heavily armed, operated
clandestinely and hid their affiliation and identity. They abducted members of the civilian population and of rebel
groups. They tortured their hostages, were responsible for their disappearance and usually executed them.
The death squads, in which members of State structures were actively involved or to which they turned a blind eye,
gained such control that they ceased to be an isolated or marginal phenomenon and became an instrument of terror
used systematically for the physical elimination of political opponents. Many of the civilian and military authorities
in power during the 1980s participated in, encouraged and tolerated the activities of these groups.
44Guatemalan population to suffer…”94 The fact that the drafters of the mandate articulated the
CEH’s task as clarifying the human rights violations, implied all violations.
95
It was, of course,
not possible to investigate a time span of 36 years in six months’ time. The Guatemalan CEH
looked, therefore, to the examples of how the Salvadoran and Chilean commissions, faced with
similarly vague or broad mandates, had reduced the overwhelming workload to a more feasible
goal. 96 The commissioners decided that priority must be given to attacks on life and individual
dignity, especially extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, and sexual crimes.
97
These
violations were considered to be most serious; they would draw more of the country’s attention
to the gravity of the violence and had more of a chance to stir up a national and international
acknowledgment and reaction of denunciation of the abuse.
In addition to that of scope, a crucial variable that exerted its influence on the degree of truth
that was established by these commissions was the variable of time. The very little time given to
the TC and CEH for establishing the historical truth of the conflicts required them to focus the
investigations by narrowing their scope. The limited time in their respective mandates served
also as an obstacle to both the completeness and the detail of the truth told in each commission’s
concluding reports. The TC was given only six months — and took eight — to investigate twelve
years of civil conflict. The CEH originally was given six months, with a possible six-month
extension — and had to take eighteen months — to cover 36 years. Both the TC and the CEH were
commanded to begin work immediately upon the signing of the respective final peace
agreements that put the entire series of accords in action. However, for both commissions,
immediately starting the count down of the time it had to complete its mandate was impractical
because of the immense logistical set-up and preparation required before it could start its actual
45work. This pre-investigation organization took the TC six months and the CEH seven months,
alone.
The drafters of the mandate were naïve to think that the CEH work could start right away.
The logistics of securing office space, both centrally and throughout the country in rural
departments (provinces), of collecting and organizing resources, and of hiring personnel would
prove to take significant time. Finding the commission’s staff — a conglomeration of people with
specific training in law, social work, anthropology, and statistics, as well as personal integrity,
strength, and sensitive character — was a chore in itself. After being identified, the staff was put
through a one-month introductory course that included an historical background to Guatemala, as
well as mental preparation and training. The Guatemalan CEH was delayed further because, not
having been allotted any funding, it had to launch a fundraising campaign during this entire set-
up and preparation period. Soliciting aid from other countries and international organizations
was essential in order to get on its feet, but was costly in time. The CEH finally began the
investigative process in September of 1997, eight months after the signing of the final Peace
Agreement and nearly two years after its initial establishment in the series of peace accords.
The manner in which the CEH conducted its work during the investigations was marked by
the short period of mandated operational time. Adhering to the mandate was important to
maintain legitimacy with the Parties and with the public. As explained above, this pressure
caused the CEH to restrict the cases that it dealt with, focusing on the most severe violations of
human rights. Even more importantly, the lack of time altered the fundamental interaction and
truth-telling experience of the victims and survivors of la violencia with disappointing
consequences for reconciliation. The commission needed to be able to reach a large number of
people and to take down the basic facts of the atrocities committed in order to compile statistical
46evidence to release with the report. In its six months of investigations, the commission was able
to conduct 7,200 interviews. However, group interviews were common, especially in rural,
mostly indigenous areas where a translator was necessary. Group interviews would sometimes
be conducted with fifteen people and one solitary interviewer. 98 “Time allowed for little more
than the cataloguing of the violations prioritized by the [CEH.]” 99 The insufficient time to
collect this data meant that truth-testimony often turned into a collection of descriptive facts,
neglecting the person, his or her real pain, and his or her multifaceted human identity. The truth
commission focused on the identity of the person as, primarily, the category they took on in the
context of the war: the victim, the widow, the perpetrator. Listening as a healing opportunity and
empowerment of the victim or survivor seems to have been considered the ideal, rather than the
general practice in the CEH’s interviewing experience, due to the lack of time. The hurried tone
of the investigations cut short the listening elements of the truth testimony. It cut out time for
sympathy with the individual victims, crucial to their healing process and to capitalizing on the
potential of truth-telling experiences to further reconciliation at this individual level. Professor
Anita Isaacs tells the story of a person she interviewed about his experiences with the CEH. He
was in the middle of telling his story when the statement-taker interrupted and explained that he
did not need to hear the rest because he had already heard far worse. Surely there were other
statement-takers working with the CEH that expressed more sensitivity and respect for the
potentially cathartic experience of truth-telling. However, this anecdote encapsulates the
problem of rushing a truth commission through its work to the unfortunate extent that
commissioners and staff change their approach to the truth finding and truth testimony
experience. More time given to the CEH to carry out investigations in a manner more conducive
47to victim healing and with more attention to reinforcing survivor dignity would have resulted in
greater success building confidence for reconciliation.
The rapidity with which the CEH had to move through much of the country did not allow for
the commission to develop relationships with communities in order to genuinely help heal and
reconcile these people with their past. Trust, such a key element in fruitful truth-telling, and
confidence in the unknown investigators did not grow because there was little time to establish a
relationship. Thus, besides the CEH’s minimal direct effect on the healing of those who testified
and reconciliation at the individual level, the lack of trust in the commission investigators —
“statement-takers” as they are often called — on the part of the truth-tellers affected the quality
and depth of information and details given in testimonies.
The extremely limiting mandated time frame lost the CEH many opportunities to help
individual and micro-level reconciliation in truth-telling participant communities. In terms of
national or macro-level reconciliation, Commissioner Tomuschat seemed to support the idea that
while an expanded, more than a year-long period of operation mandated in the CEH would have
been beneficial, 10° a significantly extended period of time could have had negative
consequences: “A bureaucratic exercise extending over more than five years would eventually
end in general boredom,” im rather than societal engagement in reconciliation initiatives. Despite
these less than encouraging nuances of the CEH truth investigations, some propose that the CEH
should still be praised for overcoming time frame limitations and managing to get the necessary
and relevant facts from the communities visited. 102 Though fact-extraction from these
communities seems to have been substantial enough to make important, critical, progressive
conclusions in the CEH’s final report, it has not helped foster reconciliation for those from whom
the facts were taken.
48A longer period of investigation would have recognized the victims more appropriately and
substantially, according to the goal of societal reconciliation. A longer truth-telling period
tailored to the victims’ needs, rather than the commission’s problematic mandate, would have
been more likely to make known the victims’ criteria for reconciliation — probably the most
comprehensive and profound in demands — and move the whole of society towards their
enactment. The speed at which the CEH had to work contributed to society’s detached
relationship to the commission, the lack of awareness of and investment in its purposes, and the
consequently negligible effect of the CEH on public life since the presentation of its report.
The limited time frame also directly affected the truth that the Salvadoran TC could produce
in a number of ways. Firstly, the situation of rushed, superficial truth-telling interactions
described above in the Guatemalan case also presented itself in El Salvador. The TC’s contact
with communities was transitory and usually resulted in a shallow level of healing. Furthermore,
the TC’s communication with communities was not structured to include follow-up closure
activities, 103 such as therapeutic or educational workshops on citizen mobilization, political
participation, human rights and the justice system, etc. At a minimum, the CEH had a
secondary research team of Guatemalan historians who conducted public meetings and
workshops to discuss policy with the villagers or townspeople.
104
Secondly, the lack of time not
only weakened the TC or CEH’s experience with each community, but limited their overall
access to rural areas. This impaired the representative-ness of the truth established. By leaving
out certain territories or provinces from truth testimony investigations or scantily passing
through, those voices are not represented in the truth report. During the three years it worked,
the REMHI project in Guatemala was able to penetrate much deeper and more broadly over the
entire country than the CEH was able to accomplish in its six months of investigations. El
49Salvador set up four decentralized offices, but this small network was not sufficiently penetrating
into rural provinces. Accessibility was further impeded by the threat of violence still lingering in
these areas during the beginning of the TC’s operations. Launching into the TC mission
immediately after the end of the conflict, as mandated, was premature timing The Salvadoran
people were deterred from testifying to the truth commission not only because they were
paranoid about the political risk, but because they feared for physical safety, especially if they
had to travel far to reach a TC office.
Finally, the lack of time also curbed the number and extent of the “illustrative” cases
included in the body of the TC report. These cases were chosen to receive special, detailed
attention for either their international prominence or for their paradigmatic qualities,
documenting a certain pattern or policy of violence.
105
The commission compiled a list of
exemplary cases which it deemed deserving of distinct recognition in the report, but later had to
cut many from that list due to the impending deadline. The TC did not have enough time to
acquire evidence on all of these important cases before the six-month investigative period
expired. The result was that it could only present thirty-two emblematic cases in the final TC
report, compared to the eighty paradigmatic cases described in the CEH report. 106 Pouring
nearly all of its attention into the investigation of these key cases, several of whose
circumstances were left without adequate clarification, meant that the report did not address the
majority of victims’ cases told in their truth-testimonies. The problem was that pieces of history
that the TC had judged as vital for the country’s understanding of its past had to be left out of the
truth commission report. A momentous document that was supposed to embody the complete
truth of El Salvador’s recent conflict past failed to be complete. A truth commission must ensure
that it represents all of the voices of the country in order for them to feel heard, acknowledged,
50and, eventually, reconciled. National reconciliation requires a common sentiment of
reconciliation across all sectors and regions of the recovering country.
The unrealistically short operation time mandated to the TC and the CEH clearly impeded the
completeness and representative quality of the truth they drew from their contact with
communities. The TC’s and CEH’s grueling six-month schedules of investigations did not allow
them time to tend to the healing and reconciliation of the very same victims they interviewed.
The undermining of the truth established and the lack of proper attention given to the healing of
the victims was not simply an unfortunate consequence of the Parties’ ignorance of an
appropriate length of time to mandate. Sadly, it was the calculated intention of certain interested
Parties who established the commissions to give the TC and CEH insufficient time to do their
work. Some Parties to the Accords feared a national movement that would unearth incriminating
evidence of their guilt if the truth commissions were allowed to complete their jobs thoroughly.
They were afraid that ground-breaking truth revealed would attract too much attention and would
undermine their own institutions’ legitimacy and power. In this way, the government and
guerillas in both El Salvador and Guatemala agreed to the bare minimum of a truth commission
and purposely designed it to have only a minimal effect on the public. Thomas Beurgenthal, one
of the TC commissioners, sheds light on this disappointing reality when he laments that the time
given “was not sufficient time to do justice to all the terrible injustices committed by both sides
to the conflict in El Salvador, but that was not the objective of the Parties.” 107 Rather than
genuinely wanting to do justice to the victims of the conflict, the tone of the mandate reveals
how they wanted to reach closure quickly. They wanted to come to a swift resolution of this past
and move on to a future in which this problem had disappeared. They cared to “[focus] on some
51of the most egregious acts” 108 only as much as was required to clear up misconceptions of the
past. They did not want the past to come back to haunt them: “they wanted a set of
recommendations to help ensure that the past would not repeat itself.” I°9
The pure lack of time to carry out its mission to the fullest was an intrinsic weakness in each
of the truth commissions. Created with the time frames already limited, these truth commissions
were destined to be undermined. However, the truth commissions, themselves, can not be faulted
for these shortcomings. The strengths of the TC and CEH were purposely undercut by external
forces: the politically interested Parties that crafted the TC and CEH mandates in order to limit
the truth produced and to prevent reconciliation initiatives that would empower the third party
victims and de-legitimize the government.

The composition of the commission itself is fundamental to the truth outcome. The
commissioners are the truth managers and the staff are truth excavators. The managers decide
where to dig; the excavators are responsible for the manner in which they dig. Hopefully, they
dig patiently, carefully, and with attention to detail so that certain pieces of the puzzle are not left
hidden or extracted too brashly, sustaining them damage. The skills and sensitivities of those
who work with the various actors in the history to be clarified greatly affect the commission’s
success, the nature of the truth revealed, and the way the commission is perceived by the various
actors and the public as a whole. The goal is that the commission wins trust and commands
respect and authority so that its conclusions will be accepted and affirmed by all as the newly
expanded history (historical narrative) of the conflict years. It is crucial that this new, fuller truth
can be accepted by all. In order for reconciliation, the people must agree on the past to be able to
36work cooperatively together towards the future. These commission members have the potential
to write or rewrite the chapter of the conflict in the history books for the generations to come.
The credibility of the commission determines the persuasive strength of the truth revealed.
The power of the truth revealed affects what the people, government, civil society, and political
parties do in response. The potential that a truth commission has to help facilitate trust, to
acknowledge the victims, and to establish personal or institutional responsibility and justice is
great. To have this effect, it must first be recognized as a legitimate, impartial, and respectable
body by all parties to the conflict and by the general public.
Naming an impartial commission in the eyes of the country can be difficult as no person is
completely neutral. Their life experiences shape their frame of mind, priorities, sympathies, and
interpretations of history. The political and social climate in the country at the time of the truth
commission creation greatly affects what composition will be acceptable. In El Salvador where
the peace accords officially ending the war were signed only months before the truth commission
began its work, the wounds were painfully fresh, the country was still extremely polarized, and
identities were politicized according to party affiliation or ideological tendency. Neutrality did
not exist. It was impossible to find any notable Salvadoran person or public figure who could
lead the commission, never mind an entire Salvadoran commission and staff. Any Salvadoran
suggested would have been rejected by either the government or FMLN for having political
sways or vested interests in a certain outcome. The solution was to construct a commission of
internationals whose distance from the situation contributed to their relative objectivity. The
Salvadoran TC’s composition was novel in that it was the first to be made completely of foreign
nationals. The UN Secretary General appointed the three commissioners, Belisario Betancur
(ex-President of Colombia), Thomas Beurgenthal (ex-President of the Inter-American Court),
37and Reinaldo Figueredo (Ex-Minister of Foreign Relations for Venezuela) who were then
approved by both of the parties to the agreement on the commission establishment. They were
accepted by the government, FMLN, and the public as an external, independent authority
because they had no association with internal Salvadoran political entities.
The TC’s impartiality provided it with the minimal required legitimacy it needed to conduct
its search for the truth. Its international composition, rather than Salvadoran, meant that the
credibility of the truth is produced would at least be considered, rather than immediately
disregarded. However, their foreignness made Salvadoran people skeptical of their ability to
empathize. Salvadorans were hesitant to trust the Commission’s outsiders, and were reticent and
reluctant to come forward, especially at the beginning. Indeed, “commissioners and staff could
not fully comprehend the nuances of the locality — knowledge that national would have had to
their advantage.”73 Beurgenthal highlights the “general mistrust” of the TC on the part of the
majority of the Salvadoran population. 74 Gaining Salvadorans’ trust presented one of the most
difficult challenges. In order to encourage people to come forward to give their truth-testimony,
the TC maintained an “Open Door” policy in which anyone could walk in to one of the four
offices stationed around the country at any time to tell their story. They did not need to make an
appointment or call ahead. Additionally, the TC advertised in the newspapers and on the radio,
seeking to gain a more visible, prominent presence and legitimacy in the eyes of the public. In
the first two or three months — nearly half of their six-month investigation period — the TC was
able to gather very little information of value. 75 As Beurgenthal explains,
It should not be forgotten that the average Salvadoran had no reason to assume
that the Commission would in fact carry out an honest and serious investigation.
There had been many so-called “investigations” in the past, principally domestic
ones, and they produced little information and even less truth. More often than
not, they were publicity stunts staged by the Salvadoran government, frequently
as a result of U.S. pressure and timed so as to anticipate some action by the U.S.
Congress. Given this experience, Salvadorans certainly had no reason to trust
yet another commission, or three foreigners about whom they knew little. 76
38This shows that despite the efforts that the TC made to open up to the Salvadoran people, the
commission’s international make-up still impeded people’s trust of the Commission’s motives.
Consequently, also negatively affected were the extent of primary information it could gather for
its report and the cathartic effects of truth-telling that could have meanwhile benefited many who
were still suffering.
If a commission cannot get people to come forward to tell their stories in substantial
numbers, it cannot be sure that the testimonies collected are representative of the country and of
the historical truth. If a truth commission cannot complete its first, fundamental goal of
establishing the truth, it cannot call the entire country’s attention to the basic, sinister realities of
the conflict — what violence has been committed, to what extent it has been perpetuated, and who
is responsible. If no impressive truth report stirs the country upon release, it will not spur or
pressure the acknowledgement of crimes and their victims. In countries with corrupt judiciaries,
such as El Salvador and Guatemala, the justice system will not consequently be called to reform
in order to accommodate trials of human rights abuse. Even if cases are filed, most likely there
will never be enough political force to compel those cases to be brought to trial and to convict
the defendant perpetrators. A movement for justice is dependent on a previously established,
accepted, and grounded truth. This one example shows how a complete, credible truth is
absolutely essential for any true reconciliation movement to succeed.
A few months into the period of investigations there was an important shift in willingness to
participate in the TC and give truth-testimony. The Salvadoran Ad-Hoc commission, created to
review the human rights records of the officers in the military and recommend dismissal or
demotion of members guilty of violations, came out with an incriminating final report in October
of 1992. 77 It called for the dismissal of over one-hundred officers, including the Minister and
39Deputy Minister of Defense and the Chief of General Staff due to egregious breaches of human
rights. 78 The effect was to win confidence in the work of such commissions at the same time as
it diminished the power of the military institution. It was the Salvadoran people’s fear of the
military’s power and their impunity that had discouraged many from coming to tell their stories.
The very governmental institutions and the individuals responsible for many of
the most egregious acts of violence in El Salvador remained in place and in
power, which explains the fear of the vast majority of individuals who appeared
before the commission. 79
Once the Ad-Hoc commission’s report struck a huge blow to the prestige of the military
institution, people felt empowered to add their own truth to the growing pool of personal truths
that would help shape the collective, national historical truth. At that point, in contrast to just a
few months before, the international composition of the TC proved to be a critical reason that the
Salvadoran people could trust the independent motives of the TC’s investigation. Gradually,
more and more victims and survivors, in addition to a few perpetrators, started coming forward
to give testimony, affecting a greater cathartic influence on Salvadoran society.
The Ad Hoc Commission had proven to the country at large that the power and
control of the government and the military was beginning to weaken, and that
things were changing in El Salvador. Therefore, many more ordinary citizens
also came forward to provide evidence, still very fearful, but now with greater
confidence in the integrity of the process. 8°
As will be elaborated on further, the quality of truth established by the TC turned out to be
impressive relative to that of other truth commission investigations around the world. The
potential for reconciliation was allowed, first, by the airing of the truth and the disproving of
false rumors and systematic lies. The international composition of the Salvadoran TC was an
asset to building trust and gaining legitimacy from the Salvadoran public, despite the fact that
this trust was slow in coming. In the beginning it appeared that the international composition of
the TC was the crippling obstacle to gaining trust and access to the Salvadoran’s stories.
However, once the release of the Ad Hoc Commission report assuaged people’s fear of military
40power and built their confidence in these commissions’ punitive effect, they began going to the
TC in increasing numbers. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that it was mistrust of the TC
outsiders compounded by the people’s deep fear of the consequences of truth-testifying that
prevented progress during the first few months. While the nonnational composition of the TC
was an intrinsic aspect that affected the quality of truth produced, the people’s fear of the
military was an external pressure, rather than an internal weakness, which restricted (for a time)
the progress of the TC towards reconciliation.
Guatemala found itself in similar, although perhaps not as extreme, circumstances to those in
El Salvador when the CEH began its work. The country was divided and broken from suffering
civil conflict over the previous few decades. When the Parties to the CEH creation agreement
were writing the mandate, they wanted the commission to be made of Guatemalans.
Guatemalans should be the ones investigating their own past and presenting the truth of their
recent history to the rest of their people. As Christian Tomuschat, chair commissioner for the
CEH, explained, “one would…expect that the task of dealing with a criminal past would be
entrusted to citizens of the country concerned.’
,81
However, in order to guard the CEH from
charges of bias, the Parties decided to include an impartial international presence to provide
“balance” and legitimacy to the CEH. As a result, the Guatemalan CEH was unique in its
mixed-nationality composition: one international figure appointed by the UN Secretary-General,
•
a Guatemalan “of irreproachable conduct,” and a Guatemalan academic.
82
Christian Tomuschat
was designated as Commission coordinator on Feb 8, 1997 and, in turn, appointed Otilia Lux de
Cot( and Alfredo Balsells as the Guatemalan commissioners. 83
41The Guatemalan CEH’s mixed composition was successfully objective. The variety in
nationalities, discipline backgrounds, investigation approaches, and truth interpretations brought
many complementing perspectives and strengths to the table. In turn, the truth that was
established was not only impressively comprehensive, but was a landmark in the international
experience of truth commissions. Striking, daring, yet carefully methodical truth commission
reports, such as the CEH Memoria del silencio (Memory of Silence), have the most potential to
compel official acknowledgment of the crimes committed and innocent victims wronged and to
empower victims and civil society to pressure the government for redress and concrete reform.
It is important whether commissioners choose a social science or legalistic approach to truth-
finding. 84 Commissioners with legal backgrounds will draw up legal definitions of what
constitutes a violation of domestic law, international human rights law, and international
humanitarian law and then compare cases from the investigations, in search of those that qualify
as violations. 85 Social scientists, in contrast, tend to ask the hows and the whys. One possible
implication is that during testimonies, “statement-takers” of a more legalistic approach would be
more interested in facts surrounding the circumstances of violent incidents and more focused on
identifying the gravest of crimes. Social scientists would pay careful attention to the story
progression, the manner in which the individual tells the story, and the personal emotions that
come through. Social scientist ’statement-takers’ and report writers may come across as more
sympathetic to the horror of the human experience.
A commission composed of professionals from different backgrounds — lawyers vs. social
scientists — has the potential to cause conflict of priorities and perspectives. However, in
Guatemala the mix of orientations among commissioners (two lawyers and one social scientist) 86
and approximately 200 staff provided a most dynamic interchange. Through the variety of
42intellectual strengths, a more comprehensive interpretation of Guatemala’s recent past was
possible. For example, the CEH employed quantitative analysis to prove that genocide had
occurred in Guatemala. It showed that in several crucial regions rates of indigenous people
killed by the state were five to eight times greater then rates among non-indigenous people.” 87
Conversely, the report’s historical examination of the root causes of the conflict and the systemic
injustice that perpetuated it was a qualitative, social science-oriented analysis. As a result, the
truth that the CEH presented in its report was uniquely striking, comprehensive, and profound. It
is, in the words of Greg Grandin, an “impassioned search for the meaning of Guatemala’s
violence”88 and a “damning narrative that indicts not just the nation’s ruling elite, but its culture
and history as well.”89 The CEH report was a departure from the Salvadoran (and the Chilean
and Argentine) TC’s juridical-style conclusions about human rights violations committed, which
concentrated on the whos and whats. 90 The Guatemalan report presented plenty of scientific
statistical evidence, but also branched out, daring to answer the complex question of “why?”
The why — the racism, economic exploitation, and political exclusion of the vast majority of the
country - was a part of the truth that was taboo; it had never been uttered aloud by any official
body before. However, these systemic grievances were a fundamental source of distrust of much
of the population towards the government and, therefore, an obstacle to reconciliation. By
exposing and addressing these larger problems the government became accountable to fix them.
Civil society could also be more vocal and active in fighting these problems from their angle. Of
course real change in systemic patterns or structure must be set as long term goals because
revealing and recognizing their detrimental effects is only the first step. However, it is an
essential step for reconciliation at any deeper level.

A truth commission’s success is hard to measure because “success” is so subjective and
relative when the objectives — harmony, peace, trust, reconciliation, etc — are also ambiguous.
The five prominent truth commissions mentioned above won their status as relatively successful
when measured against other commissions’ attempts to satisfy the priorities, purposes, and goals
articulated in their mandates. The Argentine, Chilean, Salvadoran, South African, and
Guatemalan commissions have also received considerable international attention, often due to
the direct involvement of prominent international figures or substantial economic and/or
administrative support from the United Nations or foreign countries.
Rather than evaluate the success of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth commissions — a
seemingly impossible task - this paper seeks to analyze the two truth commissions’ realized and
potential connections to reconciliation as a process and as a goal. In what ways have the
Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth commissions contributed to national reconciliation and why
have they not been able to achieve more? To what extent have the TC and CEH been catalysts
for reconciliation?
35National reconciliation requires that the truth of the past be known and recognized; that the
responsible parties publicly acknowledge their guilt, their role, the wrongness of committing
such atrocities against their victims, and regret for their actions; and that justice, according to the
needs of the victims, be served with restorative, reparative measures and with punitive, deterrent
juridical action. As explained in the theoretical section, truth commissions have the potential to
contribute to reconciliation in any and each of these directions. The remainder of the paper will
be dedicated to analyzing the consequences of the TC’s and CEH’s specific compositions,
mandates, conclusions, recommendations, and report dissemination visa vis the ideals of truth,
acknowledgment, and justice for reconciliation

Like El Salvador, Guatemala was embroiled in a long, costly, internal conflict that was, at
least, partially rooted in the economic exploitation and economic injustice of a feudal-like
system. Authoritarian leaders had ruled Guatemala and protected the economic interest of the
landed elite and foreign land-owners until Guatemala finally elected its first democratic civilian
leader, Jose Arevalo, to office in 1944. From 1944-1954, Guatemala enjoyed ten years of
democratic rule that brought land redistribution and significant economic, political, and social
reform to the colonial-modeled systems of old. However these reforms were unpopular among
the Guatemalan economic elite and foreign corporation landholders such as the American-owned
United Fruit.
In March of 1954, the Guatemalan military, backed by the CIA, overthrew the democratic
Jacobo Arbenz government in a coup that ended Guatemala’s popular “revolution.” 66 The
following leaders re-instated rigid authoritarian-esque economic policy, revoking and reversing
Arevalo and Arbenz reforms, while holding elections that would qualify Guatemala as a
democracy in name. Opposition to the government’s policy rose with leftist guerilla insurgent
groups that first organized during the early 1960s. The guerrillas were all but crushed by a
military counter-insurgency reaction in the 1960s. The Guatemalan government, as well as the
US government in 1954, had framed the “threat” as a communist one, in the context of the Cold
War. 2
2
In reality, these first “guerrillas” who organized the insurgency in the 1960s and reorganized in the 1970a were ex-
military soldiers or officers who had defected from the Armed Forces. The Guatemalan military has a history of
factions; these men constituted one such faction that broke from the military once it became disillusioned by the
corruption in the institution.
32The guerrillas regained strength again by the mid 1970s, this time with critical support from
mobilized indigenous Mayans, determined to fight against the systematic racism,
marginalization, and poverty they suffered. The Maya make up over half of Guatemala’s
population. The bloodiest, most gruesome years of the war came in the early 1980s under
General Romeo Lucas Garcia and General Efrain Rios Montt, the notorious conceiver of the
scorched-earth campaigns in indigenous Mayan villages. The anti-guerilla counterinsurgency
took on a distinctly racist tone towards the end of the 70s and after. Massacres, disappearances,
rapes, and tortures of indigenous people were strategically carried out in order to “break the
popular base of the leftist guerrillas,” or, perhaps more accurately, terrorize the indigenous
population back into fearful subordination within the traditional system that benefited the rich
and exploited the poor, rural Maya. Peace talks began in the form of a national dialogue in 1987
after a return to civilian rule two years earlier. In the early 1990s the “Oslo process” succeeded
in producing a slow series of peace agreements between the Guatemalan government and Unidad
Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) guerrillas, mediated by the UN’s Jean Arnault.
The long peace negotiation process finally culminated in official end to the civil conflict on
December 29, 1996 with the Agreement for a Firm and Lasting Peace. The human loss of the
thirty-six year war was devastating: 200,000 deaths and disappearances, tens of thousands of
refugees, and a million internally displaced people in a country with only 12 million people.
The establishment of Guatemala’s truth commission was, like El Salvador’s, negotiated
between the parties to the peace agreements as part of the accords. On June 23, 1994 the URNG
and the Guatemalan government created the “Agreement on the establishment of the
Commission to clarify past human rights violations and acts of violence that have caused the
Guatemalan population to suffer.” 67 This truth commission was given the official name la
33CornisiOn para el Esclarecimiento HistOrico (the Historical Clarification Commission, hereafter
CEH). The 1994 agreement clearly states the CEH’s primary purpose: “To clarify with all
objectivity, equity and impartiality the human rights violations and acts of violence that have
caused the Guatemalan population to suffer, connected with the armed conflict. “68 Towards the
ideal of reconciliation, the truth commission is established on the basis of the Guatemalans’
“right to know the whole truth” and with the expectation that it will promote a “culture of
harmony and mutual respect.” 69 The parties express their “wish to open as soon as possible a
new chapter in Guatemala’s history which…will…help lay the bases for peaceful coexistence
and respect for human rights among Guatemalans.”7° Despite their different political interests,
the Parties compromised in order to form this truth commission. From the beginning, the URNG
supported the idea of a truth commission and finally convinced the government to negotiate. The
government decided that it would be beneficial because they realized it was important for the
country to perceive them each as working towards bringing peace, stability, and reconciliation.
It remains to be seen later in the paper what the outcome was of this CEH.
According to this agreement, the commission was to draw up a report that contained their
findings and factual, objective conclusions regarding the events and the factors (both internal and
external) that led to their occurrence. The recommendations to be made by the commission must
“encourage peace and national harmony in Guatemala” and must include specific “measures to
preserve the memory of the victims, to foster a culture of mutual respect,” and strengthen human
rights observance and democracy. 71 This mandate included elements that are clearly identified
with national reconciliation. The CEH’s mandate, negotiated between the two parties to the
conflict, was considered weak, as the government surely made its existence conditional on very
limited powers and a restrictive time frame. However, its resulting conclusions were striking and
34its effects were surprisingly powerful. As Audrey Chapman and Patrick Ball declared, “the CEH
model proved to produce a more complete, consistent, and coherent report than any other
commission to date.”72 The following will analyze how well this seemingly restricted
Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission and the similarly mandated Salvadoran
Commission on Truth were able to cope with such daunting missions and the overarching end-
goal of fostering national reconciliation.

El Salvador has been plagued since colonial control by severe inequity in land distribution
and access to economic resources. Rigid economic inequality spurred leftist guerrillas to
organize and begin uprising in the late 1970s against the political and economic system that
benefited and protected the economic interests of the landed elite. By 1980, the government had
29launched a full, strategic counter-insurgency campaign against the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN). Backed firmly by the US government who contributed over six
billion dollars of military and economic aid to the Salvadoran government and armed forces, the
Salvadoran military was able to continue their fight against the Soviet- and Cuban-backed
guerillas for twelve years until peace was finally negotiated between the warring parties with the
assistance of a UN mediator. Over 75,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed and over 1
million (including over 300,000 refugees) were displaced. The Chapultepec Peace Accords of
January 1992 ended the civil conflict and began a long process of societal and institutional
reconstruction.
One of the accords reached between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN in the series
of agreements leading up to the final Chapultêpec signing provided for an official truth
commission that would bolster the post-conflict national reconciliation process. The April 27,
1991 Mexico Peace Agreement’s “Provisions Creating the Commission on Truth” (named for the
site of the negotiations) outlined the motivations for, functions, and powers of a truth
commission to be run by the United Nations.6° The proposed truth commission would
investigate “serious acts of violence which have occurred since 1980 and whose impact on
society urgently requires that the public should know the truth.”61 By acknowledging the
silenced victims and disclosing the reality of the violations of human rights during internal
conflict, the truth commission would ultimately seek to foster mutual understanding and
consensus and, eventually, trust between all sides involved. The parties clearly stated their two
goals for the Commission to promote national reconciliation and to uncover the factual truth of
the nature, causes, and societal impact of the violence during the conflict:
The Commission shall take into account:
30a) The exceptional importance that may be attached to the acts to be
investigated, their characteristics and impact, and the social unrest to which they
gave rise; and
(b) The need to create confidence in the positive changes which the peace
process is promoting and to assist the transition to national reconciliation. 62
The fact that both parties explicitly supported the truth commission as a reconciliation initiative
and agreed to its freedom to investigate a wide variety of serious crimes was significant gesture
of mutual commitment that boosted the legitimacy of each party and the credibility of the truth
commission even before its work had begun.
On July 15, 1992, several months after the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords, the
actual ComisiOn de la Verdad para El Salvador (Commission of the Truth for El Salvador) was
formally established and began its enormous and weighty task with only a six-month period in
which to conduct its investigations. The Salvadoran Truth Commission (hereafter TC) was
unique because it was the first to investigate a certain country’s civil conflict while being
sponsored, paid for, and staffed by the United Nations.63 The commission was made of three
commissioners and a staff of 20-30 lawyers at any one time: lawyers, sociologists, forensic
anthropologists, and social workers from Latin America, Europe and the United States. 64 It was
charged to investigate the entire twelve year civil war period, but possessed no juridical powers
or powers of subpoena, search, or seizure. The commission was to produce a report detailing the
conclusions reached in their pursuit of “the complete truth.” 65 In the report they were to include
recommendations for reforms and reconciliation initiatives that would be binding to the parties.
As the commission quickly found, the fresh wounds of the horrors of El Salvador’s civil war, the
distrust that perpetuated beyond the proclaimed peace of 1992, and the sharply polarized
organization of society and politics, governed by the power to instigate fear, would critically
challenge the possibility of both of the Truth Commission’s goals.

Truth Commissions are often formed in war-torn societies where reconciliation is the
ultimate goal. As described in the previous section, truth commissions theoretically aim to (1)
air the truth of the past in their final reports; (2) promote acknowledgement of that unequivocal
truth and the suffering caused; (3) empower the victims through the truth-telling experience; and,
(4) guarantee imminent measures of restorative justice in their final recommendations. The
question is whether or not these goals are realistic in practice.
There have been more than twenty truth commissions established in the past three decades of
varying scope, intent, and notability. None of these commissions has succeeded in bringing
about a “thicker” degree of national reconciliation. Should this signal to the world that the
objectives of truth commissions are simply too grandiose? Are they inherently destined to fail?
For any truth commission there are variable elements that might affect its success towards
promoting reconciliation: those of internal structure and organization of the commission, and
those of external pressures acting on the commission or on the commission’s public political
space. In establishing a truth commission, there are many decisions that must be made regarding
its structure, composition, powers, and expectations. Truth commissions purport to be promising
visa vis reconciliation, but their consequent results have fallen short of the desired end. What
accounts for the disparity between the ideal and reality of their success? Is it due to the fact that
these truth commissions are designed wrong for their specific contexts, or are inherently flawed?
Are truth commissions a worthy part of the “road to reconciliation?”
26There are five truth commissions ) most commonly and internationally recognized for their
relative success (according to the purposes set out in the mandates) and for important lessons
provided in their experiences: the commissions of Argentina (active 1983-4), Chile (1990-1), El
Salvador (1992-3), South Africa (1995-8), and Guatemala (1997-9). The contexts of the
atrocities investigated in these five countries vary considerably, therefore, the truth commissions
charged with their inquiry and analysis differed in composition, mandated powers, strengths,
specific challenges, and end objectives. In El Salvador and Guatemala, the systematic
extermination of the civilian population by the Armed Forces resulted in massive human and
material loss. El Salvador’s death toll numbered 75,000 in a country with a population of only
about 6 million. Guatemala suffered 200,000 deaths in a country of about 12 million and more
than 400 villages burned off the map. These situations of protracted civil conflict were very
different from the targeted repression, torture, and disappearance of individuals, identified as
politically left-leaning by the military regime in Chile and Argentina. Here, the repression was
clearly one-sided, perpetrated by a military dictatorship against innocent, defenseless citizens.
The dirty wars of Chile and Argentina resulted in more than 3,000 disappearances and between
50,000 and 200,000 victims of illegal detention and torture in Chile 58 and between 10,000 and
30,000 people arrested, interrogated, tortured, and killed in Argentina.
59
The circumstances of
the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that confronted the overt,
institutionalized racism, oppression, and political marginalization of a forty-five year-old
Apartheid system present still another contrasting case with an innumerable number of victims of
human rights violations. All of these truth commission experiences can teach valuable lessons
about how best to engineer a commission for the best prospects for reconciliation. They also
“Judged by their size, the impact they had on their respective political transitions, and the national and
international attention they received.” Hayner, 32.
27exemplify the limited degree to which a truth c i
national reconciliation.
The balance of this paper explores the truth
potential facilitators of national reconciliation.
mmission can control or steer the course of
commissions of El Salvador and Guatemala as
here are three reasons that these two cases prove
worthy of analysis in the context of the above questions. Firstly, El Salvador and Guatemala are
severe conflict cases of political polarization, massive human cost, and societal break-down. At
the conclusion of their civil conflicts, they were in desperate need of healing and reconciliation at
the societal and political levels. Both countries became good tests for truth commissions’
potentials and power to initiate and further national reconciliation. Secondly, the Salvadoran and
Guatemalan truth commissions are two of the five most recent, prominent truth commissions
listed above. Accordingly, they were designed with the knowledge of valuable lessons from
previous truth commissions. Thirdly, the experiences of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth
commissions may provide lessons regarding structure and external politics for future
commissions emerging from similar contexts.
It is true that each tragic case of atrocities for which a truth commission has been established
occurs in a context unique to that place and time. Still, the contexts, experience, and challenges
of these two truth commissions, may be the two most relevant commissions to present-day truth
commission initiatives in Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Rwanda. Truth commissions in El Salvador
and Guatemala were established as part of a comprehensive peace process, as in the case of
Sierra Leone, in order to heal a deeply polarized polity and social fabric torn by protracted civil
conflict, like those in the Balkans and in the Lakes region of central Africa.
The two Central American cases of El Salvador and Guatemala provide an interesting
comparative study. In these cases, truth commissions were established during peace accord
28negotiations and in the context of parallel political, military, and social conflict. In both
countries, the conservative-right government utilized the national army and paramilitary forces to
fight a counterinsurgency campaign, framed in the context of the Cold War, against leftist
guerillas and a perceived popular base. In both cases a civilian population found themselves
caught in the middle and fell victim to the severest brutality. A permeating culture of violence,
distrust, and fear made the issue of national reconciliation a central issue during peace accord
negotiation, an essential goal for post-accord measures, and an overwhelming future challenge.
The Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth commissions were created in order to help foster
reconciliation between political enemies of war and between the powerless victims and their
power-holding perpetrators. Facing the truth of the past would hopefully help the country to
look inside itself and examine its problems, reconcile with itself, and commit to new human
rights standards for the future. The crucial reports of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan truth
commissions were released to the public and to the parties of the peace accords twelve and seven
years ago, respectively. Before progressing to an evaluation of the consequent effectiveness of
these truth commissions and their reports towards reconciliation, this paper will provide a brief
historical overview of the conflict and establishment of a truth commission in each country.

Truth commissions are examples of a restorative justice initiative. Many commend truth and
reconciliation commissions for having advanced beyond penal, retributive justice to restorative
justice. 53 In allowing perpetrators, victims, their families, and witnesses to testify, truth
commissions are uniquely rehabilitative to all sides, promoting the value of concern and respect
for all those who demonstrate genuine mercy. Sarkin notes the power of restorative justice
achieved in truth commission work: “[truth commissions] satisfy the retribution impulse by
dispensing punishment…The naming of perpetrators and the exposure of their violations
constitutes punishment through public stigma, shaming, and humiliation.” 54
Timing and length of operation outlined in each commission’s mandate can assist or hinder a
more thorough and widespread collection of information and a more credible and fair
representation of the past. Generally, the more time given for the investigation, the more
witnesses reached and/or the more quality time devoted to each witness, the more revealing and
convincing the truth established, and the greater the prospects are for reconciliation. It is
advisable to begin work when momentum for peace and optimism is fresh. However, charging
ahead prematurely - before the previous authority’s influence in politics have waned or when
22victims’ wounds are too recent and fears too real - can increase the commission’s politicization
and decrease public confidence and participation. If traces of violence from the conflict are still
occurring, physical safety concerns could ward off traveling truth-testifiers. As Sarkin points
out, “the extent to which a truth and reconciliation commission process is established by the new
order, in cooperation with those who were vanquished, plays an important part in determining
whether such a process can assist in national reconciliation.” 55 Commission mandate time
limitations range from only a few months to as much as several years.
The amount of funding that a truth commission receives — from its national government,
international funds, and foreign governments — can affect the efficacy of the commission as well,
by limiting or allowing for a large staff on the job, for example. In addition, certain powers
specified in a commission’s mandate, like those of subpoena or search and seizure, can allow
commissions to bring previously secret, incriminating information to the surface. This disrupts
traditions of deceit and denial of illegitimate activity on the part of the authorities. Possession or
exclusion of such powers can alter the depth of truth that is revealed and the level of
accountability the commission is able to impose on guilty parties.
Sponsorship and leadership involving diverse actors can legitimate a truth commission in the
eyes of the victimized public and international community. All truth commissions are officially-
sanctioned bodies and many of them are jointly-sanctioned via peace accords signed by both the
government and the opposition. This is significant in setting the tone for reconciliation. The
establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission that would expose their crimes is
certainly not in their political interest. The fact that the government (along with the former
opposition party in some cases) mandates such a commission demonstrates a change in political
behavior: a commitment to societal healing and reconciliation. They are often pushed by human
23rights workers56 advocating for the victims’ rights and by the international community concerned
about guaranteeing a reconciliation that will better ensure the country’s stability. Even the step
of coming together as former political enemies to explore the creation of a truth commission,
dialoguing and discussing the goals and mandates of such a commission, and finally committing
to its establishment in an officially-signed mutual agreement fosters communication,
cooperation, and trust. The commissioners are chosen specifically in each context to be able to
exercise unbiased leadership and, thus, lend legitimacy and public confidence to the
commission’s work. Due to the fact that both Guatemala and El Salvador were substantially
politically-polarized, the majority of the commissioners were foreigners appointed by the UN. In
the Guatemalan case, only one out of three commissioners was a Guatemalan national, while in
El Salvador only foreigners served as the three commissioners. Public opinion of truth
commissioners undoubtedly influences the public’s approval of the entire truth commission
initiative. The public’s attitude toward the truth commission and its report clearly affect their
ensuing ownership of post-commission reconciliation programs and whether its general attitude
toward reconciliation is optimistic or skeptical.
Publicity, widespread publication, and high readership of the concluding report affect how
widely the truth comes to be known and how well reconciliation can take hold as a movement in
the country. Jacques highlights their educational contribution in exposing the fact of massive or
systemic human rights violations, condemning such immoral abuses, and identifying the pre-
conditions that led to such atrocity. 57 The conclusions of the report are an especially important
contribution to the potential for reconciliation. The recommendations and reforms asserted in
this section can be a simple set of guidelines for preventing recurrence of injustice or an
ambitious recipe for a just society and responsible government. Their strength, particularly, can
24indicate the pressure on government political parties and civil society to implement these
measures. Truth commissions, however, can only go so far as to state these ground-breaking
ideas and make their case of why they are essential for sustainable peace and reconciliation. In
the end, long term benefits of the truth commissions depend significantly on the follow-up: the
extent to which the recommendations and reforms are implemented by subsequent governments
and pursued by civil society.

Some criticize the usage of truth commissions because of the commission’s inability to
establish legal responsibility and, thus, take a soft approach to justice. Truth and reconciliation
commissions have been referred to as a “second-best alternative” to punitive trials. However,
such a sweeping assessment lacks insight into the context in which each truth commission is
created. It assumes that punitive court trials are the best route to justice. This criticism of truth
commissions as merely a “second-best” method of pursuing justice, behind criminal trials, is
unwarranted.
In the vast majority of truth commission cases, trials have not even been a realistic option for
pursuing justice and reconciliation. If the national judicial system is inefficient, corrupt, or not
reliably independent of political pressuring, the “justice” that results could be even more
problematic. Trials against perpetrators will be too infrequent and isolated in order to benefit a
national-level sentiment toward reconciliation, or will result in disappointing negative or soft
20verdicts. Most of the time, however, a weak judiciary system fails to call perpetrators to court.
In other cases, laws or the threat of new amnesty laws impedes or precludes prosecution. Thus, a
truth commission becomes the only unbiased official body that can investigate and contribute to
accountability by assigning responsibility to individuals or institutions. Truth commissions may
also emerge as the favored avenue for establishing accountability when legal prosecution poses
the risk of further dividing society or disrupting a fragile democracy by provoking remerging
polarization of the country and ensuing uprising. 51
Even though truth commissions cannot label these criminals with official judicial convictions
and punishments, the criminals named or the institutions incriminated in the report are still held
to some level of accountability. If perpetrator identities are publicly known, the people can hold
them accountable for their guilt through the nonviolent retribution of public shaming, insults, and
refusing them service. In order to maximize truth commissions’ contribution to accountability,
the identities of the perpetrators need to be accessible to the public. A list of the perpetrators’
names in the final report, as in the Salvadoran case, is potentially the most significant conclusion
that a commission can print. Naming names immediately to build a base level of accountability
is especially critical when the politically-charged and manipulated judicial system has no hope of
producing just verdicts, much less of prosecuting the perpetrators.
It is not fair to criticize truth commissions based on the goals of punitive trials because their
functions and outcomes are fundamentally designed to be different and complementary. Truth
commissions were not created to legally convict and sentence perpetrators. “Truth commissions
are meant to function as moral panels, not legal courts, “52 according to Jose Zalaquett, a
prominent international rights advocate and former member of the Chilean truth and
reconciliation commission. If truth commissions attempted to assign punishment, they would be
21overstepping their legal bounds and breaking the rule of law. Additionally, during the period of
delicate peace and sensitive political moves that follow cessation of violence, the fact that truth
commissions do not have the power to punish actually makes them less objectionable than trials
in the eyes of the military and government institutions. These damaged societies and countries
need every pro-reconciliation initiative and healing opportunity to reconstruct their lives,
relationships, and trust.

In her book, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness, Martha Minow affirms her belief in truth
commissions’ comparative potential to contribute to reconciliation due to their power to aid
societal healing: “When the societal goals include restoring dignity to victims offering a basis for
17individual healing, and also promoting reconciliation across a divided nation, a truth commission
again may be as or more powerful than prosecutions.” One of the three commissioners on the
United Nations-led Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, Thomas Buergenthal, reported in
his assessment of the experience that
many of the people who came to talk to the Commission to tell what happened to them or their
relatives and friends had not done so before. For some, ten years or more had gone by in silence
and pent-up anger. Finally, someone listened to them, and there would be a record of what they
had endured. They came by the thousands, still afraid and not a little skeptical, and they talked,
many for the first time. One could not listen to them without recognizing that the mere act of
telling what had happened was a healing emotional release, and that they were more interested in
recounting their story and being heard than in retribution. It is as if they felt some shame that they
had not dared to speak out before and, now that they had done so, they could go home and focus
on the future less encumbered by the past. 45
Jacques makes two important points. The first is that “People turn to memory in the search
for elements to help them to situate themselves in the present and to project themselves into the
future.”46 Accordingly, she then states that “Everyone’s memory is selective. Each of us builds
on an interpretation of what he or she remembers.” 47 If people identify themselves based on the
horrifying, dehumanizing experiences of human rights abuses and atrocities that dominate their
memories, they will feel of degraded status and begin to dismiss their essential human worth.
These victims suffer the psychosocial problems of negative self-image, hopelessness, and fear of
the violence recurring in their memories that perpetuate pain even further. John Paul Lederach
addresses these issues in the passage below, explaining that reconciliation involves coming to
terms with the reality of one’s past and reconsidering one’s own identity visa vis society.
Reconciliation … orients its energy toward understanding the deeper psychological and subjective
aspects of people’s experiences, not just in connection to their recent past but often based on
generation of pain, loss, and suffering. Reconciliation requires that people not only decide what to
do about particular issues, but also address and reconsider their understanding of self, community,
and enemy. 48
18This deeply personal reprocessing of identity and reconciling with the “other(s)” is relevant to all
sides of the conflict. For victims, it is significant that their defining image of themselves does
not remain a restrictive “victim” identity with the help of an individual reconciliation process.
Kimberly A. Maynard identifies in her essay, “Rebuilding Community: Psychosocial
Healing, Reintegration, and Reconciliation at the Grassroots Level,” five phases of psychosocial
recovery for societies that are rebuilding after internal conflict. She lists:
1) Establishing safety
2) Communalization (the act of sharing traumatic experiences, perceptions, resulting
emotions, etc. in a safe environment) and Bereavement
3) Rebuilding trust and the capacity to trust
4) Reestablishing personal and social morality
5) Reintegrating and restoring democratic discourse. 49
Given these guidelines for reconciliation, truth commissions are an appropriate model. Truth
commissions aim to provide a safe space where the fear-dominated, victimized, and hidden
members of society can reappear and unload the trauma they have been carrying on their backs.
By listening to these victims and validating their experiences as nothing less than inhumane, the
commission helps to humanize the desperate and degraded. Rehabilitating the confidence and
security of individuals, as the truth commission does one at a time, is essential. These individual
members of society are the building blocks of greater communities on which the possibility for
reconciliation hinges.
One occasionally controversial issue of truth commission proceedings is the potentially
painful emotional and psychological personal impact of truth-telling. If one learns the true story
of a loved one’s death or torture, including the identity of the one responsible for their agony, the
emotional burden can be intense. Individuals’ reactions to the experience of truth-telling vary
greatly. Re-hashing the painful memories forces some people to slide back into wrenching
nightmares, flashbacks, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Given this, some critics of
19truth commissions believe that it is better to “leave the past behind than reopen old wounds.”5°
When the sense of resolve is founded on high expectations for the consequences to the
victimizer(s), and the victimizer(s) is neither prosecuted, suspended from his political position,
nor even mentioned in the truth commission report, justice ignored means no resolution and yet
another defeat for the victim or witness. Still, the simple opportunity to speak and be heard can
be a cathartic experience for many victims. Truth commissions, not trials, are official bodies that
finally give primary attention to the victims. The overall consensus is that truth commissions
offer significant psychological reward long-term and do much more good than harm for the
victimized and for society at large

Truthtelling is delicado (delicate), as the saying goes in
Guatemala, as it means making judgments about what is and what
is not important about the past and the future.
- Jennifer Schrimer34
Priscilla Hayner, author of Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity,
supports the turn toward truth commissions as official bodies that facilitate safe, truth testimony
14and seek to unearth the truth lying silently under the terrible secrets of the past. As Audrey
Chapman and Patrick Ball clarify, “the importance of truth commissions might be described as
acknowledging the truth rather than finding the truth.” 35 Establishing an ample, genuine history
of the citizens of the country is an indispensable key to reconciliation. The people must first
understand fully from what painful memories the country needs to heal and with whom it needs
to reconcile.
Truth commissions are temporary, non-judicial investigatory bodies that are usually formed
during political transition or reform and after cessation of violent internal conflict. During such
periods of tenuous peace, uncertainty with how to deal with the past, and insecurity of the future,
truth commissions emerge as mechanisms to provide some clarity, direction, and goals. They
focus on the past, identifying patterns of abuse and human rights violations over a specific
segment of history. Commissioners sift through evidence and documents and gather personal
testimonies from different sides of the conflict and regions of the country. Truth commissions
delve thoroughly into the details of the tactics used, acts committed, detention center locations,
and perpetrator identities. They can investigate a wide range and large number of cases. They
discern overall patterns, institutional context, and general causes and consequences of
atrocities. 36 Truth commissions have no jurisdiction to officially judge and claim the guilt of
those identified as perpetrators and usually lack the power of subpoena. However, they look at
the broader responsibility of certain negative social and economic forces and at the root causes of
state political polarization and discrimination. They identify dangerous political, social, or
cultural patterns of exploitation, corruption, and violence. Finally, at the end of their term truth
commissions submit a report that reveals their findings and makes conclusions and
recommendations. The reality is that the commissions have the awesome responsibility writing
15or re-writing history. As Chapman and Ball explain, “the documentation and interpretation of
truth is more complex and ambiguous than many analysts and proponents of truth commissions
assume. Social, technical, and methodological constraints, as well as epistemological limitations
of what can be known, all affect a commission’s ability to produce an authoritative account.” 37
Sarkin highlights, “Even though there cannot be one final “objective truth” it is critical that the
version of ‘the truth’ arrived at by the commission embraces the experience of all.” 38
The idealism required and the intention to foster reconciliation is inherent in the truth
commissions. The principle components of reconciliation — truth, acknowledgement,
accountability, and justice — appear clearly below in what Priscilla Hayner outlines as the four
main purposes for all truth commissions:
(1) to clarify and acknowledge the truth;
(2) to contribute to justice and accountability;
(3) to outline institutional responsibility and recommended reforms; and
(4) to promote reconciliation and reduce tensions resulting from past violence. 39
The extent to which a truth commission is successful according to these objectives can depend
on certain aspects of the truth commission itself and on independent factors like national political
context, social climate, and international pressure. Truth commissions do not operate in a
vacuum and, therefore, they will inevitably face political limitations. However, considering the
legacy of impunity or corruption in the judicial systems of the majority of these countries, truth
commissions may have the most hope of any official reconciliation initiative to contribute to
individual and national reconciliation.
Truth-telling is both a personal and collective experience. It is an experience with both
individual and communal/national goals, challenges, pain, relief, and necessity. However, truth is
a demand made firstly for the benefit of the victims. 40 Victims, their families, and witnesses feel
a need, on the one hand, to tell and to be heard, but are afraid to be exposed.’” Truth
16commissions secure a safe space for truth-telling. As Bishop Biggar explains, “The discovery of
the truth also helps the victim to understand her suffering…and suffering that we can
comprehend is usually easier to bear.” 42 Truth-telling is a worthy tool of empowerment because
victims break out of their cage of silence. They challenge the fear that has kept them isolated
and finally talk out the pain. They can finally be true to themselves and express what they really
feel. As Jacques explains, power of truth-telling comes from breaking out of silence, isolation,
and shame imposed by those who have wounded them. 43
Truth-telling also has the very practical function of clarifying history. From witness and
victim testimonies come immense quantities of valuable details from the horrors that have
remained very vivid in their memories. With an abundant amount of stories, together they reveal
patterns, trends, and various statistical estimates dealing with the violence. They help the
country’s people and the international community better understand the nature of the conflict and
responsibilities for violence. Furthermore, these many stories together paint a grander historical
narrative that honors the memory of these long-silenced victims and survivors. Jacques quotes
from Paul Ricoeur’s Temps et recit (Time and Narrative), “There are crimes which must not be
forgotten, victims whose suffering cries out not so much to be avenged as to be told.” 44 Being
able to tell the truth does not mean that their pain and anxiety will vanish, but it does mean that
their stories do not go unnoticed; they become part of the shared, national memory.