HCRRUN’s 2023 objectives achieved: 3,604 victims compensated and community and collective reparations continued

The High Commission for Reconciliation and Strengthening of National Unity (HCRRUN) held its annual review conference on Thursday, December 21, 2023, in Lomé. The meeting provided an opportunity for the institution to review its activities carried out in 2023 and present its financial report.

In addition to the individual reparation sessions, which enabled 3,604 victims to receive compensation, bringing the total number of victims compensated since the beginning of the process to 27,243, the HCRRUN continued implementing community and collective reparations in accordance with CVJR Recommendation No. 54. Thus, during 2023, the institution took delivery of a medical and social centre in Niki Niki and conducted missions to hear and document conflicts in Bodjé Medjé in Kpélé, as well as in Agbandi and Diguina in Blitta.

For the President of the HCRRUN, Ms. Awa Nana-Daboya, conducting this annual review each year essentially amounts to complying with the CVJR recommendation calling for “regular reports to be submitted to the population on the implementation of the reparation programme.”

She believes that the country should take pride in the progress achieved by the HCRRUN, describing it as “a record of which our country should be proud, compared with what is observed elsewhere, where transitional justice processes have become stillborn projects due to socio-economic constraints or even the lack of genuine political will.”

The HCRRUN also made progress during the year in implementing CVJR Recommendation No. 46, relating “to tributes to be paid to certain deceased personalities who held important positions of responsibility and served the Togolese nation.”

According to the President of the institution, “an obstacle has been overcome in the case of the late Colonel Kléber Dadjo, former Head of State. A site has been identified and selected in Siou to host the planned tribute ceremonies.”