In January 2001, “the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace, headed by former AFRC junta strongman, Johnny Paul Koroma, organised a three-day Youth symposium in the RUF headquarters of Makeni. Jointly organised with the National Forum for Reconciliation, the symposium, which was part of the CCP’s strategy to use youths to persuade their colleagues to drop their guns and embrace peace, attracted hundreds of people, including the RUF”¹

CCP was involved in various activities throughout the year.

The Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP), led by Chairman Johnny Paul Koroma, organized a conference in Bo for ground/battalion commanders of all former warring factions. The five day conference, held from April 18-22, 2000, was an information sharing and confidence-building event which, it was hoped, would end with commanders making commitments to disarm²The conference was a major success. The conference provoked deep reflections by young combatants from all the factions on the catastrophic effects of the war on the country and their own future.

On October 23, 1999, rebel leader Johnny Paul Koroma was named chairman of the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP) in Sierra Leone. At the same time President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah slowly completed his cabinet under a July peace agreement signed with the rebels. State radio said the Commission would comprise two representatives from civil society, one each from the Government and Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and a Parliamentarian. The Commission had the responsibility of supervising and observing the implementation of the peace agreement. The Commission also ensures that the process of national reconciliation is pursued. The position of Koroma, chairman of the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), had remained vague under the Lomé peace agreement (Source: Koroma named to head Sierra Leone peace commission, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 24, 1999).

According to a report:

“Initially, with Koroma as its chair, the CCP was politically and financially marginalized by both the government and the international community. While its original plan of action identified fundamental issues underlying the conflict and proposed practical solutions to ensure the security and welfare of the people, it eventually pared down its scope to focus on confidence-building at all levels as a strategy for enhancing the peace process. With its broad membership it enjoyed the relative confidence of all parties. As Koroma’s public and political rehabilitation outpaced Sankoh’s and with growing recognition that multi-level confidence-building was crucial to the peace process, the commission began to attract greater attention and financial support”³

According to a report:

“The serious disagreements that arose during the first ten months of the life of the agreement, and the disastrous effect they were to have, point to fundamental negligence on the part of the government to provide for an effective dispute resolution mechanism. Under the agreement, a Council of Elders and Religious Leaders was to be established to settle differences arising from conflicting interpretations of how it should be implemented. One would assume that potentially explosive misunderstandings could have received special attention from this mediating body. Unfortunately, the government never set up the Council of Elders, even though its establishment would not have been costly”⁴

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The TRC was unable to finish its task within the prescribed eighteen months. The final report of the Commission was given to the President of Sierra Leone on October 5, 2004 and presented to the United Nations Security Council on October 27, 2004. Howard Varney, Chief Investigator for the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, produced an overview, findings, and recommendations of the report, which was released on November 12, 2004. The final report is over 5,000 pages long and includes the names of responsible persons. Versions for secondary schools and children were also published.

Findings:

The Commission found that the central causes of the war in Sierra Leone were corruption and overwhelming executive control. Colonialism and the subversion of traditional systems also had an effect.
While the majority of victims were adult males, perpetrators also singled out women and children. Forced displacements, abductions, arbitrary detentions, killings, plundering, and looting were the most common violations.

The leadership of the RUF, the AFRC, the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and the Civil Defense Force (CDF) were responsible for human rights violations against civilians. The leaders of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and the RUF, Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh, respectively, played pivotal roles in the conflict. The RUF was responsible for the highest count of human rights violations in the conflict, followed by the AFRC, the SLA, and the CDF. Successive governments abused the death penalty and misused emergency powers against dissidents.

Recommendations:

The Commission’s recommendations are legally binding. The Commission’s main recommendations concerned the fight against corruption, the creation of a new Bill of Rights developed in a participatory constitutional process, the independence of the judiciary, strengthening the role of Parliament, stricter control over the security forces, decentralization and enhanced economic autonomy for the provinces, a governmental commitment to deliver basic public services, and the inclusion of youth and women in political decision-making.

The Commission recommended the establishment of a reparations program and an implementing agency, in line with an existing suggestion in the Lomé Agreement.

Subsequent Developments:

Reforms:

In November 2007 the United Nations and Sierra Leone’s Human Rights Commission urged the government to produce a completion strategy for the implementation of the TRC’s recommendations without further delay.
In August 2004, following the recommendation in both the 1999 Lomé agreement and the TRC’s final report, the parliament enacted the National Human Rights Commission Act (PDF-44KB).. It has de facto taken on the role as the Follow-up Committee.

Prosecutions:

The TRC co-existed with the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which had a responsibility to try “those with the greatest responsibility” for international crimes during the conflict.

Reparations:

The National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) was designated by the government to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Beginning in August 2008, the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations implemented a one-year project aimed at building the institutional capacity to implement the TRC recommendations related to reparations. This project received $3 million USD from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund. A total of 29,733 victims have been registered. As of early 2010, amputees, war wounded and victims of sexual violence received a $100 USD interim payment. The NaCSA has started partial implementation of other reparative measures, such as educational support and health care. In 2009,the government launched the VictimsÕ Trust Fund, which is provided for in the Lomé Peace Agreement of 1999 and the TRC Act of 2000.⁵

The TRC hearings held two weeks of public hearings with individual witnesses in Freetown, starting on April 14, 2003. The TRC also started both public and closed hearings in the districts. There was one week of hearings in each district.

Victims of sexual violence who did not want to testify in public, all children below the age of 18, and perpetrators or ex-combatants who did not want to talk openly gave testimonies during closed hearings. The Commission guaranteed the anonymity of those witnesses. For those who testified on sexual violence, the Commission was composed of female commissioners and female staff members only.

A counselor assisted every witness before, during, and after the hearing.⁶