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Name one African country which had TRC with ex colonisers (ukiondoa RSA )
acheni wazimu huuu
There are Lots My Friend
- Africa’s Experiences in Transitional Justice
Since the early 1990s, Africa has served as a vast testing ground for new policies to address impunity, seek truth and justice, and enable reconciliation in fractured societies. Although the results of these accountability efforts have been mixed and uneven, African experiences have contributed to advancing a plethora of domestic and international transitional justice initiatives. Africa’s response to justice mirrors the upheavals of Latin America, which also suffered from false starts and political manipulation before building innovative and dynamic accountability mechanisms.
Approaches have ranged from judicial mechanisms, such as international tribunals, hybrid courts, and domestic trials, to non-judicial mechanisms like truth commissions, reparations, and traditional or community-based processes.
Various African countries have experimented with truth commissions with mixed success. For instance, Uganda had two separate truth commissions in the 1970s and 1980s to investigate the past; the first commission’s report was released in 1975, but the later commission’s report was never made public. Similarly, the reports of truth commissions in Zimbabwe (1985) and Nigeria (1999) were never officially released (because the governments perceived them to be too critical). In Ghana, a truth commission was used relatively successfully in a non-conflict setting almost a decade after the transition to constitutional rule and democratic consolidation. Finally, Rwanda and Mozambique undertook traditional community-based processes to foster reconciliation. In other cases, external actors have weighed in to reinforce accountability measures that started at a domestic level. For example, eight years after the work of the commission to inquire into the crimes and misappropriations of former Chadian president Hissène Habré and his accomplices, indictment proceedings began against the exiled former leader who has lived in Senegal since his overthrow in 1990. Following international pressure from human rights groups and notably Belgium, which
It is important to note that the AU has a number of policy documents that seek to address impunity that are instructive for current efforts to evolve ways of combating impunity and promoting peace and justice in Africa. In addition to the Constitutive Act, the following are worth noting:
• Articles 6 and 14 of the Protocol Relating to Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on peacemaking and peacebuilding with respect to restoration of the rule of law and establishment of conditions for rebuilding society after conflict.
• Articles 31, 32, and 33 of the AU’s Policy Framework for Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development (PCRD) address human rights, justice, and reconciliation, and explicitly recognize the need to protect human rights in any PCRD efforts. Article 33 outlines a number of activities to this end:
AU PANEL OF THE WISE 29 º provide for the development of context-based mechanisms to deal with past and ongoing grievances; º mobilize society to ensure the legitimacy and relevance of the model adopted; º address the tension between impunity and reconciliation; º
encourage and facilitate peace building and reconciliation activities from the national to the grassroots levels; º allow for opportunities to invoke traditional mechanisms of reconciliation and/or justice, to the extent that they are aligned to with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights; and º establish efficient justice sectors and provide for the use of AU structures and other international instruments to reinforce human rights, justice, and reconciliation.
• Articles 16, 28, and 39 of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance enjoins African countries to consolidate democracy through exchange of experiences; strong partnerships; and dialogue between governments, civil society, and the private sector. It promotes a culture of respect, compromise, consensus, and tolerance to mitigate conflict, promote political stability and security, and harness the creative energies of the African people.
• The Mbeki Panel report on Darfur outlines generic recommendations on integrated justice and reconciliation responses, and highlights the utility of comprehensive national processes and principles for the establishment of hybrid courts in parallel with truth-telling and reconciliation process.