2. Summary
Historical Context
What is a truth commission?
SA TRC Mandate, Aims and Objectives
Reconciliation Focus
Findings, Recommendations and Subsequent
Developments
Criticism
Video: Reconciliation between victims and perpetrators?
Discussion
3. Historical Context
“Apartheid” – segregation 1948-1990
Stripped “colored” and “black” South Africans of civil and
political rights.
Resistance met with police brutality
Opposition groups banned – e.g. ANC
Apartheid system gradually came to an end following int’l
sanctions and end of Cold War
Negotiations between National Party & ANC
Democratic elections held 1994 – Nelson Mandela elected
President.
Interim Constitution passed 1994
Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to address past
human rights abused under Apartheid.
4. What is a truth commission?
A truth commission is a body that investigates a country’s past
human rights violations – including violations by state actors
and/or armed opposition.
Focus on the past.
Investigate pattern of abuses over time.
Temporary body.
Sanctioned, authorized & empowered by state (Hayner, 2002).
A truth commission is an ad hoc, autonomous and victim-centered
commission of inquiry set up in and authorized by a state for the
primary purposes of:
Investigating and reporting on the principal causes and consequences of
broad and relatively recent patterns of severe violence or repression that
occurred in a state during determinate periods of abusive rule or conflict;
and
Making recommendations for their redress and future prevention
(Freeman, 2006).
5. SA TRC Mandate
Investigate gross human rights violations perpetrated under
Apartheid regime 1960-1994.
Violations by the state
Violations by liberation/opposition movements
TRC could grant amnesty to perpetrators in exchange for full
confession.
Allow victim testimonies: victim-centered approach.
Construct impartial historical record.
Make recommendations on prosecutions, reparations and
institutional reform.
Produce Final Report of findings and recommendations.
6. Aims & Objectives
“The function of truth commissions, like the function of honest
historians, is simply to purify the argument, to narrow the range of
permissible lies” (Ignatieff).
Five Basic Aims of Truth Commissions:
1. To discover, clarify and formally acknowledge past abuses.
2. To respond to specific needs of victims.
3. To contribute to justice and accountability.
4. To outline institutional responsibility and recommend reforms.
5. To promote reconciliation and reduce conflict (Hayner).
8. Findings
849 amnesties granted.
Government destroyed documentary evidence between
1990-94.
Addressed structural violence
Named perpetrators and recommended prosecutions
against those cases where amnesty was rejected.
Produced historical account of causes of violence.
9. Recommendations
Recommended reparations
Financial - $3500/yr x 6yrs
Symbolic – monuments, museums and days of remembrance
community – property/land restitution
Institutional reform
Public participation
Prosecutions
Archive work of TRC
Public apology from goverment
10. Subsequent Developments
Government apology from Pres. Mandela
Commission to oversee reparations; task force to
oversee exhumations of disappeared.
Prosecutions limited.
Reparations delayed and less than recommended.
11. Criticism
Truth commissions cannot/should not force victims to forgive
and/or reconcile with their perpetrators.
Reconciliation approaches sacrifice justice.
Few successful prosecutions.
Victim-centered, but not representative.
Re-traumatizing; re-victimizing.
No follow through on recommendations for reforms, reparations.
(Re)conciliation achieved?
Antjie Krog on (re)-conciliation:“There is nothing to go back to, no
previous state or relationship one would wish to restore.”
12. Video of TRC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azz-F0mbWP8
13. Discussion
What do you see as the strengths/weaknesses of the TRC?
After mass violence and genocide, are restorative approaches to
justice appropriate? Or should societies strive to achieve
retributive/punitive justice?
Do you think SA’s victims sacrificed justice for truth?
Do you agree/disagree with Tutu’s view that truth commissions should
and can promote forgiveness and reconciliation?
What are some of the problems with asking victims to forgive
perpetrators; societies to forgive government/institutions that have
perpetrated mass atrocities?
Do you think the amnesty approach is a satisfactory method for
dealing with the past for victims, societies, etc.?
14. References
Hayner, P. (2002) “Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenges of Truth
Commissions” Routledge: New York.
Philpott, D. (2012) “Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation”
OUP: New York.
Tutu, D. (1999) “No Future Without Forgiveness” Random House: London
USIP: http://www.usip.org/publications/truth-commission-south-africa
Transitional Justice: http://tj.facinghistory.org/reading/history-south-african-
truth-reconciliation
http://www.rnw.nl/international-justice/article/unspeakable-truths-truth-
commissions-and-transitional-justice
TRC Report: http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/index.htm
15. Extra Credit 1
Watch the full length video of “Long Night’s Journey Into
Day” (available in Tisch Library Media Center) and write a
500 word report answering at least 3 of the following
discussion questions:
What feelings came forward for you while viewing this film? What stands out for
you most about the film? From the cases in the film, how effective has the TRC
been? Do you think the TRC has satisfied all the people in the film? Why or why
not? Is there a difference in culpability between the person who commits
violence to support an unjust state and the person who commits violence in
order to resist state-sponsored human rights violations? Do the end always
justify the means? Should Blacks have foregone the use of force in response to
White violence and apartheid even when it may have meant continuing to suffer
grave human rights violations? Would you want to know the details behind a
violent crime that affected you in the past? Are there some details you would
not want to know? What is necessary for forgiveness to take place? Is knowing
the truth enough? Would you be able to forgive someone after they admitted to
a heinous act?
16. Extra Credit 2
Read Desmond Tutu’s book, “No Future Without
Forgiveness” (available in Tisch library) and write a 500
word critical review of the book, explaining how
forgiveness and reconciliation are linked to restorative
justice and whether you believe the TRC was
successful in encouraging personal and societal
healing, restoration and reconciliation.
