World Fact Research

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.