ABSTRACT
We find ourselves in the midst of what the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka has called a “fin de millenaire fever of atonement,”1 an era in which expectations with regard to atonement for past wrongs have grown very large in many historical-political contexts. In view of the widespread contemporary expectation of apology for wrongful pasts, the reticence of some countries raises important questions. Why do some democratic countries – the only ones from which we can seriously expect an accounting for past wrongs – resist “coming to terms with the past” in particular cases? What is it about these countries, or the pasts in question, that keeps them from “coming clean”? Under what conditions might recalcitrants relax their guard and “come to terms with the past”? These are the questions that motivate the following inquiry. It goes without saying that all countries have dirty laundry to air and reasons not to air it, democracies included; my aim is to examine some significant cases in order to understand them more fully and perhaps to shed light on other cases as well.
