Fambul Tok
Site of the Community Consultation in Kailahun, where Fambul Tok Staff met with local stakeholders to ask whether they wanted to launch the program in their district. Photograph by Sara Terry. Source: Bates
The Sierra Leonian Civil War broke out in 1991 and ended in 2002. The Lomé Peace Accord of July 1999 did not bring the peace envisioned. Eventually, the war ended in 2002, with some support from external actors, including the UN (Okure, 2008). The government of Sierra Leone turned to the UN Security Council to set up an international tribunal to prosecute those who had committed atrocities during the war. In 2000, the Sierra Leonian parliament passed a law that established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC; Okure, 2008). In 2002, the Special Court for Sierra Leone was established with the support of the UN. Both mechanisms ran in parallel to address crimes committed during the civil war.
However, by 2007, it had become apparent that there was little by way of reconciliation and justice on ground (Fambul Tok, n.d.). A large amount of money had been spent, only nine men had been prosecuted by the Special Court, and the TRC had not supported people beyond the district capitals (Fambul Tok, n.d.).
Against this background, John Caulker, long-time human rights activist and the founder and Executive Director of a human rights NGO called the Forum of Conscience, set up a mechanism to support reconciliation at the community level. Collaborating with Libby Hoffman of Catalyst for Peace, he designed a mechanism called “Fambul Tok” in November 2007, and began implementing it from the following month. The mechanism was created by drawing from the family talk tradition in Sierra Leone, of discussing and resolving issues within the family circle (Graybill, 2010).
Fambul Tok began with consultations with community leaders across 14 districts to determine the communities’ needs and desires for reconciliation (Fambul Tok, n.d.). Following these consultations, a pilot process began in March 2008, starting with Kailahun District, where the war first began. Over time, the program expanded to include Moyamba, Kono, Konadugu, Bombali, and Pujehun by 2014, with aspirations for a nation-wide rollout (Fambul Tok, n.d.).
Fambul Tok sessions brought to fore several section-level ceremonies enjoining thousands of people as partcipants. In these ceremonies, perpetrators would come forward at bonfires, stand before their communities, confess their crimes, and ask for forgiveness (Fambul Tok, n.d.). Following this, family members neighbours, elders, and community members came together to embrace victims and perpetrators, and carry out a cleansing ritual as part of a traditional ceremony (Fambul Tok, n.d.).
Typically, the process begins with a round of consultation with individuals and communities that will make and sustain peace. At this stage, the reasons, processes to be deployed, and all those that will be part of the process for reconciliation are determined. Next, the processes so determined are implemented. Where relevant, some measure of training is also provided on ground to support communication, reconciliation, mediation, and healing. This is followed by a reconciliation ceremony that is determined by the community involved in shaping the procedure. The reconciliation process is then supplemented by follow-ups that may involve everything from setting up peace trees and radio listening clubs, to conducting sporting events and running community farms (Fambul Tok, n.d.).
In the first five years of the program, over 155 reconciliation ceremonies involving over 2700 people testifying to over 60,000 of their community members were conducted (Hoffman, 2012). Fambul Tok is inspired by the idea that each person inherently has the power, goodness, and capacity to contribute toward society in helpful, healthy ways and that these capacities are adversely affected when people experience violence and hurt (Hoffman, 2011). It is rooted in the African sensibility of emphasizing the need for communities to become whole, instead of relying on western traditions of crime and punishment (Graybill 2010).
Critiques suggest that the approach to Fambul Tok often followed a scripted process, and tended to homogenize Sierra Leoneans and contributes to commonly cited dichotomies, such as global/local and Western/non-Western (Martin, 2020). In the process, there is also an assumption that tradition and culture are not subject to transformation – and the diversity of engagement with such dynamic processes is not recognized (Martin, 2020).
References
Fambul Tok (n.d.). Our Story. https://www.fambultok.org/about/our-story
Graybill, L. S. (2010). Traditional practices and reconciliation in Sierra Leone: the effectiveness of Fambul Tok. Conflict Trends, 2010(3), 41-47.
Hoffman, Libby. "How It Works: An In-Depth Look at the Fambul Tok Process." Fambul Tok. (Umbrage Editions, 2011).
Martin, L. S. (2020). Deconstructing the local in peacebuilding practice: representations and realities of Fambul Tok in Sierra Leone. Third World Quarterly, 42(2), 385-401.
Okure, A. (2008). The Process of Restorative Justice in Sierra Leone. https://afjn.org/the-process-of-restorative-justice-in-sierra-leone/
