Open AccessTruth and reconciliation: Should the key notions be revised?: Experiences from South-Africa and Rwanda
Author(s) -
Heidy Rombouts
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
temida
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2406-0941
pISSN - 1450-6637
DOI - 10.2298/tem0204033r
Subject(s) - transitional justice , commission , meaning (existential) , context (archaeology) , key (lock) , economic justice , political science , law , epistemology , sociology , philosophy , history , computer science , archaeology , computer security
Both the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Gacaca tribunals, which started recently in Rwanda, are framed in terms of truth and reconciliation. But what does the truth mean? What does reconciliation mean? It can be argued that searching the truth has a very precise meaning - namely determining the details of what factually happened. And it is in this sense that most people understand the search for the truth. However it can be questioned whether this fact-finding is what the search for truth aims at in a context of transitional justice.