Academic literature on the topic 'Truth commissions – South Africa – Case studies'

ABSTRACTWe team teach an interdisciplinary political science and literature course titled “Violence and Reconciliation,” with case studies on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa and on debates about whether to develop a TRC in Northern Ireland. The course culminates in a two-week simulation in which students role play the experiences, strategies, and needs of victims, perpetrators, legal teams, government officials, and NGOs in the aftermath of a horrific event that has torn a society apart. We assessed the simulation through pre- and post-simulation writing exercises as well as observations of insights revealed by students during negotiations. We believe the simulation is an effective tool for helping students move from a scholarly engagement with the processes of restorative justice to employing them in response to hatred and violence. This article describes the simulation for use or adaptation in other courses.

During the three years in which Gordimer drafted The House Gun (1998), she relied heavily on South African case law, international jurisprudence, and the discerning editorial eye of Nelson Mandela’s lawyer, George Bizos. As such, my reading of The House Gun brings new attention to the novel’s engagement with the reconciliatory efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the juridical work of the South African Constitutional Court to redefine the terms of reconciliation in the country. Through language in a fictional courtroom, Gordimer’s novel turns the process of repair into one that is always immediate and ongoing. It shifts the primarily retributive focus of the law into a reparative and open-ended endeavor. Justice no longer is something that “is done,” Gordimer explains, but rather is a process equally conceived by law and literature. The novel depicts harm in terms of the interpersonal, spatial, and legal fractures it creates. In this way, it expresses reconciliation in the Commission’s language of bridging an injurious past with a present always open to healing.

This article examines the presentation of mediated reconciliation on the South African reality television show Forgive and Forget (e.tv, 2007–2012). The show features a representation of Black South African masculinity that is located in the domestic realm and associated with care and emotion. This differs from the prominent figuring of Black masculinity in terms of the gangster trope in South African media. The national discourse on reconciliation and nation-building associated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission foregrounds certain political figures as fathers to the nation. On Forgive and Forget, this narrative is relocated in the domestic sphere with regard to representations of fathers and their children. While on its surface the programme retells a familiar narrative of national reconciliation through family stories, there is an evident tension between a somewhat contrived reconciliation and the many contextual, economic and social complexities of each forgiveness story. These tensions themselves provide a productive space for reflecting on reconciliation through the lens of the family.

How should societies that have transitioned from authoritarian to democraticrule deal with the atrocities and gross human rights violations of theirimmediate past? Should those implicated in the crimes of past regimes beprosecuted? This sophisticated volume attempts to address such questions.About one-third of the book is comprised of well-reasoned theoreticalchapters that answer the above questions by creating a space in liberal justicefor forgiveness. The remainder consists of empirical contributions thatdescribe the ways in which international institutions and five countries(Chile, Guatemala, South Africa, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland) haveresponded to such crimes. Unlike the theoretical section, most contributionshere argue that while memory and forgiveness (the truth commissions) areimportant, they are not enough to meet the victims’ psychological needsand do not guarantee non-repetition. The introduction rightly acknowledgesthat some of the chapters argue in different directions.Doing justice in the aftermath of civil conflict is a thorny problem. In liberalism,criminal justice always has been straightforward: the courts, themouthpiece of objective law, have to mediate and impose punishment if theperpetrator is proven guilty. Punishment must consist of penalties that annulthe advantages seized by the criminal, compensate the victim in the case of ...

AbstractWe respond to recent criticisms of supposed “taxonomic anarchy” which is said to hamper conservation efforts. Using examples from African small mammals, we document recent increases of 13% (rodents) and 18% (bats) over the past three decades in the number of recognized species of Afro-Malagasy rodents and bats. By reference to a number of case studies involving Afro-Malagasy taxa (predominantly from montane habitats), and a suggested four-criterion approach to delimiting species accurately, we show that these increases are a genuine reflection of speciation in cryptic species complexes. Moreover, we show that some of these cryptic species are subject to increased extinction risks due to small population size and anthropogenic changes (habitat degradation and climate change). These changes were captured accurately in a recent Mammal Red List of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, indicating that taxonomists and conservationists can work together to assess the Red List status of cryptic species based on robust taxonomic revisions.

Mathematics education and its links to democracy and development are explored in this article, with specific reference to the case of South Africa. This is done by engaging four key questions. Firstly, the question of whether mathematics education can be a preparation for democracy and include a concern for development, is discussed by drawing on conceptual tools of critical mathematics education and allied areas in a development context. Secondly, the question of how mathematics education is distributed in society and participates in shaping educational possibilities in addressing its development needs and goals is used to examine the issues emerging from mathematics performance in international studies and the national Grade 12 examination; the latter is explored specifically in respect of the South African mathematics curriculum reforms and teacher education challenges. Thirdly, the question of whether a mathematics classroom can be a space for democratic living and learning that equally recognises the importance of issues of development in contexts like South Africa, as a post-conflict society still healing from its apartheid wounds, continuing inequality and poverty, is explored through pedagogies of conflict, dialogue and forgiveness. Finally the question of whether democracy and development can have anything to do with mathematics content matters, is discussed by appropriating, as a metaphor, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s framework of multiple ‘truths’, to seek links within and across the various forms and movements in mathematics and mathematics education that have emerged in the past few decades.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) commenced in 1996, providing high hopes to those concerned with change and redress. By many it was seen as the first stage in the reconciliation process. Former General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, Reverend Frank Chikane, himself a victim of attempted murder when poisoned with nerve gas, likened the role of the TRC in the disclosure and forgiveness process to the confessional, and suggested that "there can be no absolution without confession." However, Methodist bishop and long-time apartheid activist Peter Storey cautioned that "One of our problems is that we’re trying to find a legal framework for what is essentially a spiritual and psychological process." "The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No 34 of 1995" states that "amnesty shall be granted in respect of acts, omissions and offences associated with political objectives committed in the course of the conflicts of the past", on the basis of full disclosure. The hearings are over, the committees nearing completion, and on 29 October 1998, the Final Report of the TRC was handed to President Nelson Mandela. Now we have five neatly bound volumes, but how much has changed in the lives of those who have suffered gross human rights violations at the hands of the perpetrators? Some want retribution and will not rest until those who have tortured, abducted or murdered their loved ones or themselves have been tried and convicted. Others just want to bury their loved ones, along with "this shameful chapter of our history." Decisions on who will be granted amnesty linger since the hearings closed. Gillian Slovo, daughter of the late South African Communist Party leader, Joe Slovo, and his wife Ruth First, is one of those who is unwilling to let things rest. Her mother was killed by a letter bomb allegedly intended for Joe Slovo in 1982. She comments on the amnesty hearing of her mother’s killer, former student spy Craig Williamson: "We remembered the incredulity on the faces of the members of the committee when [Williamson] told the committee how he had looked at the intercepted envelope and seen the address, the postal mark and the logo, but not the name of the addressee." The Slovo family has now filed an application in the Cape High Court to set aside the amnesty accorded Williamson, whose testimony seemed contradictory, and not to meet the requirements of full disclosure. And what of reparations to the victims of these human rights violations? An initial payment of R30 million rand (approximately $US 3, 844, 000) was made. People who were part of the ‘urgent interim reparations’ payment received in the region of R2000 rands (approximately $US 250). In the case of those who have lost a loved one, says Duma Khumalo, a founding member of the Khulumani (Speak Out!) Support Group, and himself granted a stay of execution just 15 hours before he was to be hanged for a crime he did not commit, this has the effect of "the victims selling their dead." The government now wrangles over whether further payments will be made, urging business to engage in reparations payments, with business declining to do so on the grounds that it is the role of the state. In the meantime, the suffering of victims seems to have become something of a political football. Where does this leave us on the issue of forgiveness? There are two equally important parts to the issue of ‘sorry’: ‘I am sorry’, and ‘I hear that you are sorry, and I forgive you.’ Many South Africans feel that insult has been added to injury, because an assumption seems to have been made by some perpetrators that, having apologised, they must naturally be forgiven. This is at worst arrogant, and at best naïve. As anyone who has been through any kind of act of betrayal can attest, the healing process and forgiveness, take time. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote in Women Who Run With the Wolves, forgiveness is not "a singular act to be completed in one sitting", but has "many layers, many seasons." For many the concept of ‘re’-conciliation is inappropriate, as this suggests a restoration of positive relations that existed in the past. However, for all but the youngest generation of South Africans, division and/or discrimination is all that they’ve known. To some, conciliation seems more appropriate. Others see reconciliation as a personal process and journey of coming to terms with a painful history, and reconciling only within oneself. Still others have abandoned the idea of reconciliation and aim instead for resolution. As Gavin Harrison says, "Sometimes things are also resolved when a situation is clearly comprehended, when all personal work relating to the situation is done, and you realise that, for whatever reason, full reconciliation is just not possible right now." The mainstream media has become noticeably quiet in recent months on the issue of reparations. It would seem that after extensive coverage of the hearings, and then of the tensions between government and the TRC, they too have become burnt out. What has captured their attention, however, and the attention of the public at large, is the controversial Declaration of Commitment by White South Africans, initiated by apartheid activist Carl Niehaus and others. Sociology lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, Eddie Webster observes ironically that "it seems as if the signatories are largely drawn (with the puzzling exception of the South African rugby team) from prominent anti-apartheid figures." Quite absent from the signatories is the "white leader who will say, ‘We had an evil system with awful consequences. Please forgive us’" for whom Bishop Tutu had wished in his Forward to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report. The absence of such a leader, says Tutu now, remains his biggest regret. (It should also be noted that a number of black South Africans chose to sign the declaration in support of the initiative.) Possibly the best we can hope for are more people like Wilhelm Verwoerd, grandson of the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, whose openness about his own painful personal revolution can provide us with inspiration. Verwoerd reminds us that: "As a beneficiary [of apartheid] I thus tend to take for granted my good education, my ownership of a house in town and my access to a family holiday home near the beach, my inheritance from parents, my relatively high income and low risk of unemployment. While individual effort and skill must be acknowledged, it is important to unmask a false, overconfident sense of entitlement, to help white South Africans see how much of what we have is built on unfair, systematic privileging." Perhaps he can symbolise for us that hope lies not in the ‘New South Africa’, but in the new generation of South Africans, committed to change, and not waiting for government or big business to ‘do it for us.’ There are ever-increasing television documentaries about ordinary South Africans, black and white, "who never made a proclamation or held an office, but were handed a place [in South Africa] and are quietly making a life out of it" (Dietz). Such people seem often the strangest of bedfellows, stumbling around in the dark together and finding creative solutions to apparently insurmountable problems. Not politicians or academics, just ordinary people, with the ability to say ‘I am sorry, I will try to make amends.’ Equally important is the ability to say, ‘I recognise that you are sorry, and I will give you another chance.’ This, not the 1994 first democratic election, is the real miracle of South Africa. References Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Khulumani Support Group. "Submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Survivors’ Perceptions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Suggestions for the Final Report." 1998. http://www.csvr.org.za/papers/papkhul.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Chikane, Frank. "The Role of Truth Commissions in the Process of Reconciliation in South Africa." Seminar presented at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 1 June 1994. Cronin, Jeremy. "Sorry Can Help, But on Its Own Its Not Enough." Mail and Guardian 12 January (2001). http://www.sn.apc.org/wmail/issues/010112/OTHER50.html Downloaded 22 January 2001. Daniels, Glenda. "Superspy’s Pardon Challenged." Mail and Guardian 15 December (2000).http://www.mg.co.za/mg/za/archive/2000dec/features/15dec-craig.html Downloaded 22 January 2001. "Declaration of Commitment by White South Africans." http://www.homeforall.org.za/ENG/declarationENG.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Dietz, Steven. "Lonely Planet: Preface." Dramatist’s Play Service, 1994. http://sunsite.wits.ac.za/holistic/loneplan.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Estes, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run With the Wolves. London: Rider, 1992. Friedman, Steven. "Too Afraid To Leave the Laagers." Mail and Guardian 5 January (2001). http://www.mg.co.za/mg/za/features/friedman/010105-friedman.html Downloaded 22 January 2001. Harrisson, Gavin. In the Lap of the Buddha. Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1994. Khumalo, Duma. Personal communication. 6 February 2001. "Mad Scientists": South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Projects. http://www.geocities.com/project_coast/index.html Downloaded 22 January 2001. Miller, Andie. "A Time To Remember." Odyssey 19.4 (1995). http://www.csvr.org.za/articles/artrcod.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Powell, Ivor. "Where have all the apartheid bastards gone?" Mail and Guardian, 21 June (2000). http://www.mg.co.za/mg/news/2000jun2/21jun-bastards.html Downloaded 22 January 2001. Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 of 1995. http://www.truth.org.za/legal/index.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Reparations Update, June 2000. http://www.reconciliation.org.za/cgi.pl?&page=http://www.reconciliation.org.za/repare/jun00.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Slovo, Gillian. Red Dust. London: Virago P, 2000. Storey, Peter. "Reconciliation and Civil Society." Making Ends Meet: Reconciliation and Reconstruction in South Africa (Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation conference), World Trade Centre, Johannesburg, 18 August 1994. http://www.csvr.org.za/papers/papstory.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report, 29 October 1998. http://www.struth.org.za/index.pl?&file=report/index.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Truth and Reconciliation Commission Special Hearings on Prisons: Duma Khumalo, 22 July 1997. http://www.truth.org.za/special/prison/khumalo.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Verwoerd, Wilhelm. My Winds of Change. New York: Raven Press, 1998. ---. "The TRC and Apartheid Beneficiaries in a New Dispensation." Lecture delivered at "Politics and Promises: Evaluating the Implementation of the TRC’s Recommendations" conference, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Johannesburg, 27 October 2000. http://www.csvr.org.za/articles/artrcver.htm Downloaded 22 January 2001. Webster, Eddie. "It’s Too Late for Symbolic Gestures." Mail and Guardian, 12 January 2001. http://www.sn.apc.org/wmail/issues/010112/OTHER49.html Downloaded 22 January 2001.

Thesis (MA (Political Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.
Bibliography
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores whether sustainable peace can be achieved in post-conflict societies using the transitional justice approach. In particular, the truth commission is investigated as a mechanism of transitional justice. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was selected as a case study to investigate the relationship between sustainable peace and transitional justice. This thesis analyses whether the TRC Commission followed its mandate, and whether there are any specific definitions, conclusions or recommendations that the TRC through its Final Report undertakes in order to fulfill a specific part of the mandate, namely “to ensure that there would be no repetition of the past” (TRC vol. 5, chap. 8, paragraph 14). This is done through a textual analysis of the Final Report of the South African TRC, where inherent weaknesses of the Final Report in its aim of achieving sustainable peace are read critically and deconstructively. It is further analysed through linking the issue of sustainable peace to the field of transitional justice and the study of political development on how future TRCs can deal with the issue of sustainable peace. This thesis comes to the conclusion that the South African TRC failed to contribute to a significant analysis of how to prevent the repetition of the past. It is argued that this is based on a lack of a coherent theoretical framework, as the Final Report mixes two different truth finding mechanisms: micro-truth finding and macro-truth finding, together with the just war theory. By analysing the TRC’s theoretical framework through textual analysis, it becomes clear that micro- and macro-truth finding is difficult to combine in one report, and that in the South African case the micro-truth finding part is prioritised. However, the macro-truth finding mechanism would have provided a more in depth analysis towards sustainable peace – which in this thesis is read as Galtung’s positive peace and Lederach’s structural peace – and is a necessary prerequisite in order to achieve sustainable peace. Also the use of a traditional reading of the just war theoryThis thesis explores whether sustainable peace can be achieved in post-conflict societies using the transitional justice approach. In particular, the truth commission is investigated as a mechanism of transitional justice. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was selected as a case study to investigate the relationship between sustainable peace and transitional justice. This thesis analyses whether the TRC Commission followed its mandate, and whether there are any specific definitions, conclusions or recommendations that the TRC through its Final Report undertakes in order to fulfill a specific part of the mandate, namely “to ensure that there would be no repetition of the past” (TRC vol. 5, chap. 8, paragraph 14). This is done through a textual analysis of the Final Report of the South African TRC, where inherent weaknesses of the Final Report in its aim of achieving sustainable peace are read critically and deconstructively. It is further analysed through linking the issue of sustainable peace to the field of transitional justice and the study of political development on how future TRCs can deal with the issue of sustainable peace. This thesis comes to the conclusion that the South African TRC failed to contribute to a significant analysis of how to prevent the repetition of the past. It is argued that this is based on a lack of a coherent theoretical framework, as the Final Report mixes two different truth finding mechanisms: micro-truth finding and macro-truth finding, together with the just war theory. By analysing the TRC’s theoretical framework through textual analysis, it becomes clear that micro- and macro-truth finding is difficult to combine in one report, and that in the South African case the micro-truth finding part is prioritised. However, the macro-truth finding mechanism would have provided a more in depth analysis towards sustainable peace – which in this thesis is read as Galtung’s positive peace and Lederach’s structural peace – and is a necessary prerequisite in order to achieve sustainable peace. Also the use of a traditional reading of the just war theoryThis thesis explores whether sustainable peace can be achieved in post-conflict societies using the transitional justice approach. In particular, the truth commission is investigated as a mechanism of transitional justice. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was selected as a case study to investigate the relationship between sustainable peace and transitional justice. This thesis analyses whether the TRC Commission followed its mandate, and whether there are any specific definitions, conclusions or recommendations that the TRC through its Final Report undertakes in order to fulfill a specific part of the mandate, namely “to ensure that there would be no repetition of the past” (TRC vol. 5, chap. 8, paragraph 14). This is done through a textual analysis of the Final Report of the South African TRC, where inherent weaknesses of the Final Report in its aim of achieving sustainable peace are read critically and deconstructively. It is further analysed through linking the issue of sustainable peace to the field of transitional justice and the study of political development on how future TRCs can deal with the issue of sustainable peace. This thesis comes to the conclusion that the South African TRC failed to contribute to a significant analysis of how to prevent the repetition of the past. It is argued that this is based on a lack of a coherent theoretical framework, as the Final Report mixes two different truth finding mechanisms: micro-truth finding and macro-truth finding, together with the just war theory. By analysing the TRC’s theoretical framework through textual analysis, it becomes clear that micro- and macro-truth finding is difficult to combine in one report, and that in the South African case the micro-truth finding part is prioritised. However, the macro-truth finding mechanism would have provided a more in depth analysis towards sustainable peace – which in this thesis is read as Galtung’s positive peace and Lederach’s structural peace – and is a necessary prerequisite in order to achieve sustainable peace. Also the use of a traditional reading of the just war theory contributes to an individualisation of the truth finding process and does not sufficiently support the macro-truths. Finally, by deconstructing the term never again it is shown that this approach should not be used in the TRCs or in the wider field of transitional justice v
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek of volhoubare vrede in postkonfliksamelewings met behulp van die oorgangsgeregtigheidsbenadering bereik kan word. Meer bepaald word die soeklig gewerp op die waarheidskommissie as meganisme van oorgangsgeregtigheid. Die Suid-Afrikaanse Waarheids-en-Versoeningskommissie (WVK) dien as gevallestudie om die verwantskap tussen volhoubare vrede en oorgangsgeregtigheid te bestudeer. Die tesis probeer vasstel of die WVK sy mandaat uitgevoer het, en of die Kommissie se finale verslag enige bepaalde omskrywings, gevolgtrekkings of aanbevelings bevat “om te verseker dat die verlede hom nie herhaal nie” (paragraaf 14, hoofstuk 8, volume 5 van die WVKverslag). Dít vind plaas deur middel van ! tekstuele ontleding van die finale WVKverslag wat die inherente swakpunte van dié dokument in sy strewe na volhoubare vrede krities en dekonstruktief benader. Die verslag word voorts ontleed deur die kwessie van volhoubare vrede te verbind met die gebied van oorgangsgeregtigheid sowel as ontwikkelingstudies oor hoe toekomstige WVK’s die kwessie van volhoubare vrede kan hanteer. Die tesis kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat die Suid-Afrikaanse WVK nie ! bydrae gelewer het tot ! sinvolle ontleding van presies hoe om ! herhaling van die verlede te voorkom nie. Daar word aangevoer dat dít te wyte is aan die gebrek aan ! samehangende teoretiese raamwerk, aangesien die finale verslag twee verskillende waarheidsoekende meganismes vermeng – die mikrowaarheidsoeke en die makrowaarheidsoeke – en ook van die geregverdigde-oorlog-teorie gebruik maak. Deur die tekstuele ontleding van die teoretiese raamwerk van die WVKverslag word dit duidelik dat ! mikro- en makrowaarheidsoeke moeilik in een verslag te kombineer is, en dat, in die Suid-Afrikaanse geval, die mikrowaarheidsoeke voorkeur geniet. Tog sou die makrowaarheidsoeke ! grondiger ontleding bied vir die suksesvolle verwesenliking van volhoubare vrede, wat in hierdie tesis as Galtung se ‘positiewe vrede’ en Lederach se ‘strukturele vrede’ 5 verstaan word. Trouens, die makrowaarheidsoeke is ! voorvereiste om volhoubare vrede te bereik. ! Tradisionele lesing van die geregverdigde-oorlogteorie dra ook by tot ! individualisering van die waarheidsoekende proses, en bied nie voldoende ondersteuning vir die makrowaarhede nie. Laastens word daar deur die dekonstruksie van die uitdrukking nooit weer nie getoon dat hierdie benadering nie in WVK’s of op die groter gebied van oorgangsgeregtigheid tuishoort nie.

Thesis (MA (General Linguistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
This study investigates the ways in which former South African Police (SAP) perpetrators of human rights violations justify their criminal actions in testifying before the Amnesty Committee (AC) of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In particular, attention goes to the testimonies of former Commissioner of Police Johan van der Merwe, and former member of the Security Branch section of the SAP, Jeffrey Benzien. A key assumption in the study is that the justification of human rights violations is a discursive practice that is largely language dependent (Reisigl & Wodak 200: xi). The research draws on the theoretical aims and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It refers largely to Benke and Wodak’s (2003) discourse–historical study on the justificatory discourse of ex-Wehrmacht officers of the Austrian army. This study therefore takes a discourse-historical approach to discourse and the data, an approach which takes into consideration the surrounding political and historical context of the selected texts, which are, in this case, the testimonies of perpetrators at the AC hearings. Besides an analysis of the justificatory discourses produced by two former police officers, the study reflects on how the discursive strategies of the apartheid perpetrators compare with one another and with the ex- Wehrmacht officers. CDA and the discourse-historical approach provide interdisciplinary angles on linguistic analysis of a text. For this reason, a review is given of literature which relates the study to political, historical and philosophical insights. The analysis particularly makes use of Foster et al.’s (2005) socio-political study of apartheid perpetrator narratives. The study reveals that perpetrators used a fixed set of justificatory discursive strategies to talk about human rights violations, and their role in such violations. These linguistic strategies are used for a number of different reasons, including reducing personal responsibility, avoiding talking about past atrocities, saving face where personal malicious and degenerate behaviour is made public and diverting feelings of personal guilt. On a discourse theoretical level the study eventually convinces that there are generic strategies typically used in justificatory discourse, whether it be in response to Wehrmacht atrocities of the Second World War or to security force excesses in repressing aspirations of disenfranchised citizens during the last thirty years of the Nationalist government in South Africa. Some stories don’t want to be told. They walk away, carrying their suitcases held together with grey string. Look at their disappearing curved spines. Hunch-backs. Harmed ones. Hold alls. Some stories refuse to be danced or mimed, drop their scuffed canes and clattering tap-shoes, erase their traces in nursery rhymes or ancient games like blind man’s bluff. Excerpt from “Parts of Speech” by Ingrid de Kok

This research explores the portrayals of perpetrators in television broadcast coverage of truth commissions within politically transitioning societies, particularly how these discourses may influence the perceptions and experience of transition out of conflict. It focuses on the narratives constructed around apartheid-era perpetrators who participated in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as shown by the South African Broadcasting Corporation's (SABC) weekly broadcast, Truth Commission Special Report. It also considers how this informs perpetrators in speaking about their own histories. The SABC broadcasts aired between the 21st of April 1996 and the 29th of March 1998. It acted as a key news source on the workings of the TRC for a large group of citizens. An average of 1.1 to 1.3 million people tuned in each week for the first year, and an average of 510,000 people tuning in during its second year on air.1 The TRC hearings were recorded and filmed, and parts of these recordings were included in the SABC programme, along with further research by Special Report journalists. This included stories from the apartheid era that were not told through the TRC, further interviews with perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and communities, as well as reference to news and legal documents. As SABC describes it, the Truth Commission Special Report series “contributed to the TRC's pursuit of revealing the truth about, and engendering a deeper engagement with, South Africa's past conflicts.”2 The series was hosted and produced by well-known anti-apartheid journalist and Afrikaner Max du Preez, whose own identity became central to the narrative put forth. His team of journalists and producers included other Afrikaners such as his long-time colleague Jacques Pauw, and the young Anneliese Burgess. Otherwise, “his team of journalists varied over the twenty-three months of the series, generally including five and seven people who were racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse.”3 As South Africa transitioned out of the apartheid state, transparency of the transitional mechanisms taking place was essential for the transformation of governance and the appearance of accountability.4 This demand acted as one of the driving forces for the intense media involvement in the country's chief transitional process, namely the TRC. This research hinges on the hypothesis that the media's involvement in the South African transitional process went beyond the provision of transparency and may have influenced people's perceptions and experience within the transition per assertions by scholars such as Parver and Wolf, Fischer, Kent, and Mihr, 5 among others. It uses this as a starting point to then investigate the series' narrative as a source of these perceptions and the subsequent experiences of the subjects. This points not only to outcomes, but also their influencing factors with the intent to suggest recommendations for more intentional media coverage of political transitions, with perpetrators being one facet of such.

Magister Theologiae - MTh
This study investigates three case studies, namely, the “Pepco Three”, the “St James Church incident”, and the “Gugulethu Seven incident” from the perspective of ongoing reflections on the nature of reconciliation in the sub-discipline of Systematic Theology. The research problem that is investigated in this project is: What role did visible signs of remorse (or its absence) play in the willingness or unwillingness of victims (or their close relatives) to offer forgiveness to the perpetrators of gross violations of human rights related to the three cases studies mentioned from the amnesty hearings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation commission, namely the “Pepco Three” the “St James Church massacre incident”, the “Gugulethu Seven”. In each case study, the crucial question that will be asked is whether the victims or their relatives understand forgiveness as something that is conditional and part of a longer process of reconciliation, or whether they understand forgiveness as something that can be offered unconditionally. The research draws on some standard theological literature with specific reference to literature on the concepts of reconciliation, forgiveness and remorse emerging in the aftermath of the South African TRC. This is followed by a description and critical analysis of the three identified case studies. In each case, I listened to the recordings, read the transcriptions, and considered the available secondary material on the case studies.

"It is noted that special measures are always necessary in post-conflict situations to bring about the restoration of normalcy to societies. Truth commissions have been identified as a key to uniting, reconciling and helping the people to confidently deal with their past. Whilst these are noble notions, practically, truth commissions face serious challenges. The dissertation shall seek to highlight these problems and offer recommendations. ... The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter one is the general introduction. It gives a brief political history of Ghana and South Africa and their impact on the enjoyment of human rights. The chapter shall also discuss the need for national reconciliation in both countries. Chapter two discusses truth commissions in contemporary societies. It briefly discusses the establishment of national reconciliaton commissions and their mandates. Chapter three focuses on the laws establishing the TRC and NRC of South Africa and Ghana respectively. These legislation shall be considered in detail in order to analyse their objectives to know whether or not thet are achievable within their stated mandates. Chapter four discusses the challenges truth commission poses to international law and its implications on rule of law. The chapter shall discuss the issue of amnesty to perpetrators of gross human rights and the perpetuation of the culture of impunity in the light of international law. Chapter five considers the way forward and suggest recommendations." -- Chapter 1.
Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2003.
http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html
Centre for Human Rights
LLM

M.A.
The present study explores experiences of loss, disconnection, truth, hurting, healing, non-forgiveness and forgiveness associated with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Using a social constructionist perspective, the concepts of truth and forgiveness are explored through a theoretical background to psychology and subsequently in the stories and reflections of individuals who participated in the Commission. The issue of truth has been central to debates across the broader intellectual landscape, as well as to the theory and practice of psychology. In the following study, the historical shift from more modernist conceptions of truth to postmodern views is explored through a brief overview of the philosophy of science. These perspectives are explored further in the epistemological shifts underlying therapeutic endeavours and methodology in the field of psychology. Approaches to therapy in South Africa are subsequently reviewed, focusing particularly on positions of truth adopted by the profession in this context. The themes of truth, reconciliation, healing and hurting in the discourse surrounding the Commission are subsequently explored further. This discussion includes some of the literature regarding experiences of people who have been involved with the Commission. Following this, the narratives from interviews held with a group of mothers who attended the Truth Commission and one of the journalists working with the Commission are included. These narratives are related to participants' experiences in having attended/been involved with the Truth Commission and their experiences around truth and forgiveness. A qualitative, reflexive approach to the interviews and analysis thereof, is used. In conclusion, reflections on the process are included. These reflections present a dialectic between the importance of the ongoing nature of the journey in this multi-dimensional context, as well as the author's perspective on the need for the notion of absolute truth in this journeying.

This work narrates a qualitative sociological exploration with auto-ethnographic underpinnings. It deals with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SATRC) as a contextual case among others. The thesis seeks to answer the question of whether countries following a TRC route did better than those that did not use TRCs, when it comes to establishing civil control over the military. The author's exposure and involvement in the process as participant, participant observer, observer participant and observer inform the study. With the SATRC as one cornerstone other cases reflected upon include Argentina and Chile (Latin America), Spain and Portugal (Southern Europe), Namibia, Nigeria and Rwanda (Africa).
Sociology
D.Litt. et. Phil. (Sociology)

The Oxford Handbook of Oral History brings together forty authors on five continents to address the evolution of oral history, the impact of digital technology, the most recent methodological and archival issues, and the application of oral history to both scholarly research and public presentations. The volume offers diverse perspectives on the current state of the field and its likely future developments. Some of its chapters survey large areas of oral history research and examine how they developed; others offer case studies that deal with specific projects, issues, and applications of oral history. From the Holocaust, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, the Falklands War in Argentina, the Velvet Revolution in Eastern Europe, to memories of September 11, 2001 and of Hurricane Katrina, the efforts of oral historians worldwide are examined and explained in this text.

This chapter studies the text of the Colombian peace agreement (also known as the Final Agreement), arguing that the justice component of this agreement depends on the extent to which the envisioned transitional process contributes to social transformation. Despite the fact that societies emerging from periods of conflict or repression characteristically try to address past wrongs using processes that are not criminal punishment, there is a deep disagreement as to whether true justice is achieved with alternative measures such as amnesty or a truth commission. To that extent, justice, in transitional circumstances, is not aimed at giving perpetrators what they deserve, but rather in transforming the political relationships among citizens and between citizens and officials, and in doing so in a just manner by treating victims and perpetrators fairly. The chapter then explains that the justice process outlined in the Final Agreement is comprehensive. By drawing on the cases of Northern Ireland and South Africa, it discusses the temporal dimension of transitional justice and the constitutional changes that occur in the pursuit of it.