For a Peace and Reconciliation Commission

Aug 16, 2009 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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Not long after I spoke at the “Rule of Law March” in 2004 at the Square of the Revolution, which ended up protesting the purported nexus between Minister Gajraj and the “Phantom gang” more than anything else, I attended the wake of a relative who had been killed by bandits. The father accosted me angrily: “How could you speak against Gajraj?!” he demanded. “Don’t you know that he was the only man who saved us all from being in coffins like my son?”
“But even if it was Gajraj who took on the bandits, where did it get us if he had to go outside the police force to do so? Maybe your son would be alive if we had a professional police force by now,” I remonstrated placatingly. I reminded him that even before ROAR had been launched five years ago we had been single-mindedly calling on the government to reform the police force so that it could deal with the violence that was engulfing the country. It didn’t cut any ice.
“Let me tell you something, chap. What do you know about reforming the forces? Do you think that the government could have done that without the opposition encouraging them to overthrow the government? You guys are just talking theory. The government had to do what the government had to do.”
Today, five years down the line, I am not sure much has changed about the implicit question that my relative posed to me: if the government did not act legally because it was stymied by the very institutions on which its legal actions depended, was it morally wrong if it stepped outside the law to prevent a greater catastrophe from befalling the nation? I have spoken to many of the supporters of the government who firmly believe that they were in clear and imminent danger of being wiped out in the mayhem unleashed out of the epicentre of Buxton in the post-2001 carnage (not to mention the thirty-one businessmen killed in 1999 alone) and their answer is a clear and unequivocal, “No! The government had to do what the government had to do.”
I would urge the opposition to bear in mind the moral question posed by the alleged actions of the government as they go about “educating” the populace about the relevancy of the information coming out of the Simels trial in NY. Because it is this question that is foremost in the minds of many, in addition to the narrower legal one. The law is not exhaustive of morality and it is the latter that ultimately forms the cement of a viable nation. The law may circumscribe our actions with sanctions but if it clashes with deeper moral imperatives, the former will be honoured in the breach and emerge with diminished standing.
The question, of course, is not a new one and the debate surrounding the several answers to what has been dubbed the “means versus ends” conundrum have occupied some of our finest minds through the ages. The question typically arises every time there is a clash in values – in the present case where the stricture that a government must never act outside of the law clashes with the value that the government is fundamentally obliged to do whatever it takes to protect its citizens. One would have to keep in mind that inaction on the part of the government is also a choice and has its moral consequences.
There are those that argue in deontological fashion, as does the opposition, that the government even in moral matters – much less legal ones – must follow the rule, come what may. The “right” comes before the “good”. As for example, when Kant famously maintained we have a moral duty to always tell the truth, even to a murderer who asks where the would-be victim is. To do otherwise exposes the entire society to the “slippery slope” dangers of “evil” means morphing into consummated ends? Will not the evil ends become the norm and eventually destroy the very society they were intended to protect?
The opposing consequentalist argument of the supporters of the government takes the opposite stand and holds that choices — acts and/or intentions — are to be morally assessed solely by the states of affairs they bring about. If the end state – say, saving the society from destruction is adjudged as intrinsically valuable — then the choice to secure this is the one that is morally right to make and to execute. (The Good in that sense is said to be prior to the Right.) The opposition, says the supporters of the government, should put themselves into the shoes of the administration, when the barbarians were literally at the gates, and say publicly what they would have done. While academics can argue ad nauseum about theoretical positions, politicians must always be aware that their positions have consequences for real human beings. Even Obama has had to shift his stance on torture and Blackwater after assuming office.
ROAR’s position that the PPP ought to have reformed the forces before, and saved itself from its moral – not to mention legal – dilemma may still be raised by the opposition. But as Kant – and my relative – reminded us, “ought” implies “can”: could the PPP have reformed the forces after 1992 without precipitating a major upheaval?
We believe that after Dr. Jagan refused to do so within a year of taking office, he – and his successors – lost the initiative. With a seething opposition and questionable key state institutions, the premises of an ordered social contract was lost. As I wrote last year, “The PPP had to act more as a player in the anarchy of the Hobbessian inter-state system that in the putatively settled intra-state order.” And we know what morality rules in such circumstances.
Right after the January12, 1998, ethnic riots in Georgetown, we wrote a letter to the press that called for, among other things, a Peace and Reconciliation Commission. President Mandela’s and Bishop Tutu’s great contribution towards addressing the problems of a divided society was to show that yes, all those who have been damaged and hurt need justice, but restorative justice rather than retributive justice goes further in setting a platform for a viable future. We commend the call for such a Commission to the opposition once again.

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