Dr Jermaine McCalpin, Contributor
Nicole Walters (right), a resident of Westmoreland whose relative was shot and killed by the police in 2007, wipes away tears while addressing members of the media at Jamaicans for Justice press briefing in Kingston on Tuesday, March 11, 2008. The calls by some Jamaicans for reconciliation must address concerns about justice. - File
The clarion calls for a Jamaican truth commission must not go unheeded for much longer. I fully support a truth commission in Jamaica but with significant caveats. When we talk of a truth commission we need to be clear what it is and what are its expected consequences.
Simply (at least definition-wise), a truth commission is an official but non-judicial body that is established often by an act of government to probe a pattern of violence, atrocities and other happenings in a country within a specific time frame with an end to suggest ways to deal with the past that places emphasis on non-repetition, justice and historical accuracy.
A Jamaican truth commission would join the list of over 33 truth commissions that have been established around the world since 1974 (the most recent being in Timor-L'este that conducted its work from 2002-present).
Various lessons
There are various lessons that Jamaica can learn from these countries' truth commissions. One should not only point to South Africa where the process has had some success, but also other countries where it has not had any noble or desirous outcomes.
As close to home as in the Caribbean we have had two truth commissions with only limited success: The National Commission of Truth and Justice of Haiti that was established in 1995 to probe the atrocities of the Haitian military regime between September 1991 and October 1994, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Grenada that sought South African expertise and inspiration to examine the events from pre-revolutionary Grenada in 1976 through to the assassination of PM Bishop and invasion in 1983 to 1991.
Neither of these commissions is counted in the truth commission Hall of Fame not because they were not well intentioned, but thy were limited in their frames of reference, especially in the case of Haiti that probed only four years of a country that has spent most of the latter 20th century as a severely unstable society.
In the Grenadian case, the report was two years late. Having been formed in 2001, the report was to have been submitted in 2004, but it was not submitted until 2006. It did not reveal any new information on especially the happenings of 1983, which is where most of the contestations centred on.
Consequential failure
However, a more consequential failure is that while the inter-national community applauded (and in the case of Haiti supported the truth commission) they did not receive popular and widespread support or legitimacy.
If Jamaica truly wants to learn from South Africa, our Caribbean experiences and beyond, let us learn primarily from some of their failures, chief among them being this constant twinning of truth with reconciliation.
The South African TRC, since its 1994 founding, has spawned what I call a "truth commissionisation" process where truth commissions become a panacea or, at worst, a palliative (of the Phensic kind) for every problem in every society. Truth and reconciliation have become the inseparable Gemini.
For those who are honest, the South African and other truth commissions experience have revealed truth (at least versions of it, given that the South African TRC proclaims four kinds of truth: factual or forensic, personal or narrative, social and healing and restorative truths) but did not, has not and may not lead to reconciliation (see Morris Cargill's article in Gleaner Sep 20, 1999). Reconciliation is not an act or a contrivance; it is individual, indeterminate and often immeasurable. What the society of Jamaica ought to seek after is truth and justice, then and only then reconciliation might occur. More important, we should also ask ourselves if what we seek after could be achieved by means other than a truth commission.
The demonstration effect of truth commissions around the world, but especially the South African TRC, has been profound. We in Jamaica have applauded it with earnestness and want to imitate the process by having our own. It is, however, rather unfortunate that we have looked at the South African TRC and drawn the wrong lessons. The first and most egregious misstep is that we have swallowed the facile conclusion that truth and reconciliation have to be dual goals for truth commissions.
If we have indeed learnt from South Africa, it should point out to us that national reconciliation is an ideal (even a noble myth) that is indeterminate and can, ironically, be frustrated by truth. Reconciliation has not (yet) occurred in South Africa, and it might not.
Minimally decent society
What has occurred is that there is a minimally decent society; no all-out war, as during apartheid but there is no measurable indication that blacks and whites have been reconciled to each other, or blacks with other blacks, given the desperate and retrograde trend of economic violence under the guise of xenophobia.
I know the religious community is wedded to the ideal of reconciliation but Jamaica needs justice more than it needs reconciliation, and who knows, the achievement of justice may lead to reconciliation, but we have to work on it.
I fully support the call for a truth commission, but one paired with justice and not reconciliation. How can reconciliation take place in South Africa if justice is not yet realised? Blacks still make at least four times less than whites; whites who make up less than a quarter of the population account for over three quarters of the wealth. How can you be reconciled when you are poorer than you were under apartheid 15 years removed? Justice is what is needed, not reconciliation; no reconciliation is possible until blacks have a viable space in their own homeland.
Political violence
In Jamaica, the calls for a truth commission focus on systemic corruption and political tribalism that have fed political violence, from Green Bay to Coral Gardens, and every Pen and Gardens, Kraal and everywhere in between, extra-judicial killings and abuse of state power and resources, interpersonal violence and just a society that has lost the hands on its moral compass. These are justified reasons enough for a truth commission. Let us, however, start with the basics. What do we hope for a truth commission to achieve, who will initiate it, who will support it, fund it, who will give it legitimacy, who will be held liable for its findings, who will see to their enactment?
The fundamental question is: Can we, as a society, handle the truth (whatever the truth looks like or demands)?
The calls for a truth commission are well intentioned and necessary but often misguided. Once we move to understand that a truth commission is not a panacea for Jamaica's problems, then we will be less inclined to think that what happened, or did not happen, in South Africa is easily transplanted to Jamaica.
Anthem
It is indeed time that we make the line of our anthem real - 'justice, truth be ours forever' - by living it and holding each other accountable for its fulfilment.
Most Jamaicans have no faith: in the government, opposition and political system, the justice system, let alone in each other. The enunciation and revelation of truth is not just a meant to be a cathartic process. Truth often frustrates reconciliation and thwarts justice. We have to be prepared to deal with the consequences.
If we are to learn any lesson from truth commissions it is that truth does not lead anywhere in particular, but it is an end in itself. And if it does lead elsewhere we have to be prepared that the uncertainty of the past makes us more distrustful of each other. Justice, however, is the buffer against distrust and reigniting enmity. A Jamaican truth and justice commission cannot be a never-ending story. It needs clearly defined frames of references, moral neutrality and widespread support.
It would be best if it is generated from outside of the formal political system. The Church and civil society are indispensable to this initiation, however, its success would require the support of the formal political system and public and popular support. The point is not that all Jamaicans need to support a truth commission but the significant majority needs to do so. It has to have cross-sectional appeal that indicts every faucet of society without unnecessarily criminalising any.
Logistically, what would be the period covered by a Jamaica truth commission? Some say 1960-80 which marks the era of the development of our predatory politics, while others argue 1970-present, which represents the consolidation of a society premised on crime, violence and injustice. Others argue for 1980 to the present, which in our collective psyche represents the progressive descent into violence and deep divisions. For South Africa, that period of reference for their truth commission was in 1960, at the Sharpeville massacre and ends in April 1994 (the first multiracial elections in South Africa).
When we say we want a truth commission it must not be like most fashion trends, we want it because we want to be in the 'in crowd' or more derisively the 'red-eye complex'; because everyone else has one. We must know what a truth commission is, what are its consequences, logistics and commitments.
A Jamaican truth and justice commission with power and force to act on recommendations and findings is indispensable to a secure and united Jamaica for all, but with every crowning achievement there are some crosses to bear. The process of truth is to come to terms with how evil a society we have become, not with a single transgression but with progressive straying away from the principles of a just society founded on equality for all, justice and not just us or just them.
Dr Jermaine O. McCalpin is lecturer in transitional justice and truth commissions, Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
