ABSTRACT
In order to rebuild and rehabilitate nation states that have been engulfed by violence, there is an international movement in transitional justice towards using truth commissions. As in truth commissions, state-building processes are instigated by supra-state actors such as the United Nations (UN). They also implement a unified narrative catharsis or medicalised idiom of recovery of the nation state or body. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a direct outcome of the 1999 Lom Peace Accord between the government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. A TRC was supposed to be created 90 days after the signing of the accord but it took until after the elections in 2002 for it to begin. International Crisis Group (ICG) argues that the potential of civil society, INGOs and DPOs to influence the government, on politically sensitive matters is limited. Community participation in state processes was linked to seeking real restorative change and rebuilding categories of people and trust again.
