A Truth Commission for Africa?

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONThis article considers feasibility of establishing a commission for Africa (TCA). A TCA's purpose would be to contribute to reconciliation between Africa and west by agreeing a narrative truth relations between these regions. This would constitute one aspect of western reparations to Africa, as suggested at World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001.I first consider pragmatic, legal, and moral reasons for a search for truth. I then consider discussions that emerged from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission different kinds of truth. I continue with some thoughts how, by whom, and with what terms of reference a TCA would be established. Finally, I discuss whether a TCA would actually effect reconciliation.My comments are based in part upon conversations with Africans reparations. From June 2002 to April 2004, two research assistants and I interviewed 76 Africans from 25 countries relationship between Africa and west. These individuals included eight ambassadors to United States, 26 scholars, and 39 human rights activists and policy makers.1 They also included three remaining active members of Group of Eminent Persons established in 1992 by then Organization of African Unity to seek reparations to Africa.2 While people we interviewed were not representative of ordinary Africans, they are kind of people likely to be involved in any serious discussion of a commission for Africa.From Nuremburg trials to recent commissions, discussions of both punitive and reparative justice have focused violations of civil and political rights. In what follows, I discuss whether a TCA should also consider violations of economic rights. Much of dialogue between west and Africa is past and present causes of underdevelopment. Underdevelopment is an all-encompassing term for massive deprivation of economic rights. The west owes Africans this kind of suffering, as much as it owes them deprivation of Africans' civil and political rights.JUSTIFICATION OF A TRUTH COMMISSION FOR AFRICAThe final declaration of 2001 world conference against racism made special note of need to teach about facts and of ...history, arguing that remembering crimes or wrongs of past...and telling history are essential elements for international reconciliation.3 Before conference, respected nongovernmental ; organization Human Rights Watch proposed something akin to a commission. We propose...the establishment of national and international panels to examine racist practices. These would include...panels for specific countries that would examine degree to which slave trade and colonialism, as opposed to subsequent practices of post-independence government, have contributed to destitution of country's population.4In 2001 Sub-commission Promotion and Protection of Human Rights of United Nations also passed a resolution slavery and colonialism, affirming that they were crimes against humanity, and that responsibility of powers responsible for these crimes should be the subject of solemn and formal recognition and repair. One method of such recognition and repair, in sub-commission's view, would be debate and reflection on basis of accurate information.5Following these several suggestions, a TCA might be one aspect of reparations to Africa, in sense of making whole relationship between Africa and west. It would be a historic commission, not one designed to discover individual perpetrators and victims in recent past, as were commissions that proliferated in Central