This thesis examines the long term effects of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Building on existing critique of the TRC’s narrow mandate and sociologist Melissa Steyn’s argument that apartheid was predicated on an ignorance contract amongst South African citizenry, this thesis asks if the mandate of a truth commission can actually serve to entrench ignorances and divisions. More specifically, this thesis asks in what ways can the ignorance contract be seen in South African society now? It identifies key discourses that represent ongoing ignorances in South Africa: non-acknowledgement, denial, misrecognition and truth and ignorance. Looking at the performance of memory and the areas of immigration, emigration, and gender, this thesis finds that the TRC’s mandate has led to ongoing ignorance about apartheid in South Africa. / Graduate / 0615 / 0331 / alisonj@uvic.ca

Magister Theologiae - MTh / This study investigates three case studies, namely, the “Pepco Three”, the “St James Church incident”, and the “Gugulethu Seven incident” from the perspective of ongoing reflections on the nature of reconciliation in the sub-discipline of Systematic Theology. The research problem that is investigated in this project is: What role did visible signs of remorse (or its absence) play in the willingness or unwillingness of victims (or their close relatives) to offer forgiveness to the perpetrators of gross violations of human rights related to the three cases studies mentioned from the amnesty hearings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation commission, namely the “Pepco Three” the “St James Church massacre incident”, the “Gugulethu Seven”. In each case study, the crucial question that will be asked is whether the victims or their relatives understand forgiveness as something that is conditional and part of a longer process of reconciliation, or whether they understand forgiveness as something that can be offered unconditionally. The research draws on some standard theological literature with specific reference to literature on the concepts of reconciliation, forgiveness and remorse emerging in the aftermath of the South African TRC. This is followed by a description and critical analysis of the three identified case studies. In each case, I listened to the recordings, read the transcriptions, and considered the available secondary material on the case studies.

Transitional justice as a research field has for a long time only focused on countries in conflict. However, even established democracies can undergo a process of change and reconciliationprocesses, including the reconciliation process between the Sami and Sweden. The purpose of the study is to map the process of establishing the Truth Commission for the Sami people, and to analyze this process based on central concepts of transitional justice. To examine whether these concepts are suitable for analyzing processes of reconciliation in established democracies. The central concepts of reconciliation, truth, justice, mercy, and peace have thus been used as a theoretical framework to analyze the process of establishing the Truth Commission in Sweden through a qualitative content analysis. The finding show that the theoretical framework cannot fully explain and understand processes of reconciliation in established democracies. Adevelopment of the research field of transitional justice is needed to be able to apply it to the context of established democracies.

Much has been studied about the impact of transitional justice mechanisms as well as gendered impactof armed conflict. However, less is known about the gendered impact of transitional justice, includingtruth commissions. This thesis aims to fill this research gap by exploring the long-term consequencesof gender sensitive and gender-blind truth commissions for women’s security in post-conflict societies.Combining and building upon feminist critiques on transitional justice and discourses on thetransformative potential of truth commissions, I argue that truly gender sensitive truth commissionscan facilitate improvement of women’s security, as the reparations and institutional reformsrecommended by such commissions are also gender sensitive and help address root causes of violenceagainst women (VAW). The argument is tested through a structured focused comparison of two cases– South Africa and Sierra Leone. The results provided meager support for the theorized relationship.South Africa, which was characterized by low gender sensitivity of its truth commission, shows nochange in terms of the prevalence of VAW; whereas Sierra Leone with a highly gender sensitive truthcommission demonstrated improvement in some areas of women’s security. However, the evidencebase is thin while the poor implementation of the recommendations obscures the observable impactof the Sierra Leone truth commission, which compels further research with a larger number of casesand robust data collection strategy.

The purpose of my research is to analyze the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (LTRC) lack of attention towards accessing rural Liberian women's voices as opposed to privileged Liberian women residing in urban and Diaspora spaces. By analyzing the LTRC and its Final Report from a critical global feminist perspective, I was able to not only illuminate, but bring a spotlight over issues including access, privilege, and multicultural insensitivity related to Liberia's indigenous tribal cultures. Liberia, being a country founded by American colonials, is socially constructed by Western ideological norms. As Western ideology is mainly normalized and enforced by the privileged class, Americo-Liberians, the LTRC and Final Report were also constructed within Western constructions. Given Liberia's historical colonial ties to the United States and its current relations to the global community, the LTRC decided to include Liberians in the Diaspora to its focus group. The Diaspora, also referred to as Liberia's 16th county, is made up of privileged Liberians displaced in overseas countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. As with any progress, fashion, or business, attention is given to the newest, most profitable merchandise, or in the case of the LTRC, population. I hypothesized, and feared, that the LTRC did not provide indigenous Liberian women, many of whom reside in rural Liberia, equal access and effort as they did privileged Liberian women residing in urban and Diaspora spaces. To prove this, I conduct a feminist content analysis of the LTRC Final Report, recorded public testimonies which are available on the LTRC website (www.trcofliberia.org) and quantitative data collected and processed by, Benetech, a human rights statistics organization based out of Minnesota... a city which happens to be home to the highest number of Diaspora Liberians in the world. After conducting my investigation, I was able to conclude my thesis with reasons as to why underprivileged women's voices in Liberian should be included in doctrine, like the LTRC, and suggest ways to improve methods like the LTRC to ensure indigenous women's voices are fairly accessed and heard.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-19T11:50:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dayo2013.pdf: 464190 bytes, checksum: 3d251686b799bcffbba4dea0aeecede6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-15 / The present work investigates the relationship between information, document and truth in the context of Truth Commissions, which are established mechanisms for countries which passed by dictatorial regimes and with a history of Human Rights violations. These Committees are instituted in order to reestablish or consolidate democracy in these countries. In this way, a comparative analysis of the process of historical reconstruction and validation of the information in the field of Commissions created in Argentina and Chile is done. The study on the Committees serves as a reference for an analysis of the newly established Brazilian National Truth Commission. Focuses the Commissions as conducive to learning processes. In this process seeks to identify what validates the information in Committees. Discusses the Jurgen Habermas Discursive Theory of Truth, including their review with the purpose of remedying the problem of inefficiency of the theory of truth by correspondence / O presente trabalho investiga a relação entre informação, documento e verdade no âmbito das Comissões da Verdade, que são mecanismos estabelecidos por países que passaram por regimes ditatoriais e com histórico de violações de Direitos Humanos. Estas Comissões são instauradas com o propósito de reestabelecer ou consolidar a democracia nesses países. Desta forma, faz-se uma análise descritiva do processo de reconstrução histórica e validação da informação no domínio das Comissões criadas na Argentina e no Chile. O estudo sobre as Comissões serve como referência para uma análise da recém-instaurada Comissão Nacional da Verdade do Brasil. Enfoca-se as Comissões como locais propícios aos processos de aprendizagem. Nesse processo procura-se identificar o que valida à informação nas Comissões. Aborda-se a teoria discursiva da verdade de Jürgen Habermas, incluindo sua revisão com fins de sanar o problema da ineficácia da teoria da verdade por correspondência. Configura-se uma teoria processual, na qual compara-se a verdade a uma assertividade ideal. Nesta abordagem a verdade é atributo dos enunciados. A teoria pragmática da verdade de Habermas contribui para evidenciar que a informação, em atos de fala e na sua materialização documental, atua como uma verdade provisória. Nos casos estudados ela se valida no discurso público

This study presents a quantitative study that aims to examine culture as an explanation for the global diffusion of truth commissions. The study is based on the diffusion theory's assumption that cultural equality between countries has a greater significance for the dissemination of truth commissions than geographical proximity. The study will, through a quantitative multivariate analysis, examine correlations between Hofstede's cultural dimensions as the study's theoretical framework and countries that establish truth commissions. The results shows that cultural similarity as an explanation for the spread of truth commissions can be considered better than previous theoretical assumptions. In addition, the results of this study shows that two of Hofstede's cultural dimensions correlate with the establishment of truth commissions. These are long- vs. short-term orientation and indulgence vs restraint. Analysis of the results shows that countries that establish truth commissions have a shorter time orientation and a high degree of indulgence. Additionally, the thesis adds another dimension of the theory and a more in depth understanding of which cultural factors stand as responsible for the diffusion of truth commissions globally.

No description available.

Magister Legum - LLM (Criminal Justice and Procedure) / As states continue to rapidly transition from conflict or autocracy to democracy, there has been need to address past gross human rights violations. To address these past egregious violations, transitioning countries often relied on immunities and prosecutions. However, prosecutions and amnesties presented several challenges that necessitated a recourse to truth and reconciliation commissions (hereafter TRCs). Since then, TRCs have evolved to be an essential accountability mechanism in transitional justice. Given the important role that TRCs play in transitioning countries, the composition of TRCs should be of credible character in the eye of the public. The selected and appointed truth commissioners (hereafter commissioners) play a key role in the truth-finding process and the importance of having a constraint-free and reliable work plan of selecting these commissioners cannot be overestimated. However, in practice the selection and appointment of the commissioners has proven to be a challenging exercise.

Magister Legum - LLM (Criminal Justice and Procedure) / As states continue to rapidly transition from conflict or autocracy to democracy, there has been need to address past gross human rights violations. To address these past egregious violations, transitioning countries often relied on immunities and prosecutions. However, prosecutions and amnesties presented several challenges that necessitated a recourse to truth and reconciliation commissions (hereafter TRCs). Since then, TRCs have evolved to be an essential accountability mechanism in transitional justice.