Given that findings are sometimes controversial, what are the long-term benefits of truth commissions?
Truth commissions help people understand the effect of past decisions and their impact on the future. They help people consider, for example, what a coup d’tat looks like and what the costs are in terms of human lives. In Liberia, the findings of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) show that the costs were very high indeed, in terms of the number of people killed or displaced from their homes.
