PHOTO: INCHR Chair Colley and Flashback image of the civil war
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
The Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) says it has not been able to jump-start the TRC recommendation on reparation, because of the government’s failure to treat reparation as an indispensible component of the country’s struggling transitional justice process.
The commission’s Acting Chairman, Rev. Bartholomew Colley, disclosed that the government is yet to muster the political will to craft a single policy paper on how it intends proceed with establishment of the US$500 million Dollars Reparations Trust Fund for the period of 30 years proposed by the TRC.
Ever since the Liberian civil war ended in 2003, neither has there been reparation for victims of the carnage nor prosecution of those who bear the greatest responsibilities for the 14 years of mayhem that also caused the deaths of some 250,000 people, according to United Nations estimate.
Addressing a press conference in Monrovia over the weekend,the Liberian Lawyer and Christian cleric noted that government has not make any mention of consideration of any minimum budgetary allotments to initiate the plans aimed at generating the fund.
The INCHR Chairman suggested that the government needs to take the initiative by organizing the fund drive before the international community and Liberians in the Diaspora can make contributions
Also speaking at the press conference, Commissioner Wilfred Gray-Johnson, disclosed that the government, under the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, agreed that the government made its response to the TRC recommendation of reparations.
According to Commission Johnson, former President Sirleaf, in her first and second updates to the national legislature, agreed that the government will consider to community-type and national symbolic reparations rather than individual reparations
According the Commissioner Johnson, the reparation road map endorsed by the government also stressed the need for the establishment of the reparation trust fund.
He added that press conference is intended to remind government and the international community that the TRC recommended that there is a need to establish Reparation Trust Fund because there are some who are still carrying bullets in their bodies , others made crippled and some infrastructures that provided education and health before the war are no more
The TRC recommendation on reparations called for the establishment of a 500 United States Dollars Trust Fund by the Liberian government and make payment within 30 years.
The TRC also proposed that each Liberian residing in the Diaspora should contribute one United States Dollars to the fund
The TRC also recommended that the government take ownership of the E J Roye Building on Ashman Street in Monrovia and proceed there form should also go towards the reparation fund
For her part, Commissioner Tonia Talery-Wiles, said the commission is soliciting funding from the UN Women purposely to conduct for training of women to serve as judges under the palaver hut system.
According to her, the TRC recommendation also devoted certain portion of its reports to women where it recommended the construction of clinic in areas that are inaccessible solely for women and children.
She explained that there are some women who are still carrying bullets in their bodies while some health structures destroyed causing them to walk distances