My my researches. Sorry, my my papers based on an experience working at both transitional justice mechanisms in Sierra Leone.
Firstly, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission draughting the recommendations and governance and looking at inStar Plantations to the conflict.
And then. And in last year, the at the special court doing research whilst also creating a legacy project.
And I want to focus on on the context in which negotiations bring about an
end to the conflict brought brought about two sort of disparate institutions.
Why why that happened and the impact that the process had on the formation of institutions and the manner in which they function.
And then and then look at any problems that this presents for peace in both the short term and long term.
So the thing that transitional justice literature commonly holds at its centre is that
recognition of abuses carried out in the past through the use of some processes,
institutional commission of enquiry is a prerequisite for emerging democracies to
transcend such abuses and then move towards democratic consolidation and end security.
This paper question is the sharp focus on the abuses themselves queries whether a wider and wider interpretation of the
term transition should be undertaken and whether contemporary processes should be described as transitional at all.
These people focus on the Sierra Leone case where normative doctrine was ostensibly adhered to.
I'm gonna start by looking at the interests which drove particular transitional justice agendas
and the extent to which these interests reflected those apparent in the conflict itself.
This paper van address the goals which the institutions purportedly set and their effectiveness in ensuring sustainable peace.
Finally, as people question the extent to which focussing on the abuses themselves,
whether through reconciliate reconciliatory or punitive approaches, really addresses the likelihood of abuses recurring and short.
So through such processes, facilitate a transition which provides for peace in the long term,
or do they simply address symptoms of an unjust system which the transitional institutions themselves then reinforce?
Various internal but more significantly,
external Actors Pursuit has served various varied approaches to the conclusion of the Sierra Leonean conflict,
as well as to the processes which might facilitate its transition.
Complacency, particularly where commercial interests were not affected, as well as regional manoeuvring by global powers,
have prevented a peace process which all key external actors genuinely endorse.
Many observers viewed Sierra Leone's transitional apparatus through a lens and formed by transitional justice theory, which focussed upon justice,
reconciliation,
truth and legal precedent and paid little attention to why the conflict came about and what might be done to address these causal elements.
The causes of Sierra Leone's recent conflict have been cited as a breakdown in institutional cheques and balances on the executive
and ability of ordinary Sierra Leone is to assert their rights in a patrimonial society which fomented sharply diverse divisions.
Those divisions divisions included conflict between young and old, rich and poor, man and woman, north and south, Freetown and up country.
The government, the opposition, the armed and the unarmed and and and various localised localised cleavages as well,
including ethno original and chiefdom shift in-house conflicts.
The marginalisation of such groups can can also be seen as symptomatic of the power structures
with patrimonial power was maintained through distribution of state coffers along party lines,
particularly where state revenue was diminished. And in the mid 1980s by liberalising economic policy from the outside.
So the mid 1980s economic malaise exacerbated socio economic and political marginalisation of groups already at the periphery,
the state's ability to surprise to supply patrimonial lineage was drastically undermined by the
decline in the price of palm oil and diminishing crop control of the diamond industry in particular.
The situation further deteriorated due to new leaderships, which was insulated from localised dynamics.
This eventually undermined its ability to supply not only its petro minor constituent constituency at large,
but more critically as its patrimonial constituency within the armed forces.
Civilians conflict began after a trade dispute between Charles Taylor's empire fell and and armed forces within Sierra Leone,
causing a group of imperial fighters to cross into Sierra Leone and attack Sierra
Leonean UN forces to gain goods that they felt they were owed in a trade dispute.
Now, Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh had previously been been trained by Gadhafi in Libya.
And and Foday Sankoh had created the Revolutionary United Front, which was planning to invade Sierra Leone a few months later.
But because of this first attack, this agenda was pushed forward.
And much of the code of conduct training, the ideological training that many of the many of the intellectual elements from
for Backcourts University in Freetown were insisting upon were they marginalised?
And actually, the students from four about college actually constituted the original leadership of the Revolutionary United Front.
And what then? And then when then within marginalised by but by Sankoh in that in the months leading up to the run, leading up to the end of 1990.
The political manoeuvring of major world powers in the region and particularly in Liberia also instructed posturing towards the EU with
broadly the US and British policy was to support Nigeria as the regional superpower from Nigeria to support the incoming government.
Governments in Liberia and Sierra Leone, respectively. France, on the other hand, supported Libya as a counterweight to Nigerian regional dominance.
Libya backed. The Empire Fell and Alua insurgencies which fought governments in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
And those governments were supported by Nigerian troops under the auspices of Ridgen Regional Peacekeeping.
In August 97, though, Charles Taylor prevailed and Liberian elections winning 75 percent of the vote and claiming the Liberian presidency.
Now, this caused a US policy shift,
which was critical both to the conclusion of the Sierra Leonean conflict and to the creation of Sierra Leone's transitional justice mechanisms.
The US, led by special envoy Jesse Jackson, switched its allegiance to Charles Taylor within Liberia.
This also means supporting the high with diplomatically, which contrasted with the British position of supporting sitting Sierra Leonean governments.
The TNC was thus pushed as a mechanism to provide amnesty, which was personally guaranteed to sink a number of times.
Bye bye, Jackson and provided for the long peace agreement signed in July 1999.
After much coercion on the part of on the part of Jackson of the prison of Sierra Leone T-junction back.
In February, February two thousand, Sierra Leone's parliament passed the Truth and Reconciliation Act,
but then a May five hundred U.N. peacekeepers were captured up country,
arguably by IUF dissidents and members of the army formerly aligned to the IRA,
arrested then sorry, members of the of the Sierra Leone armed forces formally aligned with the IUF,
arrested for Sancha and other senior members of the IRA with and handed them over to British forces which had recently been dispatched to the ground.
This caused this caused the US to shift its position again during the US fire
Jackson as its special envoy and shifted its allegiance away from Taylor,
from the Taylor IRF alliance towards the combined government, which requested United Nations assistance in trying to eye with the crimes against the
people of Sierra Leone and for the taking of United Nations peacekeepers as hostage.
Britain ramped up its presence, forced, forced to iuf, forced to iuf back into into effective, unconditional surrender.
And in August 2000. Sorry. Bye bye, 2002. And in August 2000, the Security Council called before that August 2000,
the Security Council call for the establishment of a tribunal to try those who have the greatest responsibility.
But unfortunately, unfortunately for for Britain and France,
the act to create the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had already occurred back in February 2000.
And that and that then when it hit Taylor,
it always had the traditionally had the backing of France was being very much dependent on France and to a lesser extent,
China for political protection. Both of those countries driving large commercial benefit, particularly from the timber industry, from Liberia.
In March 03, the special court indicted twelve zero unions and then later in June also released an indictment of Taylor,
who was subsequently pressured by the US to leave Liberia.
And he did so and did so, finally being transferred to a special court in 2006.
Transitional justice processes have been implemented in geographically and culturally diverse parts of the globe.
The application of human rights things can be problematic, particularly when we pursued through mechanisms such as a court of law,
which has historically been viewed as a tool at the disposal of the executive for
the exertion of state power and those without wealth or political connexion.
I've done it time to go into the historical nature of the way the formal justice system in Sierra Leone as it has been used,
but at almost every transition of power from one party to another,
or whether a coup d'etat takes place, has been some form of a commission of enquiry or criminal proceeding,
which has been used to ostensibly legitimise the incoming government and and criminalise those at that place.
Distrust of such a mechanism was reinforced when its mandate provided effective immunity to U.N. and ECOMOG peacekeepers,
as well as mercenaries and British forces that fought alongside the government and restricted the team for the mandate of the court.
For the second half of the conflict, prosecutorial policy endured,
jurisprudence has been viewed as pursuing the interests of the sitting government
of the day and the court's financial support as the United States and the U.K.
Advocates say this as a truth and reconciliation commission had already been established.
As I said, it went ahead alongside the special court,
a company with the rhetoric of a new transitional justice model and a meagre budget comparatively totalling ten million dollars,
which was subsequently cut to six point seven million in August 2002.
This reflected a shift towards military solution by the two key external players
to conclude the conflict and attribute Yunel to further impose such an outcome,
which was expected to cost more than 400 million dollars were proceedings to conclude this year.
Which doesn't look like the creation and implementation of the Sierra Leonean
CRC constructed normative parameters within which testimony was provided.
League commissioners at the hearings. Bishop Hamper Sidedly Commissioner at the hearings.
Bishop Hunter, in opening remarks, made the telling of truth a prerequisite to healing.
However, in local hearings such as those in TONC Lily District, disputes over what constituted Choying actually deepened distrust and animosity
between those perceived as victims and those perceived as perpetrators. The category of victim and perpetrator was also highly contentious,
with many of those who committed abuses also seeing themselves as social and
economic victims of a corrupt system that was seeking to just the other threat.
The commission has focussed a great deal on the abuses themselves and very little on macroeconomic
climate and the great and the grievances of those who are committing committing abuses.
Testimony of public hearings appear to be informed by the existence of the tribunal with with many believing a secret
tunnel tunnel existed between the two institutions that was geographically located right next door to each other.
The limited funding also made it particularly difficult for investigators to assess the role of key external powers such as Libya and Nigeria,
let alone Britain, France and the UK. Although incapacitated and having to conduct media interviews of compatriots in secret,
it did compile an authoritative account of localised dynamics of the conflict and a broad outline of the issues which caused the conflict to occur.
These two critical aspects of the report drove the findings and recommendations for key stakeholders.
But the recommendations have been viewed as too specific and too numerous criticisms, which came mostly from those.
The recommendations were directed towards particularly the government and multilateral bilateral donors.
So what impact these institutions have on patient Sierra Leone now and in the medium to long term, immediately post-conflict?
These institutions have had a dramatically positive impact that can be seen on the security side, the situation in Syria.
But as I speak last night alluded to a military solution really provides for peace in the long term.
Indeed, many of the recommendations included in the TSA report had been neglected as the
government and human rights groups focussed on attributing blame to individuals.
A case can be made at the international level for incremental steps,
which the special court undoubtedly takes towards a precedent which rejects impunity.
But at what cost? Certainly the precedent may not be helpful in Sierra Leone.
The nature of the tribunal reimposed the structures of power which marginalised certain groups in
Sierra Leone to the extent they felt they had little option but to take up arms against the state.
The nature of hearings before the TSA instructed confession from perpetrators
without public examination of the grievances perpetrators had at the outset.
And outside of and during the conflict,
reconciliation ceremonies conducted by chiefs and religious elders after testimony often allowed a compromise where
perpetrators were requested forgiveness without having to specify what they were requesting forgiveness for.
These ceremonies allowed for a degree of healing, but still imposed the same structures through the same chiefs and elders.
Many youths had originally rebelled against in terms of peace in the long term.
The solution is more detailed in a critical examination of governance and the growing encroachment of the private sector on the state,
as well as localised dynamics of discontent is required.
Transitional justice model needed to include greater focus on the structure and function of the state that interests.
That's the interests that structure and function served and the reform required
for more equitable delivery of social and economic rights to marginalised groups.
As the conflict was just as it was just as much about social and economic as well as civil and political rights,
social SA2 should be transitional justice responses. Last year,
a community based healing initiative called Fambul Talk commenced Fambul Talk is career
off of family talk and provides for reconciliation or forgiveness at village level.
Arguably, such an initiative should precipitate and indeed inform the establishment of other mechanisms.
But certainly the TSC was unable to facilitate such localised discussion and healing.
Formation of transitional mechanisms to complement large military deployments by one party of the conflict needs to be reconsidered.
The potential for transitional processes to contribute to lasting peace is enormous.
For them to be effective,
they must be established on the back for consultation rather than at the discretion of those that support one more party or facilitate negotiations.
Establish the established peace may not be broken by either another armed insurrection, disarmament,
demobilisation and reintegration with some way to curtailing to curtailing that possibility.
But the discontent of disenfranchised youth without access, access to education,
health care and employment remains in the formation of armed criminal gangs of youths.
As this is a foreseeable problem in Sierra Leone in the near future,
and arguably given given recent events in the capital, there are signs it is starting to occur already.
Such armed groups are vulnerable to manipulation by political elites,
and with an economic crisis already causing dramatic increases in the prices of foods of basic foodstuffs.
Youth desperation is on the rise.
The transitional element, transitional justice, is that's brought into question governments and external actors out of focus,
victims attention on the culpability of a narrow group of perpetrators rather
than the underlying causal elements of the conflict and the structures of power,
which these elements are symptomatic, they're off. And can it be said that there has been transition at or more importantly,
can it be said that lasting peace is seriously being pursued with some of the of the lowest socio economic indicators in the world,
including average life expectancy at below 40 years and infant mortality at around 30 percent?
The transition might be difficult. We average Sierra Leonean make up.