Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Sierra Leone)

Sierra Leone, 2002 to 2004. Promised in the 1999 Lomé peace accord between the government and the RUF rebels, the commission only began work in 2002 and submitted an extensive final report in October 2004. What makes it worth studying is the company it kept. A separate Special Court for Sierra Leone was prosecuting war crimes over the same years, so the country became a test of whether a truth commission and a criminal court can work side by side. Its recommendations included reparations for victims, but successive governments were slow to act on them, a frustration that recurs across this list.