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9/11 Panel: America's Truth Commission
Commentary
By Amy Ross, Pacific News Service
Nations attempting to address internal violence have increasingly
established truth commissions in response to demands for an official
account of what happened. The author explores
the ways in which the 9/11 hearings can be understood within this genre.
April 6, 2004 - The National Commission on Terrorist Acts Committed
Upon the United States has gripped the nation's headlines and, perhaps,
its soul. Is the 9/11 panel America's own truth commission?
Truth commissions have appeared all over the world. Societies emerging
from a period of bitter and brutal violence establish such commissions
as a way to address the past. South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and
Reconciliation Commission is the most widely known example of the genre,
but more than 20 truth commissions have sprung up in recent years.
The 9/11 commission is different from other truth commissions in
important respects. Unlike commissions in Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala
and South Africa, which were established as a part of a regime change,
this commission is not an element in a broader negotiated political
transition. Still, other countries' attempts to come to terms with a
contested past offer useful lessons to guide our understanding as this
U.S. "truth commission" pursues its mandate to determine the official
explanation for the tragedies of Sept. 11th.
Above all, truth commissions are sites of struggle, where sectors
compete to establish the official version of history. Who has the power
to determine the truth about the past? How will this "truth" about past
atrocities influence power in the future? What does it mean to have such
discussions relegated (and possibly confined) to a commission? How do
the politics that create such commissions influence their results?
Truth commissions are creatures of compromise. On the one hand, victims
of the violence demand to know the details of the deaths of their loved
ones, and society at large demands "the truth," on the theory that
knowledge will contribute to accountability, and future violence will be
prevented. On the other hand, there are those who wish to keep such
secrets in their Pandora's Box. A commission is usually established as a
compromise between secrecy and openness.
Like these other commissions, the 9/11 commission has been contentious
from its conception. The Bush administration initially fought the
commission's establishment, reluctantly bowing to the vocal grievances
of the victims' families in November 2002. The White House then
demonstrated its aversion to openness and accountability by selecting
Henry Kissinger as its chairperson.
That Dr. Kissinger, himself the subject of investigations into alleged
war crimes, was to serve as the guardian for the public's right to hold
its government accountable was a clear message of the administration's
hostility to the spirit and mandate of the commission. Critics
immediately noted that Kissinger's consulting firm, Kissinger
Associates, had lucrative business interests in the Middle East. Hours
after he assured a delegation representing the families of the victims
of 9/11 that he would disclose all of his business contacts, Kissinger
resigned from the commission.
The bi-partisan compositions of such panels are less an indication of
national unity than a reflection of the fact that the commission itself
is a compromise between sectors competing to control its work.
Other truth commissions have struggled with presidential administrations
over access to documents, the conditions under which principals will
testify and especially whether such testimony will have judicial
consequences.
Truth commissions often take on a life of their own, despite the
politics of their birth. They often act like unruly adolescents, intent
on demonstrating their independence. Surprise witnesses, shocking
revelations, and charges of falsehoods are the stuff of truth commission
hearings. In South Africa, poet Antjie Krog observed, "The vocabulary
around the Truth Commission has changed from phase to phase, but the
word that turns up most often is 'underestimated.'" In Guatemala, the
truth commission produced a far stronger report than its creators
anticipated, including its determination that the military's violence
against the Mayan population constituted genocide.
Ex-terrorism "czar" Richard Clarke's accusations -- that the Bush
administration was so obsessed with Iraq that it missed, and continues
to miss, the real security threat to America -- has propelled the
hearings to center stage. The BBC in March described the panel as "the
commission that could bring down Bush." The witnesses, the widows, the
press -- all of us -- now brace for the counter-punch by the Bush
administration, when National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
testifies in public and under oath on April 8.
The 9/11 commission's final report, expected in July, will certainly
contain information important for our future security. But the process
might be as important as the product. Mark Twain observed that if we
never lied, we'd never have to remember anything. As we watch the 9/11
hearings, it is useful to observe what is said, what is secret, and what
is so painfully difficult to remember.
Readings of Related Interest
Ross, an assistant professor of geography at the
University of Georgia, wrote "The Body of the Truth: Truth Commissions
in Guatemala and South Africa," (Ph.D thesis, U.C. Berkeley 1999). |
