Truth, lies and ritual. Preliminary reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone Africa Today Seminar

Tim Kelsall was awarded his PhD in 2000 by SOAS, University of London, for his study of local governance in Tanzania. He then spent a year at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, where he lectured on the history and politics of Africa, before taking up a permanent post in politics at the University of Newcastle. His research focuses on issues of accountability in Africa, of both an indigenous and international nature. He has just co-edited a book about NGOs (Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming) and is co-editor of African Affairs.

As part of its efforts to consolidate peace, Sierra Leone is currently experimenting with a variety of transitional mechanisms of justice, including a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As the comparative literature on truth commissions indicates, the truth is not always told in these bodies, and truth is not always conducive to reconciliation. It is this paradox that the speaker seeks to explore through an analysis of the TRC hearings in Tonkolili District, northern Sierra Leone. For four days of hearings the truth was not told, with the result that members of the audience were incensed and reconciliation appeared an impossible ideal. But on the final day the mood changed with the addition of a carefully staged reconciliation ceremony that generated a reconciliatory moment and an avenue to lasting peace. After an analysis of the reasons why people failed to tell the truth in Tonkolili, the turnabout is explained through an analysis of the power of ritual to transform, arguing that ritual may be more important to reconciliation than truth in Sierra Leone and elsewhere.