Truth, Reception and Reconciliation-

Nothing to loss, everything to gain

by Snake

Setting out straight once and for all the truth,  that  it may set them free.  As if  the truth will liberate one’s ignorance and conscience that eventually teach the mind that what has been done can no longer be undone. The harm has been done that acceptance and understanding exact in the human a godlike compassion for which  Barabas (that whatever name he is famous of) the thief had never pass the chance to delve into his soul. Jesus said these words to the thief on the cross "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43)".

Asking and forgiving  is a dichotomy that comes after the truth has been uncovered. Unless the truth comes to shore, it cannot be fished out in the troubled water. For only then that it serves its true meaning to whom it finds its course.

The creation of the Commission for Truth, Reception and Reconciliation in East Timor is a positive move which cannot be used primarily to exact responsibility from last year’s violence here.  The idea has been awaiting formal approval and it hopefully will buckle up to work as soon as it can.  It may  also seem  not envisioned to thresh out retribution on actions committed even beyond any pecuniary estimate. For this reason, it would seem advantageous  because it will do away any idea of long, tedious and circuitous legalities  that is surely  an unwelcome sight especially a judicial system at its infancy.

It is thus aptly called the Commission for Truth, Reception and Reconciliation. As it suggests,  I can only guess its import and signification to be bereft of any double understanding of its true nature and intention.  It sets out a  reasonably acceptable formula between any adversarial contentions, it may be evidentiary but yet would be hardly proved without delay or  perpetual cleavage.

I can understand that the Commission might just be another administrative commission without being clothes with quasi-judicial function. As such, it can only function  as an open confessional box while receiving the truth with avid reception, by what it decides under any discretionary power may recommend to whoever would be the Chief Executive for any pardon.  If and when it is clothes with the  quasi-judicial function, it should be acting both as an investigative independent commission and concomitantly as a commission which can mete out appropriate punishment commensurate with any acts or omissions considered to be violative to any established human law. Be that as it may, it can actually receive the truth in the form of complaints or any voluntary confessions , as it is, it can  provide for any  reconciliation, otherwise retribution.

We can only infer at the moment what is it like to be.  Surely, it may  filter out the truth and only  act on those within its jurisdiction to pass upon to the maximum of light or less serious crimes. Serious crimes would therefore be classified and decided upon by another  governmental entity which is likely be the judicial courts. Less serious offenses can be considered in the light of its nature, circumstances and other facts surrounding it.  But for all intent and purposes, it is very hard to determine any hard and fast rule to distinguish personal crimes from crimes in pursuit of political objectives.  In other countries of the world, crimes of political nature have been looked upon with less disfavor than the former.

It might be  that the Truth, Reception and Reconciliation Commission is shying away from any connotation attributed to the absolute sense of Justice.  Justice means meting upon the guilty the commensurate punishment as a retribution of the harm done on his fellowmen.  But Justice also exacts the proper protection on the accused of all available defenses to preserve his innocence like the due process of law,  speedy trial, to be heard by himself and counsel, equal protection under the law and many more judicial concepts in the long tradition of any civilized society.

It would be discouraging for a new nation-state to be preoccupied fending things that divide them more than courting things that united them. This is an unlikely situation.  It is in the highest order for national unity to be real through  the channels of accepting and forgiving and thus only then everybody can become a hero of their country’s future.

For what can a man  reap wallowing itself  into misery by what has been done on him if not to rise  from it and continue believing that there is yet another chance to embrace life and all its misgivings.