This photo shows President Tejan Kabbah on the right signing the Lome Peace Accord with rebel Foday in 1999.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission or TRC is held within South Africa which was set up by the government of National Unity to help deal with the happenings that occurred under apartheid. Violence and human abuses erupted from all sides of humanity.
The Truth and Reconciliation commission or TRC had put its mandate into effect by three committees. The first committee was the Amnesty Committee which was primarily put into effect by considering applications for amnesty were done with provisions of the Act. People could apply for amnesty for any act, omission, or offense associated with a political objective between 1 March, 1960 to 6 December 1993. Another committee that was involved was Reparation and Rehabilitation (R&R) Committee which provided victim support restore victims dignity and to formulate policy proposals and recommendations on rehabilitiation along with healing of survivors and families. This ensured a healthy coexistence in life. The last committee involved was Human Rights Violations who investigated the abuses that took place during the years of 1960 to 1994 from statements made from TRC. This committee resurfaced victims existence and the sufferance they had to go through in battle. Once the victims would be identified they would be referred to R&R.
There is a Register of Reconciliation that gave the public a chance to express their revet at failing to prevent human rights violations and demonstrate their a commitment to reconciliation.
People who qualify for victims would be people who are registered under Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and their dependents and relatives.
The Lome Accord was a peace agreement against RUF that ended Sierra Leone's civil war on paper in 7 July of 1999. The negotiations had emerged from diverse personalities wanting to rebuild a country as the fight was still pushing on. In 18 May of 1999 the peace movement received a big push when Kabbah and Sankoh agreed to a cease fire in Lome. The peace talks had been structured around three main topics which where military, humanitarian, and political. These topics would be dealt with by a person from the committee with equal representation from RUF and government.
RUF refused to agree until the Kabbah government freed Sankoh. The government team refused and made RUF-AFRC signing a precondition of a presidential pardon. The four presidents Obasanjo, Taylor, Compaore, and Eyadema met together to exert pressures on both parties to compromise and met with Sankoh along with Kabbah to persuade them to accept the deal.
On 7 July 1999 Sankoh and Kabbah had signed the Lome Accord Peace Agreement along with the witnesses and grantors. The amnesty and pardon didn't however apply to national crimes. The ground of peace was still elusive but the feud was done on paper.
Truth & Reconciliation Commission or TRC Link: http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/
Lome Accord Link: http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/lomé-peace-negotiations
I thought you did a really good job on finding and summarizing all of the information for your topic. I had never heard of the TRC and now I understand their purpose and events that happened in Africa.
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a really good job on finding and summarizing all of the information for your topic. I had never heard of the TRC and now I understand their purpose and events that happened in Africa.
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