“History is stubborn”: Talk about Truth, Justice, and National Reconciliation in the Republic of Guinea

Abstract

AbstractThis article uses an analysis of discussions of the November 1970 Portuguese attack on Guinea as a window into issues that continue to be raised concerning the country's first post-independence regime (1958–1984). We analyze ongoing debates among Guineans regarding the legacy of the former president, Sékou Touré, and whether or not there is a need for truth-telling and/or justice for abuses committed under his rule. One strand of this discussion focuses on legitimate political tactics and another on the politics of ethnicity in contemporary Guinea. The frequent assertion by Guinean interlocutors that “history is stubborn” points to both the perceived power of truth-telling and the ethno-political stakes with which these debates have become imbued. Debates among Guineans often focus on the uses and abuses of “truth and reconciliation” testimony, which for some Guineans is essential to breaking past cycles of violent state repression and for others is a kind of Pandora's box that could fuel not reconciliation but retribution. We show that Guineans are also engaged in a third order of analysis, of the status of “imported” notions of justice, agency, and culpability in an African setting.