How does one render justice to descendents of slaves and indentured labourers? Half the mandate of the Truth and Justice Commission, the setting up of which was debated in Parliament on Tuesday, is to do precisely that. Will it be in terms of monetary compensation to people? The Prime minister in his speech on Tuesday failed to answer that question; he was ? purposely? ? ambiguous about the matter, talking about recommendations for ?reparations? to the descendants of slave and indentured labourers, without saying in so many words what form the reparation will take.

Professor Robert Shell, who should soon be appointed President of the Commission has already said he doesn?t think a monetary compensation, is warranted; he instead suggests that the commission should leave a ?legacy? so that the Mauritian people under-stand better the Creole population and its history as well as the whys and wherefores of the current situation.

Sylvio Michel, ?friend? of the Prime minister and probably one of the Truth and Justice Commission?s most ardent supporters, did not take very kindly to this point of view. Michel is of the opinion that the whole purpose of the commission should be to give a monetary compensation to descendents of slaves. He even proposed that big local businesses and countries that supplied the slaves, should foot the bill.

What Michel did not say was who exactly should those ?culprits? pay and how much.

How exactly is the commission supposed to determine who is entitled to payment ? if at all ? is beyond comprehension. The Commission, which will consist of a Chairperson, a Vice-Chairperson and three other members, has been vested with powers similar to those of a Presidential Commission or a commission of inquiry. The commission will thus conduct enquiries and gather evidence in respect of slavery and indentured labour as well as into complaints made by persons aggrieved by a dispossession or prescription of land.

The Commission may also, said the Prime minister, ?hold a hearing, if it considers it necessary and for that purpose, summon and examine any witness.?

Will it do that in order to determine who should get paid?

The vagueness surrounding the ?justice? part of the commission was certainly not lost on some MPs who spoke in Parliament on Tuesday. Don?t give unnecessary hope to people, was the gist of their message. As Xavier Duval, James Burty David and Joe Lesjongard pointed out, most people?s expectations of the commission is that they will end up being paid large sums of money by descendants of slave owners ? or maybe by the Government ? to do what they want with. Like Sylvio Michel ? and numerous other people ? are hoping will happen.

But Xavier Duval hit the nail on the head when he said that the greatest legacy of the Truth and Justice Commission could in fact be that it rids the Creole community of the prejudices that cripple it. ?Some people?s children are destined to be lawyers whereas the Creole?s child will grow up to be a manual worker. This kind of stereotype should end?, he said, agreeing with Robert Shell and adding that what the Creole community could gain from the commission would be an equal society where the children of the Creoles could have the same chances in life than the children of people from other communities.

<I>«Compensation should not necessarily be in monetary terms because money is not a solution to poverty»</I>

This is what Joe Lesjongard of the opposition also said ? ?compensation should not necessarily be in monetary terms because money is not a solution to poverty.? Lesjongard, however, feels that ?someone? should pay for the crimes of the past ? those who have had economic and intellectual advantages over others.

The objective of this whole exercise is ? ironically ? to achieve social justice and national unity.

Presumably that?s where the ?truth? part of the commission will help. ?We need to confront our past in order to have a proper reconciliation. There is a growing imperative for knowledge about human rights violations to enter the public sphere?, said the Prime minister and rightly so.

It?s what to do with this knowledge once it has been gathered that might become the biggest bone of contention. Because the concept of justice is never a one-way traffic; in a court of justice, there is always a winner and a loser.

How do we reconcile this?