BETWEEN VENGEANCE AND FORGIVENESS: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. - Review - book reviews

Washington Monthly, Jan, 1999 by Alexandra Starr

Aside from providing catharsis for victims, truth commissions promote forgiveness. When society posits reconciliation as a primary goal, it influences individual responses to mass violence. "When a democratic process selects a truth commission, people ... say to one another: Focus on the truth and tell it whole ... [r]edefine victims as the entire society and redefine justice as accountability," writes Minow. A woman whose son had been shot by security police in South Africa eloquently summarized the humanistic motive behind truth commissions. After she listened to a police officer confess in amnesty hearings, she commented, "This thing called `reconciliation'--if I am understanding it correctly--if it means this perpetrator, this man who has killed [my son], if it means he becomes human again, this man, so that I, so that all of us, get our humanity back--then I agree, then I support it all."

Of course, not everyone shares this magnanimous vision. The family of legendary apartheid fighter Steve Biko, for example, joined a lawsuit challenging the creation of the TRC. They argued that the amnesty provisions violated the right of victims and their families to seek redress for abuses inflicted by the apartheid regime. The South African Supreme Court rejected the claim. And in a bitter twist, when Biko's interrogators applied for amnesty, they simply stated that Biko had died of a brain hemorrhage, and refused to confess to their role in the killing. Is it fair to expect Biko's family to forego retribution in the face of partial truth, or even for a complete account of what happened?

The fact that truth commissions are generally born out of political necessity can give the impression that victims are being cheated of justice. One of the U.N. commissioners on the El Salvador truth commission explained to me that trials were not an option after that country's bloody civil war--the penal system was so corrupt there was no way it could impart justice. And in South Africa, the outgoing apartheid leaders made some form of amnesty a condition for the peaceful transfer to a democratic society.

Even if truth commissions suffer from a "second-best" stigma, Minow cogently argues they are often a better option than prosecutions to deal with mass atrocity. That's particularly true when guilt cannot be assigned to any one side. Truth commissions would not have been a suitable method of dealing with the legacy of the Holocaust: Culpability lay squarely with the Nazis and the victimized group was nearly wiped out in the genocide. But when the line between perpetrator and victim cannot be drawn so easily, truth commissions can be an appropriate way of coming to terms with the past. They acknowledge ambiguity, permitting bystanders to take responsibility for inaction and allowing perpetrators to lay the groundwork for reconciliation. And while it is a tall order to expect victims to abandon demands for retribution, it can be in their interest to do so. Hatred can be self-destructive, and a preoccupation with past atrocities can lead to additional cycles of violence. "Perhaps rather than seeking revenge," writes Minow, "people can come to desire to rebuild" Instead of focusing on the horrors of the past, she seems to urge, think of the legacy you will leave to the future.