Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, TRC, officially inaugurated on Friday, intends to start receiving statements from the public and conducting hearings in October, officials told Irin.
The sources said the next three months of the preparatory phase were to be spent drawing up polices and procedures, creating necessary databases, recruiting staff, opening provincial offices, and conducting an awareness campaign. “We hope to conclude the preparations and open our doors to the public in October,” Ozonnia Ojielo, operations advisor, said on Monday.
The preparatory phase also involves mapping the conflict by identifying key events and conducting preliminary investigations and doing research into traditional conflict resolution and reconciliation procedures in Sierra Leone. Both of these activities will be done in conjunction with NGOs.
President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah swore in the seven commissioners. News agencies quoted him as saying: “The guns may have fallen silent or destroyed, but the trauma of the war lingers on. We have a lot of healing to do, especially since many of the perpetrators of the atrocities were also victims of widespread abuses of human rights and humanitarian law related to armed conflict.”
The TRC, however, faces a big funding gap, with donors having pledged only one million dollars out of $9,6-million requested. TRC Executive Secretary Yasmin Jusu-Sheriff on Friday appealed to donors to provide more support so that the commission could beat its 12-month deadline.
The Chairman, Bishop Joseph Hummer was quoted by Sierra Leone web, (http://www.sierra-leone.org/) an online news provider, as saying the TRC was different from the Special Court which the UN is due to establish later his year. The court will try the perpetrators of crimes during Sierra Leone’s 10-year war, whereas the TRC will provide a forum where both perpetrators and victims can tell their stories in an effort to heal the wounds of war.
The TRC was set up to create an impartial record of violations of human rights and humanitarian law, address impunity, help the victims, promote healing and reconciliation and prevent repetition of abuses, Ojielo said. – Irin