Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila has ratified an Act bringing the country’s truth and reconciliation commission into being.
The Act comes within weeks of hostilities that culminated in the seizure and pillage of Bukavu by renegade forces. The DRC was, until recently, divided into a range of fiefdoms, with government control only extending through half of the country.
The nation’s experience of a working democracy is limited to a few weeks more than 40 years ago. At that time, the prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was removed from office and assassinated.
Since the Sun City Accord was signed in December 2001 mechanisms for post-conflict transformation have been decided in the capital, only to be overrun by the reality of the interior — like the roads that are made and unmade, within weeks, in the DRC’s vast jungle.
Considering the conditions, the envisaged truth commission process has been presented as beginning, and heading, nowhere. Grassroots activists and international observers have asked whether a truth commission is viable at this time. The country is still at war with itself and it is questionable whether victims will feel free to give testimony and whether sufficient security can be provided to perpetrators who appear before the commission.
Truth commissions throughout the world have been established during an interval of peace. A range of preconditions need to pertain, not least successful elections; the establishment of a widely-accepted process of integrating previously warring military formations and; the commitment of an embattled, but embryonic, nation to repudiate a violent, divisive past.
The obligation to establish five key commissions, including a truth commission, forms part of the Sun City Accord. It took three years of talks to bring all parties at the negotiating table to an agreement. The fear is that the withdrawal of one element of the transitional arrangements could have a knock-on effect — resulting in the collapse of the accord’s overall structure.
The DRC currently has a window of opportunity wider than at any stage in its history. The question, therefore, is how to work, realistically but hopefully, with the present mix of extreme risk and unprecedented possibility.
The dilemma facing the truth commission is not new in transitional politics: Transformation or stability, which comes first? Or rather, how one can be pursued without destroying the other.
The Act reflects a particular sensitivity to the dilemma by dividing the work of the commission into two chapters.
Prior to the 2005 elections, the truth commission will focus on national reconciliation. Workshops are envisaged throughout the country to unpack the concept and practice of reconciliation by asking traumatised communities to establish conditions to end violence and find alternative ways of resolving conflict. Only after the elections will the commission emphasise the truth aspect. It is hoped that by this point there will be enough public commitment to reconciliation to proceed with hearings, research, testimonies and investigations.
The Congolese commission will endeavour to draw on the power of reconciliation to create space for justice. The plan is that reconciliation, as a national project, will put a framework in place to address issues of accountability and for creating humane options to take the country forward.
John Kasuku and Tyrone Savage coordinate the work of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in the DRC