Truth Commission Research Articles

Scoping review of current challenges and circumstances impacting Indigenous applications to Canadian medical schools.

Considering the relevant 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations, this paper reviews the current state of Canadian medical schools' Indigenous admissions processes and explores continued barriers faced by Indigenous applicants. A summary of literature illustrating disadvantages for Indigenous applicants of current admissions tools is presented. A grey literature search of current admissions requirements, interview processes, and other relevant data from each medical school was performed. Tables comparing differences in their approaches are included. A calculation of Indigenous access to medical school seats compared to the broader Canadian population was conducted. Gaps in execution are explored, culminating in a table of recommendations. Despite formal commitments to reduce barriers, Indigenous applicants to medical school in Canada still face barriers that non-Indigenous applicants do not. Most programs use tools for admission known to disadvantage Indigenous applicants. Indigenous applicants do not have equitable access to medical school seats. Facilitated Indigenous stream processes first ensure Indigenous applicants meet all minimum requirements of Canadian students, and then require further work. Seven years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called on Canadian universities and governments to train more Indigenous health care providers, there has been limited progress to reduce the structural disadvantages Indigenous students face when applying to medical school. Based on best practices observed in Canada and coupled with relevant Indigenous-focused literature, recommendations are made for multiple stakeholders. The study was limited by the data available on numbers of Indigenous applicants and matriculants. Where available, data are not encouraging as to equitable access to medical school for Indigenous populations in Canada. These findings were presented at the International Congress of Academic Medicine 2023 Conference, April 2023, Quebec City, Canada.

The implementation of truth commission recommendations: Exploring the ‘beyond words’ database for Latin America

We know little about the processes surrounding the formulation and implementation of truth commission recommendations (TCRs). This article introduces the Beyond Words database, which systematically identifies and tracks the formulation and implementation processes behind 960 recommendations from 13 truth commissions established across Latin America between 1983 and 2012. The database offers information on factors shaping TCR formulation, identifies important characteristics of recommendations and assesses the level of implementation for each. We describe our methodology and the resultant database and examine findings linking TCR characteristics and contextual factors to levels of implementation. Overall, the implementation record is better than those previously considered.

Must Indigenous Rights Implementation Depend on Political Party?

Canada and New Zealand were two of only four countries which voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, before eventually moving to support. Since then, this declaration has influenced Canadian politics and practices, particularly the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 ‘calls to action’, legislation, and subsequent action plans on both the federal and provincial levels. Different political parties’ priorities affect the implementation of indigenous rights policies. Nonetheless, Canada demonstrates the importance of normative change, outside of legislation or formal policy change. Norms of co-development, co-design and co-drafting create opportunities for indigenous peoples to have a say in policies that affect them.

Can redistributive policies promote reconciliation beyond its scope? The impact of inequality reduction programs on peacebuilding in Colombia

AbstractTransitional justice jurisdictions aim to promote reconciliation. Although previous research focuses on truth commissions, the reconciliatory role of redistributive justice is less clear. This article investigated the association of conditional cash transfers and victims’ reparation with demand for redistribution, belief in forgiveness, support for the peace process and community participation in Colombia. We analysed three nationally representative samples of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) surveys in 2011 (Study 1; n = 1503), 2016 (Study 2; n = 1563) and 2018 (Study 3; n = 1663). Consistently across studies, conditional cash transfers (and not victim reparation programs) predicted higher community participation, with little effect on other reconciliation indicators. Further, redistribution is indirectly associated with other reconciliation indicators through community participation, supporting the observation that transitional justice relates to reconciliation when it satisfies a need for agency and empowerment. We discuss how the null effects of the victim reparation program suggesting context‐specific constraints.

Co-Opting Truth: Explaining Quasi-Judicial Institutions in Authoritarian Regimes

ABSTRACT: What accounts for the creation, design, and outputs of quasi-judicial institutions in autocracies? Prior research demonstrates that autocrats co-opt electoral, legislative, and judicial institutions to curtail opponents’ power and curry international patrons’ favor. However, scholarship on co-optation neglects quasi-judicial mechanisms, such as truth commissions, that can be useful for arranging a political narrative that bolsters a leader’s image while undermining his rivals. In this article, we formalize the concept of autocratic truth commissions—which account for one-third of truth commissions globally—and develop and test a novel theory of their origins, inputs, and outputs. We theorize that autocrats establish self-investigating commissions in response to threats to their symbolic authority and install rival-investigating commissions in response to threats to both symbolic authority and regime survival. We further argue that these two commission types take on different institutional forms and produce different outputs. Self-investigating commissions are afforded narrow mandates and produce reports that obscure basic facts. Meanwhile, rival-investigating commissions are granted wide mandates and culminate in accurate reports of rivals’ responsibility for abuses. We evaluate these expectations through comparative case studies of two autocratic truth commissions in Uganda, and find support.

Formulation of the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Seeking the Truth about Past Human Rights Violations in Aceh

This journal describes the formulation and implementation of the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) in revealing the truth regarding human rights violations that occurred in Aceh in the past. Aceh is one of the regions in Indonesia that has experienced armed conflict for decades involving the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) group. This period of conflict has led to many cases of human rights violations, and the Aceh TRC has an important role in revealing the truth and seeking reconciliation between the parties involved. This journal will use a research methodology combining a qualitative approach and document analysis to investigate the role and performance of the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR). Apart from that, this journal also evaluates the challenges and obstacles faced by the Aceh TRC in the process of revealing the truth. The results of this research found that truth disclosure carried out by the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) can provide deeper insight into efforts to overcome human rights violations in Aceh and contribute to understanding the reconciliation process in areas that have been affected by conflict.

Racial (In)justice in Brazil: Reconstructing the Subaltern Memories of Poor and Black Women in the Brazilian Dictatorship

ABSTRACT The Brazilian military-corporate dictatorship faced the resistance and mobilization of several marginalized groups. In this article, we reconstruct the subaltern memories of Black and poor women from the outskirts of São Paulo who participated in Christian Base Communities and the Cost-of-Living Movement, and we show how their mobilization was supported by social movements across the country. Despite their dimension and impact, a report by the Brazilian National Truth Commission fails to recognize their role in the country’s democratic transition and the violence suffered by marginalized groups. These memories support a reflection on the myth of ‘racial democracy’ in Brazil as a general denial of racial violence throughout the country’s history, which leaves intact its structures of injustice. We argue that the reconstruction of subaltern memories can have a significant impact on transitional justice and recover their critical role in democracy.

From infamy to truth. Epistemic coloniality and knowledges in resistance: an approach to the cases of Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú

PurposeThe purpose of the article is to show the regime of truth in the institutional commissions that have the objective of restoring history by establishing a democratic, equitable, comprehensive, inclusive and fair criterion against the attempts of re-victimization and suppression of memory that Western political and cultural traditions have installed through their mechanisms of power.Design/methodology/approachBased on the analysis of the cases of Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, they establish the material conditions from which prejudices and hegemonic stereotypes are intertwined to reproduce serious violations of human rights in democratic political and epistemic frameworks. The colonial function of the truth commissions in Mexico is analyzed, which are presented as mechanisms for social development, political and colonial reproduction of liberal democracy.FindingsThe qualitative results allow considering the way in which the different truth commissions in Mexico have been strongly linked to epistemic mechanisms in which truth and justice favor the reproduction of established relationships based on race, social class and gender. Especially in the so-called democratic transition, violence, truth and justice come together to highlight power relations in situations that have been disavowed by the intelligentsia.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of the research are found in the historical configuration of the truth commissions in Mexico. The data, references and assessments are crossed by the initial function of the truth commissions and the establishment of apparatuses and mechanisms based on transitional justice. Based on this, it can be considered a methodological oversight to shift the analysis of truth commissions toward a critical assessment of the truth as a regime of government and hegemonic and colonization criteria from two very specific cases.Originality/valueThe originality of the work is found in the critical discernment of truth as a political category and the coloniality of power.

Truth commissions in the established democracies of the Global North: Theoretical and practical perspectives

AbstractIn the wake of South Africa's truth‐telling experiment as part of its transition from apartheid to democracy, truth commissions have become one of the most utilized mechanisms for addressing past atrocities. While most truth commissions are established in countries undergoing “transition” to democratic governance or peace, increasingly, established democracies such as Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have also undertaken such processes to address historical (and often, racial) injustices. The U.S. Department of State has denied the relevance of truth commissions to the United States for addressing its own history of racial injustice, however, the U.S. itself has been home to at least 13 official truth commissions (operating primarily at the state‐, county‐, and city‐level) and numerous unofficial truth‐telling processes emanating from civil society. In this article, I review literature on truth commissions with a focus on history and theorized importance, recent application to the more established democracies of the “Global North” and overall significance and limitations in terms of fostering racial justice and social transformation in what are primarily settler colonial states. I conclude by evaluating the state of this research area and by suggesting directions for future research.

Humility and the Hoop Dance: A Teacher’s Self Reflections on Indigenous Knowledge and Power Sharing in the Classroom

This research reflects on my collaboration with an Indigenous hoop dancer to respond to the Calls to Action from the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The research engages the Anishinaabeg seven sacred teachings and critical decolonizing pedagogy as theoretical frameworks and qualitative inquiry as methodology. This paper presents partial findings of the research, focusing on my own reflections on humility and its complex connections to power sharing, collaboration, and Indigenous knowledge in the arts. I introduce the “humility pendulum,” which is a conceptual tool that I developed to support my own critical reflection throughout the process.

Psychosocial effects of Brazilian Truth Commission

A Truth Commission (TC) was carried out in Brazil (2012-2014) to investigate human rights violations perpetrated by state agents, especially during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). TCs are supposed to help societies on the reconstruction of social cohesion after authoritarian or violent periods. We conducted three studies with undergraduate students and adult samples between 2014 and 2017. Evaluating the TC as effective was related to higher punctuations on the variables of social cohesion, even controlling the effects of political positioning. The TC effectiveness perception was associated with the emotional reaction (both, negative or positive) and a positive attitude towards remembering the past. Nonetheless, we found some different results across the three studies. These differences are discussed.

Truth, Racial Healing, And Transformation:

The public policy process in the United States has strong status quo biases that frustrate efforts to adopt policies focused on racial justice and social equity. On occasion, a policy window opens and the chance for real change increases greatly. This article is a case study focused on advocacy for a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Commission during an open policy window that occurred in 2020 related to brutal police violence (readers should know in advance that traumatic events covered in this article include descriptions of racial violence). The findings are drawn primarily from original interviews with advocates for the Commission, providing an outsider’s perspective on this political process.

Doctors of the dictatorship: physicians and human rights violations in Brazil (1964-1985)

The article discusses the participation of doctors in the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). It identifies the main ways in which these doctors contributed with their technical and scientific knowledge and their institutional positions to the repression of the regime's opponents. The authors argue that this collaboration was not casual but strategic, organized, and systematic in assisting interrogations and practices of physical and psychological torture, as well as in covering up human rights violations. The article points out that this collaboration between doctors and the authoritarian regime violated all professional codes of ethics and international conventions for the protection and promotion of human rights, as well as the Hippocratic Oath. The primary historical sources on which the article is based are documents from the Brasil Nunca Mais Project, the final report of the National Truth Commission (CNV), and reports from states truth commissions. It concludes that the scant civil, criminal, and professional punishment of doctors involved in the regime's violence, protected by the 1979 Amnesty Law and other legal provisions, characterizes an incomplete rupture with the authoritarian legacies of the past, with consequences for the present and future of Brazilian democracy.

Mondialisation des engagements d’Équité, Diversité et Inclusion à l’université et intégration d’une posture anti-raciste dans un cursus de français L2

In recent years, faculty members have heard numerous calls to review their research, teaching and administrative practices from the perspective of a mission known as Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, or under the acronym EDI, to which the terms Decolonization and Social Justice are sometimes associated. These calls have found a varying support depending on the disciplines, institutions and countries, where teachers and researchers have undertaken to integrate these objectives into their work. In Canada, following the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015), universities developed initiatives which claimed to decolonize and indigenize the curriculum. This article questions the impact of a higher education course, which studied the media coverage of racialized activists in France, as taught in this context. After a brief presentation of the institutional use of the word 'decolonization' and its critiques, the article describes the parameters of the development of this course and its implications in terms of engagement and allyship. It then questions the dimension of the latter considering that the course is taught in L2 French, a language whose presence around the world finds its origins in a colonial and imperialist history and in the discrimination of indigenous, creole, regional and vernacular languages. Finally, I present the argument that positionality is a crucial part of the decolonial reflection and the critical and anti-racist pedagogy, for which epistemological points of view must be openly presented and historicized.

From the Truth Commission Report to the Stage and the Museum: The Artistic Dislocation of Violence from the Ecuadorian Chapter of 1983 to 2008

Are commemorative plaques enough to collectively and symbolically amend the horror of human rights violations? And if not, why is this strategy still the most common way for governments to pay their due respects to the families of the victims? This paper analyzes the suitability of the arts to address the reparation of the victims of human rights-related crimes perpetrated in Ecuador between 1983 and 2008, as investigated by the ad-hoc Truth Commission installed there afterwards. National and constitutional law, as well as international jurisprudence, will help to illuminate this study objective. Furthermore, in order to unpack the collective and individual dimensions of the right to memory of the victims, their families and their broader social fabric in which they are embedded, the notion of ‘memory sites’ is incorporated into the analysis. To contribute to the establishment of interconnections between the law and the arts, several initiatives for the recovery of memory in Ecuador are reviewed, from a critical stance. In this vein, the text foregrounds a centralizing proposal to consolidate an Ecuadorian aesthetics of memory, through institutionalization and museography, to address the governmental duty for reparations; but more importantly, to finally permeate the consciousness of an entire country whose past is still waiting to be incorporated into its present. By intertwining the legal, the artistic and the political layers present in this discussion, we advance in the direction of an aesthetics of memory that challenges the dominant narratives of genocidal violence.

Beyond Reconciliation: Calling for Land-Based Analyses in the Sociology of Sport

This article examines the possibilities engendered by land-based analyses within the sociology of sport. We examine how “Canada’s” Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action on sport reproduce a logic of social inclusion, one which assimilates Indigenous athletes and Peoples into settler models of sport. To consider epistemological tools for unsettling settler sport systems, we turn to critical Indigenous scholarship on land-based analyses and pedagogies. To illustrate the possibilities of land-based analyses, we examine lacrosse, an Indigenous sporting practice with roots embedded in relational interconnectedness with the land. A land-based approach to sport offers opportunities for revising the assumptions, values, and ethics underpinning settler models of sport through, for example, emphasizing the importance of community, healing, and land stewardship.

An analysis of the effects of history in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission poetry

Scholars raise 2 salient questions regarding poetry in post-apartheid South Africa. One is whether new poetry emerged in the post-apartheid South Africa, and the other is whether poetry produced during and after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is capable of capturing the imagination of the reading public without resorting to the bigotry of Black versus White. Literature highlights the need for South African poets to move away from using historical facts as the basis for making literary representation. We acknowledge that the use of historical facts as the basis for literary representation of societies may be seen as insensitive to the victims of the injustices of the past practices in highly politically polarised communities. At the same time, we argue that historical narratives with positive ideological intent can heal wounds and unite a nation. To justify this position, we adopted a 2-fold perspective: firstly, we investigated the effects of using history as the basis for literary representation and, secondly, we examined the extent to which post-apartheid South African poets may use history as a necessary tool to enforce unity and a sense of forgiveness.

Developing a Health Equity Impact Assessment ‘Indigenous Lens Tool’ to address challenges in providing equitable cancer screening for indigenous peoples

BackgroundIn spite of past efforts to increase screening uptake, the rates of screening-detectable cancers including breast, cervical, colorectal and lung are rising among Indigenous persons in Ontario compared to other Ontarians. The Ontario Ministry of Health has an equity framework, the Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) Tool, that was developed to guide organizations in the provision of more equitable health and social services. Although the HEIA Tool identifies that the health of Indigenous persons may benefit from more equitable provision of health and social services, it provides very little specific guidance on how to apply the HEIA Tool in a culturally relevant way to policies and programs that may impact Indigenous peoples.DiscussionGuided by the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, an Indigenous Lens Tool was developed through a collaborative and iterative process with stakeholders at Cancer Care Ontario and with representatives from Indigenous community-based organizations. The Indigenous Lens Tool consists of four scenarios, with supporting documentation that provide context for each step of the HEIA Tool and thereby facilitate application of the equity framework to programs and policies. The document is in no way meant to be comprehensive or representative of the diverse health care experiences of Indigenous peoples living in Canada nor the social determinants that surround health and well-being of Indigenous peoples living in Canada. Rather, this document provides a first step to support development of policies and programs that recognize and uphold the rights to health and well-being of Indigenous peoples living in Canada.ConclusionsThe Indigenous Lens Tool was created to facilitate implementation of an existing health equity framework within Cancer Care Ontario (now Ontario Health). Even though the Indigenous Lens Tool was created for this purpose, the principles contained within it are translatable to other health and social service policy applications.

Proving a Secret Massacre: The Case of South Africa’s Bloody Sunday, East London, 9 November 1952

When the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of 1996/97 was tasked with investigating gross human rights violations from 1 March 1960 to 1994, there was a presumption that apartheid atrocities began with the massacre at Sharpeville in which police shot and killed 69 people. That massacre, on 21 March 1960, is also thought to have been the largest single-day mass killing by police in the apartheid era. Research on the African National Congress (ANC) Defiance Campaign of 1952 questions both presumptions. There were numerous clashes between police and protesters that involved extensive police violence but have been remembered as ‘riots’. The worst was in East Bank Location/Duncan Village, East London, on 9 November 1952. Police broke up an ANC Youth League-organised meeting and over the next few hours shot and killed an untold number of people. Estimates of the death toll range from an official figure of eight to more than 200, with two white people killed by enraged crowds in retaliation. Until recently the events were clouded in secrecy. This article draws on the now extensive historiography on the day as well as new archival and field research and international literature on mass killings. It concludes that the police killings on South Africa’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ should be recognised as a massacre that was covered up by both sides.

The Colombian Truth Commission’s work on reproductive violence: gendered victimhood and reproductive autonomy

While conflict-related sexual violence has gained attention on international transitional justice agendas, conflict-related reproductive violence continues to be overlooked. The Colombian Truth Commission was the first truth-seeking transitional justice body worldwide to directly investigate these forms of conflict-related violence. Based on an ethnographic analysis of the Commission’s work on reproductive violence, in this article I engage with the reproductive justice framework to argue that the Commission’s work broadened understandings of both gendered victimhood and reproductive autonomy. Regarding gendered victimhood, I show that the Commission’s work focused on gaining recognition for conflict-related reproductive violence as distinct from conflict-related sexual violence, identifying conflict-related practices of reproductive violence and offering recommendations for addressing such practices. Secondly, I show that not only was the Commission the first truth-seeking body to directly investigate reproductive violence, but it did so through an understanding of reproductive violence that does not revolve around the notion of autonomy as individual choice. I argue that by doing this, the Commission compelled us to comprehensively consider war as part of the conditions under which reproductive autonomy may be exercised. Following this line, the latter part of the article focuses on the Colombian government’s use of glyphosate as a form of conflict-related reproductive violence that claimed ownership over the reproductive futures of entire communities by creating environmental devastation.