Whose Truth? What Kind of Reconciliation? (2014)

Purpose

Explore the factors that condition the success of truth and reconciliation commissions in contributing to creating social cohesion as a foundation for democratic good governance by examining diverse national experiences.

Background

Beginning with Argentina’s 1983 truth and reconciliation commission investigating human rights abuses under its last military regime, a number of countries have created truth and reconciliation commissions in order to address past social traumas resulting from civil war and dictatorship, as well as religious, ethnic and racial strife. As their name implies, truth and reconciliation commissions attempt to set the historical record straight by preserving historical memory with the explicit goal of ensuring that such atrocities will never be repeated—“never again” (“nunca mas”), to quote the title of Argentina’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Such goals are intrinsically related to democratic good governance. This is also why they invariably are undertaken by democratic governments, often as a fundamental component of transitions to democracy. Indeed, a primary objective of reconciliation is to overcome past divisions in favor of consensus and mutual understanding. This also often means that truth and reconciliation commissions often take place in contexts of fragile political stability. Yet even when they do not, such as in Canada and Australia, the intensity of the historical injustices under review can threaten to open old wounds, polarizing politics if the scope of the commission is perceived as too broad by important segments of the general population. For this reason, truth and reconciliation is usually is disconnected from issues of justice; sanctioning culpability is done independently of the TRC process, if at all.

As the number of TRCs has grown (by one estimate, there have been almost 30 since the early 1980s) and the issues they address have expanded, it is now appropriate to attempt to systematically explore their experiences in a comparative manner. As new demands for historical redress gain force among historically marginalized groups and new conflicts emerge around global climate change, food security, and the growth of the extractive sector to name the most obvious sources of future conflict, not to mention the hope that ongoing conflicts will end, it is likely that TRCs will continue to play an important role in many parts of the globe. At the same time, the experiences of TRCs can offer important new insights for achieving democratic good governance based on mutual understandings in an increasingly complicated world.

Conference Goals

Through the participation of experts from the non-profit, private and public sectors, local and transnational civil society actors, and the international development community, the conference will bring together a myriad of experiences intended to generate a rich but critical discussion of the principal challenges faced by TRCs and the lessons they may provide. More specifically, the public conference and closed-door workshop that will follow will address but not be limited to FOUR transversal questions:

1. How have different TRCs addressed the possible tension between the goals of reconciliation and justice?
2. How can we understand the contribution of TRCs to overcoming past divisions in favor of greater consensus and mutual understanding?
3. How can the lessons learned from TRCs be used to enhance conflict mediation and even prevention?
4. How should we try to measure or understand the contributions to democratic governance?

Conference participants will be asked to address these questions from the perspective of their own particular expertise and experiences.

Thursday, March 13  Setting the Stage: Canada’s Experience

 

15:30-16:00  Welcome

Philip Oxhorn, Founding Director, Institute for the Study of International Development

16:00-18:00  Presentation by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Murray Sinclair
Marie Wilson
Chief Wilton Littlechild

Discussant: Andrew Lee

18:00-19:30  Reception

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Friday, March 14  Comparing Experiences from Across the Globe

 

9:00-10:45  Truth, Reconciliation and Justice: The Philosophical Debates

Colleen Murphy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
David Dyzenhaus, University of Toronto
Glenda Mezarobba, Brazilian TRC

Moderator and Discussant: Catherine Lu, McGill University

10:45-11:15  Break

 

11:15-13:00  The Trend Setters

Emilio Crenzel: Argentina
Dr Marjorie Jobson, National Director, Khulumani Support Group: South Africa
Beverley Carrick, Executive Director, CAUSE Canada: Sierra Leone

Discussant and Moderator: Elizabeth Jelin

13:00-14:00  Lunch Break

 

14:00-15:45  The Importance of Civil Society

Ms Leah Armstrong, CEO, Reconciliation Australia: Australia
Dr Katy Radford, Institute for Conflict Research: Northern Ireland
Marcia Esparza: Guatemala

Discussant and Moderator: John Tyynela

15:45-16:00  Break

 

16:00-17:45  Experiences without TRCs

Njonjo Mue: Kenya
Aldo Marchesi: Uruguay

Discussant and Moderator: Oskar N.T. Thoms

Biographies of Participants

On this page: Bev Carrick | Emilio Crenzel | David Dyzenhaus | Marcia Esparza | Marjorie Jobson | Andrew J. Lee | Wilton Littlechild | Catherine Lu | Aldo Marchesi | Glenda Mezzarboa | Njonjo Mue | Colleen Murphy | Philip Oxhorn | Katy Radford | Murray Sinclair | Oskar Thoms | Marie Wilson

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Bev Carrick

Bev Carrick has served as CAUSE Canada’s Executive Director since 2004 and co-founded the organization with her husband (Dr. Paul Carrick) in 1984. Over the past 30 years CAUSE Canada has implemented a wide variety of poverty reduction and peace-building initiatives in both West Africa and Central America. The majority of the organization’s programs focus on women’s empowerment, micro-finance, supporting universal primary education and maternal-child health.  Bev oversees CAUSE Canada’s fund-raising activities as well as the organization’s inter-agency relations and international partnerships.   Bev has a varied experience in the field of nursing - working with the elderly and handicapped in Montreal, with refugees both at home and abroad, as well as with the Cree and Inuit people. She has also served as a cardiac intensive care nurse in The Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.  Bev’s first overseas experience dates back to 1974 when she was a famine relief nurse with Sudan Interior Missions in Ethiopia. From 1974 to 1982 she lived and worked overseas with her husband directing relief and development activities throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Central America.   In 1988 CAUSE Canada began operations in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Unlike many organizations, CAUSE Canada remained operational throughout the countries long running civil war and played an active role in the post-war peace and reconciliation process. In 2006, Bev wrote a chapter in Laval Universities publication entitled: DDR: Désarmera, Démobiliser et Réintégrer on the lessons learned while working in conflict zones.

Emilio Crenzel

Emilio Crenzel is a researcher at the National Council of Scientific Research (CONICET) and Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Social Science in University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has written the books La historia política del Nunca Más: La memoria de las desapariciones en Argentina, (Siglo XXI, Buenos Aires, 2008) and  Memory of the Argentina Disappearances: The Political History of Nunca Más (Routledge, 2011, New York/London) and is an author of papers about Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and social memories of the political violence and state terrorism in the Southern Cone of Latin America, published in journals of Europe, Israel, Brazil, United States and México

David Dyzenhaus

David Dyzenhaus is a professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.  He has taught in South Africa, England, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Hungary, and the USA. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University and law and undergraduate degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. In 2002, he was the Law Foundation Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Law, University of Auckland. In 2005-06 he was Herbert Smith Visiting Professor in the Cambridge Law Faculty and a Senior Scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 2014-15, he will be the Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor in Legal Science in Cambridge.  Professor Dyzenhaus is the author of Hard Cases in Wicked Legal Systems: South African Law in the Perspective of Legal Philosophy (now in its second edition),Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, and Hermann Heller in Weimar, and Judging the Judges, Judging Ourselves: Truth, Reconciliation and the Apartheid Legal Order. He has edited and co-edited several collections of essays. In 2004 he gave the JC Smuts Memorial Lectures to the Faculty of Law, Cambridge University. These were published by Cambridge University Press in 2006 as The Constitution of Law: Legality in a Time of Emergency.

Marcia Esparza

Marcia Esparza holds a doctoral degree in Sociology from the University at Albany, SUNY. She has also taken specialized human rights courses in France, Switzerland, and Ireland. Her field research includes interviewing war victims as part of the United Nations’ Historical Clarification Commission (CEH in Spanish) in Guatemala (1997-1999), doctoral work with pro-army groups in the country’s highlands, and post-doctoral work in Chile locating and examining human rights court files from the Cold War years. Currently,  she teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New York, CUNY) and is the director of the Historical Memory Project (HMP) a project that preserves the historical memory of mass atrocities, raises awareness and advocates for the demilitarization of post-Cold War societies.

Marjorie Jobson

Dr. Marjorie Jobson is Director of Khulumani Support Group. She is also a Commissioner on the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities which is Chapter 9 Institution in the South African Constitution. Her activism is focussed on the fight for human rights, women's rights and social justice.  The mission of Khulumani is to build an inclusive and just society in which the dignity of people harmed by apartheid is restored through the process of transforming victims into victors.

Andrew J. Lee

Andrew Lee is an executive at Aetna Inc., a Fortune 100 health benefits company.  He is vice president, northeast region at Aetna, where he is responsible for building Aetna’s business in the states of NY, NJ, DE, PA, ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, and RI.  Prior to joining Aetna in 2005, Andrew was executive director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic  Development,  where  he  founded  the  “Honoring  Nations”  awards,  which  has  resulted  in  the widespread replication of governmental best practices throughout Indian Country and, increasingly, around the world.  At the Harvard Project, Andrew co-authored a book titled, The State of the Native Nations: Conditions Under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination, published by Oxford University Press in 2007.   Andrew began his career in philanthropy, working in the Peace and Social Justice Program at the Ford Foundation.  Andrew is a trustee of Nathan Cummings Foundation and a trustee of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.  Andrew also serves on other boards of directors and national advisory councils in the fields of tribal governance, policy research, youth leadership, and  athletics;  additionally,  he  has  advised  numerous  major  private  independent  foundations  on  their grantmaking strategies.  Among his honors, Andrew was awarded the 2013 Native American Leadership Award from the National Congress of American Indians; testified twice before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (2001 & 2012); and has been profiled for his leadership in various publications (e.g., USA Weekend Magazine, DiversityInc., Connecticut Magazine’s “40 Under 40”).   In 2011, Andrew was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, which each year selects up to 200 of the most distinguished leaders under age 40 from around the world for a five year term to participate in global dialogues and initiatives. Andrew holds an A.B. from Hamilton College and a M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Woodrow Wilson fellow in public policy and international affairs and a Christian A. Johnson Native American fellow.  Andrew and his family live in Connecticut and his extended family resides on the Seneca Nation’s Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in western New York.  

Wilton Littlechild

In 1976, Chief Wilton Littlechild had the distinction of being the first Treaty First Nation person to acquire his law degree from the University of Alberta. He received his Bachelor of Physical Education Degree in 1967 and his Master’s Degree in Physical Education in 1975. In June of 2007, the University of Alberta bestowed the Doctor of Laws Degree on Chief Littlechild for his outstanding achievements. Chief Littlechild is a respected lawyer and operates the law firm of J. Wilton Littlechild, Barrister and Solicitor, which is situated in the Ermineskin Reserve. He is a strong advocate for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and promoter of implementation of the treaties between the Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Crown, now represented by the federal government. Chief Littlechild also served as the Chairperson for the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform, mandated to review the justice system in the province of Saskatchewan.   Chief Littlechild served as a Member of Parliament from 1988 – 1993 for the riding of Wetaskiwin-Rimby. He served on several senior committees in the House of Commons and was a parliamentary delegate to the United Nations. Chief Littlechild organized a coalition of Indigenous Nations that sought and gained consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. He was re-appointed by the E.C.O.S.O.C. President to represent North America and has completed his second and final term as the North American representative to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Catherine Lu

Catherine Lu is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University, with research and teaching interests in international political theory and ethics, especially the ethical challenges of humanitarianism, intervention, and the use of force in world politics; problems of justice and reconciliation after violence, oppression and atrocity; and cosmopolitanism, global justice and world government. She is the author of Just and Unjust Interventions: Public and Private (2006/2011), and has published articles in journals such as The Journal of Political Philosophy, The European Journal of Social Theory, and The Journal of International Political Theory, as well as The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. She has received research fellowships from the School of Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University (2013), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2010-11), and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University (2004-5).

Aldo Marchesi

Aldo Marchesi received his Ph.D. from New York University in 2012 and teaches history at the Universidad de la República (Montevideo, Uruguay).  He has published widely on the recent history and collective memory of Uruguay and the Southern Cone.   His most recent publications related to the specific topic of the conference are: "El pasado como parábola política: Democracia y derechos en los informes Nunca Más del Cono Sur"(2011); "Uruguay; los tiempos de la memoria" (with Peter Winn)(2014). He is currently working on a book manuscript based on his dissertation, “Geographies of Armed Protest: Transnational Cold War, Latin American Internationalism and the New Left in the Southern Cone (1966-1976).”

Glenda Mezzarboa

Glenda Mezarobba is a political scientist specialized in transitional justice. She received her PhD degree from the USP (Universidade de São Paulo), São Paulo, in 2008. The title of her dissertation is: O preço do esquecimento: as reparações pagas às vítimas do regime militar - uma comparação entre Brasil, Argentina e Chile (The price of forgetting: the reparations paid to the victims of the military regime – a comparison between Brazil, Argentina and Chile). Dr. Mezarobba is the author of Um acerto de contas com o futuro: a anistia e suas conseqüências - um estudo do caso brasileiro (Settling accounts with the future: the amnesty law and its consequences – a Brazilian case study), a book published by editora Humanitas, São Paulo, in 2006, and also the author of four entries of the first Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice, published in 2012 by Cambridge University Press (Brazil; Brazil-Never Again, Special Commission on the Dead and Disappeared for Political Reasons, Amnesty Commission). At the National Institute for Studies on the USA (INEU) she serves as the executive director of a research group focused on the “war on terror”. Since 2012 she has been working as a UNDP consultant with the Brazilian Truth Commission.

Njonjo Mue

Njonjo Mue is a Rhodes Scholar, a Human Rights Lawyer, an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a Transitional Justice Expert. He is currently an Program Advisor to Kenyans for Peace, Truth and Justice (KPTJ). Until recently, he served as the Deputy Director for Africa and Head of the Kenya Office of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) which works to redress and prevent the most severe violations of human rights by confronting legacies of mass abuse. Prior to that, he worked as the Head of Advocacy at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.  Njonjo has also served as the Legal Advisor to the Africa Program of the Freedom of Expression watchdog, ARTICLE 19, and the Regional Director of Panos Eastern Africa. Njonjo holds several awards including being named Jurist of the Year by the Kenya Section of the International Commission of Jurists in the year 2000 for his commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law. 

Colleen Murphy

Colleen Murphy is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Her research focuses on transitional justice in the aftermath of civil conflict and repression and on the ethical dimensions of risks from natural disasters and climate change.  Murphy is the author of A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice (Cambridge University Press, under contract).  

Philip Oxhorn

Philip Oxhorn is a Professor of Political Science at McGill University and the Founding Director of McGill’s Institute for the Study of International Development, as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Latin American Research Review. A former Associate Dean (Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies) at McGill, his research focuses on the comparative study of civil society and its role in supporting democratic regimes, particularly in Latin America. Professor Oxhorn’s publications include Sustaining Civil Society: Economic Change, Democracy and the Social Construction of Citizenship in Latin America (Penn State University Press, 2011) and Organizing Civil Society: The Popular Sectors and the Struggle for Democracy in Chile (Penn State University Press, 1995), as well as numerous articles and four co-edited volumes: What Kind of Democracy? What Kind of Market? Latin America in the Age of Neoliberlism (with Graciela Ducatenzeiler, Penn State University Press, 1998), The Market and Democracy In Latin America: Convergence or Divergence? (with Pamela Starr, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999), Decentralization, Civil Society, and Democratic Governance: Comparative Perspectives from Latin America, Africa, and Asia (with Joseph Tulchin and Andrew Selee Woodrow Wilson Center Press/the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), and Beyond Neoliberalism? Patterns, Responses, and New Directions in Latin America and the Caribbean (with Kenneth Roberts and John Burdick, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Professor Oxhorn has lectured extensively in North and South America, Western Europe, Asia and Australia. He has also worked as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Population Fund, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada, Department for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, Canada, the Ford Foundation, The Carter Center, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and the Mining Association of Canada.  He has a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University.

Katy Radford

Dr Katy Radford is a social anthropologist and trainer.  She works on issues of social inclusion and integration through the Institute for Conflict Research (ICR), a Belfast-based charity working regionally with combatants and other victims and survivors of the conflict in Northern Ireland.  She has been consistently commissioned by statutory service providers for over 15 years to produce policy development reports based on primary qualitative and quantitative research conducted in communities and often favours arts-based methodologies and facilitated dialogue as tools for engagement.  Katy was formerly contracted as Special Advisor to the Commission for Victims and Survivors NI during its first year and, when working for Save the Children Northern Ireland, consolidated a particular interest in the  trans-generational impact of the conflict and women’s responses to it.   Katy is an invited representative on the policy development Race Equality Panel convened by the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister and on a number of Arts Council for Northern Ireland steering groups.  She had a pre-university career in international film and television production and is frequently invited by BBC and RTE to radio commentate.  With a commitment to international partnership working, Katy has experience of working throughout Europe, in Kenya, Israel and Greenland.  She was awarded an MBE by the British Government for her contribution to Community Relations.

Murray Sinclair

The Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair was appointed Associate Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba in March of 1988 and to the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba in January 2001. He was Manitoba's first Aboriginal Judge and is currently a Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.  Justice Sinclair was born and raised in the Selkirk area north of Winnipeg, graduating from his high school as class valedictorian and athlete of the year in 1968. After serving as Special Assistant to the Attorney General of Manitoba, Justice Sinclair attended the Universities of Winnipeg and Manitoba and, in 1979, graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba.  In the course of his legal practice, Justice Sinclair practiced primarily in the fields of civil and criminal litigation and Aboriginal law. He represented a cross-section of clients but by the time of his appointment, was known for his representation of Aboriginal people and his knowledge of Aboriginal legal issues. He has been awarded a National Aboriginal Achievement award in addition to many other community service awards, as well as Honourary Degrees from the University of Manitoba, the University of Ottawa, and St. John’s College (University of Manitoba). He is an adjunct professor of Law and an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Manitoba.

Oskar Thoms

Oskar N.T. Thoms earned an M.A. in Sociology at McGill University in 2005, an M.A. in Political Science at Princeton University in 2011, and he's currently pursuing a PhD in Political Science at Princeton. In 2005/2006, he was a Research Associate at the McGill Research Group in Conflict and Human Rights, and in 2008/2009, he was Visiting Research Associate at the University of Ottawa's Centre for International Policy Studies. Thoms has worked as a research consultant on academic and policy research projects supported by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Canadian International Development Agency. He has co-published scholarly articles on issues of human rights and violent conflict, in Journal of Peace Research, Human Rights Quarterly, Conflict & Health, and International Journal of Transitional Justice. He lives in Princeton with his wife Marie-Pierre and their daughter.

Marie Wilson

Marie Wilson brings to her position as Commissioner, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada more than 30 years of experience as an award-winning journalist, trainer, and senior executive manager. She has also been a university lecturer, a high school teacher in Africa, a senior executive manager in both federal and territorial Crown Corporations, and an independent consultant in journalism, program evaluation, and project management.  As a journalist, Dr. Wilson worked in print, radio and television as a regional and national reporter. She was the first host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation flagship television program, Focus North, and the corporation’s senior manager for northern Quebec and the northern Territories. As a Regional Director for the CBC, she launched the first daily television news service for northern Canada, and developed the Arctic Winter Games and True North Concert series.   She delivered training through the South African Broadcasting Corporation during that country’s transition to democracy, and served as an associate board member of what became the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, APTN. Dr. Wilson is the recipient of a CBC North Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Northerner of the Year Award, various awards for journalism, writing excellence, and workplace safety initiatives, and an honourary Doctor of Laws from St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB.  She speaks English and French. Dr. Wilson and her husband, Stephen Kakfwi, are blessed with three children and four grandchildren.