Transitional justice and conflict transformation: a tenable nexus? the case of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Date
2009-03-24T11:55:28Z
Authors
Kisiangani, Emmanuel Nalianya
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Abstract
Abstract
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been widely hailed
as unprecedented and exemplary. It has motivated efforts to establish truth commissions
in various other parts of the world. Inherent in the normative treatment of the South
African TRC as a paradigm to be followed, is the assumed correlation between its
objectives and those of conflict transformation. This assumption, while prominent in a
number of contexts especially outside South Africa, has often passed with little
interrogation. The primary aim of this study is to assess the assumed correlation by
formulating the South African TRC within conflict transformation theory. A secondary
goal which should be seen in context of the study’s primary objective is to assess whether
the South African TRC constitutes a paradigm to be followed by other relevant contexts.
The research philosophy and methodology deemed appropriate for the study is the
reflective mode of inquiry which is once in a while supplemented by primary data. The
aim is to delineate the instrumental and practical value of those constructs that treat the
South African TRC as a transformative framework. Eventually the study substantiates
these assertions and makes analytical judgments on the relationship between the TRC and
conflict transformation.
The broad conclusion of the study is that the biggest role played by the South
African TRC was to engage the society in discourse with its past. It symbolically
underscored the need to build right relationships and social structures that promote peace
and the rule of law. The study, however, argues that the exercise of engaging in
constructive relational and structural change needed to transcend symbolism and address
the underlying structures and human relationships at various levels, politically, socially
and economically. Other than making recommendations, the long term relational and
structural transformation was well beyond the TRC’s mandate. On the tendency of other
countries to treat the South African TRC as the standard practice and paradigm to be
borrowed, the study maintains that the TRC may have been unique and anomalous with
its provision for conditional amnesty and public hearings, but it sometimes
inappropriately skews the views of many in other distinctively different contexts, in a
way that needs to be reconsidered.