Local Evaluations of Justice through Truth Telling in Sierra Leone: Postwar Needs and Transitional Justice

Abstract

This article presents findings from a qualitative case study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in rural Sierra Leone. It adds to the sparse literature directly evaluating local experiences of transitional justice mechanisms. It investigates the conceptual foundations of retributive and restorative approaches to postwar justice, and describes the emerging alternative argument demanding attention be paid to economic, cultural, and social rights in such transitional situations. The article describes how justice is defined in Makeni, a town in Northern Sierra Leone, and shows that the TRC's restorative approach was unable to generate a sense of postwar justice, and was, to many, experienced as a provocation. The conclusions support an alternative distributive conception of justice and show that local conception of rights, experiences of infringement and needs for redress, demand social, cultural, and economic considerations be taken seriously in transitional justice cases.

Co‐opting Authority and Privatizing Force in Rural Africa: Ensuring Corporate Power over Land and People

“…Sadly, however, many of these problems remain even after the war (Shaw :111), and meeting basic economic needs remains the prime concern for most rural people today (Millar , , ). It is in response to this need that the Koroma administration (in power since 2007) has prioritized agriculture and “export oriented agribusiness” in order to spur economic development (Menzel :6).…”

Lament as Transitional Justice

“…There are, after all, instances in which the act of storytelling retraumatizes the witness, and there are instances, such as in the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, in which some survivors of the crimes resented being asked to tell their stories: they would have preferred that the tribunal rebuild their homes (Millar 2011).…”

Performative memory and re-victimization: Truth-telling and provocation in Sierra Leone

“…However, in direct contradiction to these theories, local audiences in Sierra Leone had a distinctly negative experience of the process (Millar, 2010(Millar, , 2011a(Millar, , 2011bShaw, 2005). Truth-telling in this case was provocative, not healing.…”