Is Truth & Reconciliation not just pointless but harmful?

No_Ta_Doctor

Just thought I'd throw this out there...

There's lots of comment about whether truth and reconciliation could work, why it won't work and some of the problems in arranging it, but is it actually a bad thing?

Given that we have ongoing investigations in the US, Holland, Italy, Denmark and Belgium, plus the Fuentes trial and the Aussie cross sport doping report, is the time for T&R past already? Most of these investigations will, like USADA, offer a combination of both stick and carrot to get those involved to open up. But if we're promised a fresh start with T&R then then both the carrot and the stick are removed. Tell all now and cop a reduced sanction, or tell all later and get off scot free. Any rider looking at the possibility of a lengthy ban unless he fesses up knows he only needs to drag the process out until his get out of jail free card is printed...

dish_dash

It'll only work if you have a big stick to beat people with if they don't testify (and testify truthfully). You'd need an investigations team with global jurisdication to both check the evidence as well as convict anyone who didn't testify.

There is a real risk that it just ends up like the McCarthy hearings...

Also, T&R sorts the past but doesn't address future issues at all. So it may have helped ease some of the immediate post-aparteid tensions in South Africa, but the country still has a heck of a lot of race related problem (e.g. education, labour, economic ownership etc) that it didn't address. So you need a plan for the future through investing in doping controls etc.

ddraver

Agree, just plain T&R might weed out a few guilt ridden domestiques from 20/30years ago that none of us can remember but no one with anything to lose is going to just turn up and admit they re entire career is a fraud...The only way these things will work is if people get put in a position where continuing the lie is going to result in serious money loss or jail time!

These big scale ADA investigations are the only way the truth (at least some useful truth) is going to come anytime soon...

esafosfina1

In two minds about this... I can fully comprehend that damage may be done to ongoing 'investigations' but I'd love to know (if guilty parties do disclose...) who cheated, when, how, where and why. Statutes of limitations apply to the time frame I raced in, but it would lay to rest many doubts I've harboured over the years. I'm still to be swayed either way...

ddraver

The major benefit of a single T&R would be it would ''rip the plaster/band aid off'' in one moment and we could get it over and done with!

mididoctors

you do both

in time T &R will gain popular backing if they keep the pressure on

mididoctors

the harm is always a potential due to the timing issue the OP alludes too but note doing nothing new reinforces the current dogma

ie omlette eggs

No_Ta_Doctor

mididoctors wrote:

the harm is always a potential due to the timing issue the OP alludes too but note doing nothing new reinforces the current dogma

ie omlette eggs

Isn't there a pretty sizeable omelette being cooked up already though?

Richmond Racer

No tA Doctor wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

the harm is always a potential due to the timing issue the OP alludes too but note doing nothing new reinforces the current dogma

ie omlette eggs

Isn't there a pretty sizeable omelette being cooked up already though?

There's a big tortilla on the go in Madrid, if that's what you're thinking

Richmond Racer

ddraver wrote:

The major benefit of a single T&R would be it would ''rip the plaster/band aid off'' in one moment and we could get it over and done with!

But it wouldnt be one moment. It would drag on for years. You're talking multiple jurisdictions. You're also looking at people saying other people did x & y, and then those people have to be given the chance - and with legal representation - to defend themselves (or otherwise). Its years - not a moment in time and then its all done and dusted and tickety-boo.

Richmond Racer

esafosfina1 wrote:

In two minds about this... I can fully comprehend that damage may be done to ongoing 'investigations' but I'd love to know (if guilty parties do disclose...) who cheated, when, how, where and why. Statutes of limitations apply to the time frame I raced in, but it would lay to rest many doubts I've harboured over the years. I'm still to be swayed either way...

How would you feel if all the confessions were done in private? No public hearings. All private - or as has been mooted, everyone fill out a form on which they details what they're experiences were.

ddraver

Richmond Racer wrote:

ddraver wrote:

The major benefit of a single T&R would be it would ''rip the plaster/band aid off'' in one moment and we could get it over and done with!

But it wouldnt be one moment. It would drag on for years. You're talking multiple jurisdictions. You're also looking at people saying other people did x & y, and then those people have to be given the chance - and with legal representation - to defend themselves (or otherwise). Its years - not a moment in time and then its all done and dusted and tickety-boo.

Well true, but all part on one process at least...It would also provide somewhere that the sport could draw a line under.

Macaloon

"...waiting to hear what Johan Bruyneel and his fellow management conspirators have to say about all of this because there are a few aspects of health and safety I'd like them to explain."

Robert Millar on TRC & Armstrong. Some cracking quotes, but an ambiguous endorsement for the process, at best.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/robert ... etribution

mr_poll

Depends what its terms of reference are. At present the clamour for a T&R seems to be finally getting the bad guys but not much else - the drawback is that the ongoing saga provides death by a thousand cuts and the sport will feel cleansed but will be left as a shell of itself due to its lack of sponsors etc.

If it is felt that we have learnt what we need to stop this happening again then I would rather time and effort is put in place to draw a massive line in the sand with swift justice (these 12 month cases are a joke) & big punishments for anyone stepping over that (I see WADA are recommending 4 yr bans for first offences).

There are however questions to be answered around governance and possible corruption at the top - T and R has the capability to expose that, if it existed. As harmful a process as that might be it maybe necessary to ensure the right people draw the line in the sand.

IMO - T and R is harmful, especially if its a witch hunt of riders - if its around the governance/culture then it could be the sharp shock the sport needs and unlikely to be sanctioned in all honesty as turkeys dont vote for Christmas.

micron

There's a good piece on ths by Robert Millar in today's cyclingnews - worth a read

above_the_cows

Truth and Reconciliation in the context of the politics of a state is one thing, in a commercial sport another thing entirely.

In the context of South Africa it was a way for the country to address some but no means all of the injustice of the past, the socioeconomic injustice was conveniently not addressed by T&R and structural inequalities continue to cause misery to many. But T&R worked in SA because SA as a sovereign state wasn't going anywhere. It would continue (however violently or not) whether they had T&R or they didn't - everyone respected SA's sovereignty and it would have carried on existing.

Procycling is not a sovereign state, capable of extracting wealth from its citizens and trading its natural resources. It is a commercial operation reliant on the money of sponsors and race organisers. Without their patronage there is no procycling. T&R - unless held in private which is sort of not the point of T&R which is about public justice and processes of constructing/altering collective memory - has the capacity to just destroy the idea of procycling to the point where patronage disappears.

Or the people you want to testify just ignore it completely because there is no coercive/judicial capacity to it at all.

mididoctors

No tA Doctor wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

the harm is always a potential due to the timing issue the OP alludes too but note doing nothing new reinforces the current dogma

ie omlette eggs

Isn't there a pretty sizeable omelette being cooked up already though?

but the point that dopers will defer to the future still stands either way... ie its a false dilemma

if you don't T&R people are going to hold out till they are caught just as if you did

a distortion will always form at the inception of reform because of where actors are relative to any breaking wave so to speak... so you might as well go for the biggest wave you can

micron

I agree about the 'biggest wave' - what was it Armstrong used to say 'extraordinary accusations demand extraordianry proof'? Now perhaps we need to substitute 'extraordinary solutions'.

I'm interested that the UCI dissolved their own independent commission - presumably for being a little too independent? But who will independently observe and verify TRC? Who will stop reconciliation becoming retribution? UCI IC could have played an important part in that - Dame Tanni Grey Thompson is a woman of enormous integrity.

iainf72

micron wrote:

I'm interested that the UCI dissolved their own independent commission - presumably for being a little too independent? But who will independently observe and verify TRC? Who will stop reconciliation becoming retribution? UCI IC could have played an important part in that - Dame Tanni Grey Thompson is a woman of enormous integrity.

There can be no reconciliation without justice.

It's something that will solve nothing at all. Why will talking about the recent past influence the future? Ultimately no one knows what to do, so they're just clutching at anything to be seen to do something. To a point above, if you look at TRC in SA and what society is like now, it really didn't help longer term.

micron

So what would you do? There's a lot of opposition to TRC but precious few alternatives being offered. Imagine you're the new broom, how do you sweep clean?

ocdupalais

micron wrote:

So what would you do? There's a lot of opposition to TRC but precious few alternatives being offered. Imagine you're the new broom, how do you sweep clean?

Break yourself up for kindling and get a Dyson. Let's not muck about here.

iainf72

micron wrote:

So what would you do? There's a lot of opposition to TRC but precious few alternatives being offered. Imagine you're the new broom, how do you sweep clean?

I don't know. I have no idea how to "fix" it. But that doesn't change the fact a TRC is a piss poor idea. I thought the UCI IC could've been good but as soon as they mentioned a TRC I decided they were clowns.

mididoctors

iainf72 wrote:

micron wrote:

I'm interested that the UCI dissolved their own independent commission - presumably for being a little too independent? But who will independently observe and verify TRC? Who will stop reconciliation becoming retribution? UCI IC could have played an important part in that - Dame Tanni Grey Thompson is a woman of enormous integrity.

There can be no reconciliation without justice.

It's something that will solve nothing at all. Why will talking about the recent past influence the future? Ultimately no one knows what to do, so they're just clutching at anything to be seen to do something. To a point above, if you look at TRC in SA and what society is like now, it really didn't help longer term.

what would have happened without it

you dunno...

I wouldn't rule anything out and as you say you need to sweep the floor past present clean..... anybody left in the sport at the very least.

its a case of transparent adult debate... I am not so much anti-doping as I am pro sticking to the rules.

Turfle

Who is it to the benefit of? Fans? The UCI? The anti-doping bodies?

Read the comments of the Robert Millar piece, read twitter, read the clinic. Fans don't want reconciliation, they want dirt, and they want accusation.

The only way it helps anti-doping bodies is if current cheats + doctors 'fess up to their current ways of beating tests. But why would they?

And perhaps more to the point, who is it going to satisfy? Will the clinic suddenly close down?

It's one of those things that sounds all lovely in theory, but in practice probably doesn't achieve much of anything.

Turfle

./.,

ddraver

micron wrote:

So what would you do? There's a lot of opposition to TRC but precious few alternatives being offered. Imagine you're the new broom, how do you sweep clean?

National Federations supported by National Police need to investigate it and launch large investigations to examine what went on with the past. Participants need to know that lying has real consequences for themselves.

It won't happen, witness the farce happening in Spain at the moment, but it is the only way to properly wipe the slate clean. I'm afraid that means that we will never root out all of the cheats in the sport so we have to concentrate on the most important few. The UCI and the Team Managers.

We also need a change in the culture of cycling, but that will never happen over night, that will take years unfortunately. I'm starting to get the opinion that the rug needs to be pulled out from under these people and things like big sponsors pulling out, road cycling being pulled from the Olympics and (ultimately) viewing figures dropping so people realise that we re actually serious about this. Whilst DS's and Team leaders are earning 6 figure salaries they have no real incentive to make any changes.

Alternatively, I also wonder occasionally if any of this matters. How many of the cycling fans watching on Alpe du Huez give a monkeys if the riders are doped. I'd hazard a guess that it's not actually very many! There are people on here, (Frenchie, ThomThom) for whom riders doping is no issue...perhaps, micron we are the weird minority that care that we watch Clean Cycling?

mididoctors

we are just falling back into this trap where T & R is seen as a exclusive choice rather than an additional one among many

micron

Ddraver Excellent post, though like you, I wonder if the appetite is truly there. Investigation is clearly key and an effective tool but what do you base investigations on? Plenty of scope for false accusations. And when does something cross the line from an insinuation to 'evidence' worth investigating?

Mididoctors, very much agree here too - its a tool, like investigation & testing are tools. I'm genuinely surprised at the sudden backlash against a suggestion that has broad support for several years now. Though I do think using the term truth & reconciliation is misleading.

rob churchill

I know most people on here have read it, but I think it's worth revisiting USADA's draft terms for a TRC

Implemented properly, I think a TRC could be a very powerful method of extracting some of the poison. A few points:

The TRC needn't go on for years (although the investigations and charges against individuals might); USADA suggests "Amnesty Window. In order 'to encourage individuals to come forward in a timely fashion,' evidence must be provided to the TRC within a period of 'three weeks to one month.' After the window closes, those who provide testimony 'would have discretionary amnesty.'"

It's not about witch-hunting riders; The TRC's aim is identify evidence of "the extent of doping in cycling" and "to give riders and lower-level athlete support personnel who were forced by the culture of cycling to participate in doping the chance of a fresh start." The draft differentiates between riders and support staff, and those in "positions of team ownership and control," with automatic amnesty recommended for the former grouping and "discretionary amnesty" for the latter.

It's got teeth; Using the evidence amassed by the truth and reconciliation process, the AMO would then conduct investigations to determine whether or not to bring anti-doping violation cases against "individuals in cycling who did not participate in the amnesty programme... if information from the UCI, national anti-doping agencies or police later determines that a rider "has not been fully truthful or cooperative", the AMO can revoke the rider's amnesty and request that the relevant anti-doping agency sanction the rider in question."

Some posters have suggested that there's no incentive for anyone to testify to the TRC, but on these terms any rider who doesn't go to the TRC and spill the beans on everything he knows is surely taking a huge gamble. The risk is of ending up in the same situation that LA did - where your teammates and support staff are testifying and getting minimal sanctions, the evidence is building up against you, and you've missed your own chance to do a deal.

Who wants to be the one guy on the team who didn't talk?



P.S. Micron, Tanni's not a Dame, she's a Baronness. But yes - unimpeachable integrity.

rick_chasey

I think a new sincerity or informed ignorance is the only way forward.

Call it post-postmodern sport appreciation.

Turfle

rob churchill wrote:

I know most people on here have read it, but I think it's worth revisiting USADA's draft terms for a TRC

Implemented properly, I think a TRC could be a very powerful method of extracting some of the poison. A few points:

The TRC needn't go on for years (although the investigations and charges against individuals might); USADA suggests "Amnesty Window. In order 'to encourage individuals to come forward in a timely fashion,' evidence must be provided to the TRC within a period of 'three weeks to one month.' After the window closes, those who provide testimony 'would have discretionary amnesty.'"

It's not about witch-hunting riders; The TRC's aim is identify evidence of "the extent of doping in cycling" and "to give riders and lower-level athlete support personnel who were forced by the culture of cycling to participate in doping the chance of a fresh start." The draft differentiates between riders and support staff, and those in "positions of team ownership and control," with automatic amnesty recommended for the former grouping and "discretionary amnesty" for the latter.

It's got teeth; Using the evidence amassed by the truth and reconciliation process, the AMO would then conduct investigations to determine whether or not to bring anti-doping violation cases against "individuals in cycling who did not participate in the amnesty programme... if information from the UCI, national anti-doping agencies or police later determines that a rider "has not been fully truthful or cooperative", the AMO can revoke the rider's amnesty and request that the relevant anti-doping agency sanction the rider in question."

Some posters have suggested that there's no incentive for anyone to testify to the TRC, but on these terms any rider who doesn't go to the TRC and spill the beans on everything he knows is surely taking a huge gamble. The risk is of ending up in the same situation that LA did - where your teammates and support staff are testifying and getting minimal sanctions, the evidence is building up against you, and you've missed your own chance to do a deal.

Who wants to be the one guy on the team who didn't talk?



P.S. Micron, Tanni's not a Dame, she's a Baronness. But yes - unimpeachable integrity.

So admit it and we'll support you, but deny it and you'll be in trouble if we find out.

Seems oddly familiar.