Solomons TRC pleased with first hearing
Updated
The first public hearing by the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Honiara last week has been described as very positive. Around 20 witnesses gave personal testimonies about their experiences during five years of ethnic conflict which ended with the intervention by the Regional Assistance Mission in 2003. There were however calls during the two-day hearing for perpetrators to tell their story as well. The Chairman of the Commission, Father Sam Ata says the perpetrators need healing as well and they are invited to testify. Meanwhile, the TRC will hold its next public hearings in Malaita Province starting next week.
Presenter: Sam seke
Speaker: David Tuhanuku, the Deputy Executive Secretary for the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission
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TUHANUKU: I think the national public gave people some idea as to what the TRC is all about and I believe that there will be more victims coming forward to tell their story once we organise another public hearing. So generally we have a very positive response from the public and of course there are perhaps groups and individuals that may have other views, but particularly those that were directly involved with the ethnic tensions, otherwise the reaction has been good.
SEKE: Now there was some very moving and emotional testimonies given last week. It must have been very hard for those witnesses to relive some of these traumatic experiences?
TUHANUKU: Yes, that's right and as part of our preparation for the national public hearing and this will also be the model when we hold future public hearings, is that we will bring the victims a week before the start of public hearing and that one week is to have them settle in, counsel them. We have hired some professional local councillors to do the counselling for us and they did that before the last national public hearing and overall it was very successful in the way that all of them, except for one, managed to tell their story right through. What we are planning to do now is to hire the same group of councillors to go out to the villages of the victims and do their counselling there before they actually appear before any public hearing of the Truth Commission.
SEKE: You mentioned there that one of them did not actually complete their testimony. What happened?
TUHANUKU: What actually happened is that when he was approached by one of our coordinator of the counselling team, he told her that he already had I think two counselling sessions overseas and he thought that was adequate for him. But then when he started relating his story, he could not finish it and I actually asked him after that and he said that when he started talking about what happened to him, it was like a video screen being screened before him and he was watching everything that the former militants did to him and he could not take it. So I advise him not to take part in the public hearing and it is up to him to appear at the next one, provided that he has undergone proper and adequate counselling or he could just speak to the Commission.
SEKE: Throughout the two day hearing, there were consistent calls for the perpetrators to come forward to tell their story as well and may be have some closure or show remorse if they are sorry for what they have done. Are they going to be part of this healing process as well?
TUHANUKU: The question as to who appears before public hearing is a decision that has to be taken by the Commission each time there is either a national public hearing or a provincial public hearing. We started with the victims and I guess that the Commission would also like to continue with that trend in Malaita which will be the next public hearing and that will concentrate on victims.
Now when we come to future public hearings, because we plan to hold more national public hearings and more provincial public hearings. It will be up to the Commission to decide who they would like to invite to speak and essentially, the either victims or perpetrators have to come forward on their own volition. The are not forced into it, but then the Commission will have to determine case-by-case the credibility of each victim and perpetrator to make sure that first they are what they claim to be, either victims or perpetrators and that their story the Commission is satisfied that it is basically true and not something they made up.
SEKE: What does the TRC Act say about immunity from criminal prosecution, because I think this might be something that discourages the perpetrators from coming forward to give evidence?
TUHANUKU: I think some of the former militants have heard about the amnesty provision in the South African Truth Commission and they have been persuading the government to include such a provision in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at 2008 and when parliament did not include that provision, many of them have been putting pressure on the government to introduce the bill which they refer to as a Forgiveness Bill and their argument is that they would like to contribute, but they see that the TRC would be used against them in any future court proceeding.
The act specifically says that the materials of the TRC proceedings would not be used by the court against those that appear before the Commission. So if it is in a public hearing, the Commission will also want the people who appear before the Commission that they should not say anything that would incriminate them. But when it comes to statements taken where they will have a choice as to whether they would like to make their identity known or they would like to tell their stories to the Commission, but they don't want their identities to be known and the Commission has the power to decide on that as well. So basically I think that we just have to go by what we have and the information that we have is that amnesty does not necessarily make the Truth Commission successful compared to any Truth Commission that include a provision for amnesty. So we will go with what we have.
