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ABSTRACT
This article uses an ethnographic description of a provincial public hearing in Sierra Leone to explore the paradoxical fact that in truth commissions, the truth is seldom told. It argues that the truth was not told for a variety of reasons, some of which are related to the special circumstances of the District, some to the problematic relationship of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the Special Court, some to organizational infirmities of the TRC itself, and some to the fact that public truth-telling lacks deep roots in the local cultures of Sierra Leone. By contrast, a staged ceremony of repentance and forgiveness on the final day struck resonant chords with the participants and succeeded in forging a reconciliatory moment. The implication, argues the article, is that in certain circumstances ritual may be more important to reconciliation than truth.
I. INTRODUCTION
More than two years have passed since Sierra Leone emerged from a ghastly civil war in which the population was terrorized and brutalized by a variety of armed factions.1 Today Sierra Leoneans face the formidable challenge of trying to consolidate peace. In the field of transitional justice the country is pursuing a two-pronged and potentially synergistic strategy, with a Special Court to "try those who bear the greatest responsibility" for human rights violations, and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), created to provide, "an impartial, historical record of violations and abuses suffered . . . to address impunity, to respond to the needs of victims, to promote healing and reconciliation and to prevent a repetition of the violations and abuses suffered."2
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone (TRC) should be understood as part of a global trend toward truth-telling. Demands for the truth, and for commissions to investigate it, are becoming the norm in societies emerging from periods of violent conflict or authoritarian rule. The 1970s and 1980s saw the creation of six such institutions; in the 1990s there were fourteen, and that number looks set to increase again in the current decade.3 As Priscilla Hayner has written, the reasons for demanding the truth are numerous, and not always consistent. Nor, in her view, is there a necessary connection between truth and reconciliation: truth may reopen old wounds while failing...