Dissertations / Theses: 'Truth commissions – South Africa'

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Amponsah-Frimpong, Samuel. "Truth commissions and the perpetuation of the culture of impunity in Africa : a case study of Ghana and South Africa." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/982.

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"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

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Jardine, Varushka. "The Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Pretoria : [S.n.], 2010. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03112010-141422.

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Abduroaf, Muneer. "Truth Commissions: Did the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission serve the purpose for which it was established?" Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2010. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&action=viewtitle&id=gen8Srv25Nme4_6028_1359554144.

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Since the 1980&rsquo
s, many dictatorships around the world have been replaced by new democracies. These old dictatorships were notorious for their human rights abuses. Many people were killed and tortured
and many others were disappeared. When the new governments came into power, they had to confront these injustices that were perpetrated under the predecessor regime. This was necessary to create a culture of human rights
promote a respect for the law and access to justice. Many confronted these injustices in different ways, some granted amnesty, some prosecuted and others instituted truth commissions. This research paper focuses on truth commissions. The research focuses particularly on the study of the South African Truth Commission. The mandate of the South African Truth Commission is analysed and the investigation into whether the commission served the purpose for which it had been established is discussed.

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Brahm, Eric. "Truth and consequences: The impact of truth commissions in transitional societies (El Salvador, Chile, Uganda, South Africa)." Diss., Connect to online resource, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3219014.

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MESQUITA, PAULA ESPOSEL CARNEIRO DE. "THE TRUTHS OF THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION OF SOUTH AFRICA." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2014. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=25111@1.

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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
Ao observar a transição política de países que passaram por um regime autoritário ou um conflito civil durante os anos 1980-90, a ser pensada pelo paradigma da verdade, pretende-se determinar como verdade e poder estão articulados na Comissão da Verdade. Esse paradigma, atribui à verdade noções como sofrimento humano, democracia, reconciliação e Direitos Humanos. Esse discurso pela verdade parece privilegiar a Comissão da Verdade como modelo de transição para reconciliação e cura da sociedade. Orientada pelos princípios restaurativos e justificado pelo discurso do trauma, a comissão estabelece um inquérito que tem a confissão de vítimas e perpetradores como instrumento para afirmar uma verdade. Entende-se esse modelo de inquérito como um ritual de passagem de um passado de violência para construção de um país democrático no futuro. Um ritual que tem no ato da confissão a delimitação de novos papéis sociais de vítimas e perpetradores, e consequentemente, de novas relações de poder, para a restauração do laço social e a reconstrução política do país. Para compreender melhor essa articulação será analisada a Comissão da Verdade e Reconciliação da África do Sul, caso emblemático no desenvolvimento desse paradigma verdade/reconciliação, cura. Pretende-se contribuir com uma análise crítica do que esse modelo de transição impõe e que alternativas ele exclui. Este estudo se fundamenta na perspectiva foucaultiana, segundo a qual a produção de verdade é uma forma de governar os sujeitos. A confissão é apontada como uma das tecnologias de produção de verdade.
By observing the political transition in countries that have experienced an authoritarian regime or civil conflict during the years 1980-90, to be interpreted under the paradigm of truth, it is intended to determine how truth and power are articulated in the truth commission. This paradigm assigns to the truth notions such as human suffering, democracy, reconciliation and human rights, and it seems to privilege the truth commission as a transition model for reconciliation and healing of society. Based on restorative principles and justified by the discourse of trauma, the committee establishes an inquiry that has the confession of victims and perpetrators as a means to affirm a truth. This inquiry is assumed as a ritual of transition from a violent past to a future of democracy. In this ritual the act of confession sets new social roles of victims and perpetrators and, consequently, new power relations, necessary for the restoration of social relations and political reconstruction of the country. In order to better interpret this articulation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, an emblematic case in the development of this paradigm, truth/reconciliation and healing, is examined. It is intended to contribute to a critical analysis of this transition model: what it imposes and what alternatives it excludes. This study is based on Foucault s perspective, according to which the production of truth is a way of governing subjects, and the avowal is a technique of producing true.

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Anderson, Michelle E. "Televising truth commissions: the interaction between television, perpetrators, and political transition in South Africa." Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32442.

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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.

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Lindqvist, Angelica. "Scorched Earth: Ensuring Non-Repetition of the Past : The truth commission establisher's effect on preconditions for direct political impact." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för freds- och konfliktforskning, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-314716.

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Honda, Masumi. "Assessing the Impact of Gender Sensitive Truth Commissions : Comparative analysis of South Africa and Sierra Leone." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för freds- och konfliktforskning, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-385336.

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Much has been studied about the impact of transitional justice mechanisms as well as gendered impactof armed conflict. However, less is known about the gendered impact of transitional justice, includingtruth commissions. This thesis aims to fill this research gap by exploring the long-term consequencesof gender sensitive and gender-blind truth commissions for women’s security in post-conflict societies.Combining and building upon feminist critiques on transitional justice and discourses on thetransformative potential of truth commissions, I argue that truly gender sensitive truth commissionscan facilitate improvement of women’s security, as the reparations and institutional reformsrecommended by such commissions are also gender sensitive and help address root causes of violenceagainst women (VAW). The argument is tested through a structured focused comparison of two cases– South Africa and Sierra Leone. The results provided meager support for the theorized relationship.South Africa, which was characterized by low gender sensitivity of its truth commission, shows nochange in terms of the prevalence of VAW; whereas Sierra Leone with a highly gender sensitive truthcommission demonstrated improvement in some areas of women’s security. However, the evidencebase is thin while the poor implementation of the recommendations obscures the observable impactof the Sierra Leone truth commission, which compels further research with a larger number of casesand robust data collection strategy.

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Lester, Claire-Anne. "Truth in the time of tumult: tracing the role of official 'truth-seeking' commissions of inquiry in South Africa, from Sharpeville to Marikana." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25342.

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The Marikana Massacre of 16th August 2012 was a watershed moment for post- Apartheid South African politics. News headlines and images depicting an ANC-led South African police killing 44 unarmed miners, striking for a wage increase, ruptured the TRC's official narrative that state violence of this proportion belonged to a bygone colonial, or Apartheid past. Following the massacre, the Marikana Commission of Inquiry was launched as an official inquiry into what was referred to as the 'tragic incidents at Marikana'. However, as the Commission conducted its work its actual role became increasingly ambivalent and ambiguous to the public, as well as to witnesses who testified. Legally, it was a judicial commission of inquiry with a strict fact-finding mandate, yet the official discourse invoked suggests it had additional distinctive aims to achieve 'truth, restoration, and justice', which are functions traditionally associated with Truth Commissions, in the field of Transitional Justice, and more particularly with South Africa's TRC. This ambiguity in the Marikana Commission's function points to the larger issue that this thesis addresses – the ambiguity in the exact role and function of, as well as the relationship between, generic commissions of inquiry and Truth Commissions. The functions are interrogated using the concept of 'tumult commissions', introduced by Adam Sitze-- a subtype of commission of inquiry used by colonial administrations in lieu of criminal tribunals, to investigate political violence following the State's violent suppression of some major insurgency. Over and above 'fact-finding', Sitze claims that 'tumult commissions' were political tools deployed to 'whitewash' and justify State killings as unfortunate necessities in order to restore peace and order, and to legitimate the authority of the state. I anchor the current ambiguity in the role of the Marikana Commission, both in legal capacity, its method and official discourse, in a longer historical trajectory that extends from the Jamaica Royal Commission (1866) to the Sharpeville Commission (1960) and the TRC (1996-1998). The notion of official truth-seeking is problematised using an analytical framework that distinguishes between objective 'fact-finding', 'truthseeking' and the various associated narrative genres of 'tumult commissions' and 'truth commissions'. Through a critical analysis of canonic academic literature, official commission reports and legislation, the thesis highlights glaring contradictions and inconsistencies in claims to official 'truth-seeking' when combined with quasi-judicial aims to achieve accountability and 'justice'. It concludes that the 'truth' of 'official' truth-seeking commissions is always constrained by the overall objectives of the government of the day. Although the TRC was able to promote a more open and inclusive institution to deal with the intractable issues of 'truth' and 'accountability' following state-sanctioned violence, the cases show that when broader social and economic issues are excluded from the 'regime of truth' of official commissions, it only creates fertile soil in which similar tragedies may reoccur in a post-colonial, and post- TRC South Africa.

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Rattazzi, Erin Alexis. "Narrating rape at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14273.

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Includes bibliographical references.
The seven women who shared their stories of rape at the human rights violation hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ('TRC') in South Africa offer a nascent public record of women's experiences of rape under apartheid. This project is motivated by a desire to examine how these testimonies of rape were affected by explicit and implicit underlying narrative frameworks associated with the language of the TRC, and that of rape. In particular, this project analyses the extent to which the juxtaposition of these two frameworks at the TRC may have either enabled or constrained the seven women's narratives.

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Kriel, Hennie. "Conflict transformation in South Africa : the impact of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission on social identity transformation /." Link to the online version, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/660.

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Rage, Anne-Britt. "Achieving sustainable peace in post conflict societies : an evaluation of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/5302.

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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.

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McPherson, Duncan M. "Supporting post-conflict reconciliation : an assessment of international assistance to South Africa's Truth Commission." Thesis, McGill University, 2000. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=33302.

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This thesis provides a baseline understanding of the support given by foreign governments to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The study endeavours, first, to analyze the instances of international assistance provided to the TRC to determine what aid worked well and why or why not. The thesis finds overall that foreign support has been an important bulwark to the Commission. Nevertheless, the thesis identifies shortcomings in the effectiveness of foreign assistance to the TRC. Based on these findings the thesis pursues a second objective: extracting lessons from the TRC to guide future international efforts in support of truth commissions in post-conflict and transitional states. The thesis underscores common challenges facing truth commissions. By extrapolating from the South African case the thesis recommends ways international actors can best help future truth commissions overcome these difficulties.

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Pule, Quincy. "The efficacy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in East London: perceptions of participants." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1019920.

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This study examines the degree to which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in East London have mitigated the impact of gross human rights violations on some of the Duncan Village victims. The research draws upon responses from a convenience sample of victims of apartheid atrocities guided by their own individual experiences, literature on conflict management, and TRC hearings that took place in other African states. The East London TRC hearings alert one to the brutality of the apartheid regime whose political intolerance unleashed violence against ordinary citizens of East London. Despite being seen as a witch hunt against the apartheid security establishment, most of the victims feel the TRC opened lines of communication between former enemies, although one cannot conclusively say that total reconciliation between victims and perpetrators has been achieved. Insofar as telling the truth is concerned, the concept defies unanimous acceptance as a contributor to peaceful co-existence. The mere fact that some perpetrators refused to appear before the TRC is an indication that the value attached to it differs from person to person, particularly in a situation where the political landscape is characterized by intimidation and fear. The treatise unveils the East London TRC as a platform for compromise as some of the victims felt anger and hatred for the perpetrators would amount to perpetual self-imposed ostracism. Noting that the TRC was never meant to hurt anyone, the treatise ushers one into a space where reconciliation takes precedence over vengeance.

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Pedro, Lutiniko Landu Miguel. "The ministry of reconciliation a comparative study of the role of the churches in promoting reconciliation in South Africa and Angola /." Pretoria : [S.n.], 2007. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-05262008-131944/.

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Kriel, Hennie. "Conflict transformation in South Africa : the impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on social identity transformation." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1760.

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Thesis (MPhil (Political Science))--Stellenbosch University, 2008.
For a long time, conflict studies have focussed on the grand national projects of negotiating peace, concluded by the major actors in the country, like political parties, as well as international mediating actors like the UN. This view on solving conflict as a set top-down process were in recent years challenged by new theories on how to solve conflict. The conflict settlement theory had to make ideological and practical space for others like conflict resolution and conflict transformation, in the broader arena of conflict management. In the last 3 decades, conflict transformation has grown into a formidable tool in explaining conflict and moves toward peace-building. The fact that so many countries had collapsed back into civil war after their settlements, surely has something to say about the lack of longevity of some countries’ conflict settlement or conflict resolution approaches. This is why conflict transformation is such an attractive approach, especially in the case of South Africa. The political settlement of the early 1990s, that lead to an official peace, were also backed up by policies and programs to deal with the underlying causes and grievances that caused the conflict. The TRC was one aspect on post-1994 peace-building and enduring conflict transformation. The importance of the TRC as a transformative vehicle has been highlighted by the fact that so many institutions and individuals have made work of it to study the impact of the TRC on social transformation in the post-war era. Although many surveys indicate that South Africans have come to deal with the past to varying degrees and are seeing the various groups in the country as intertwined with the future of the country, there are still many worrying aspects that have to be addressed: interracial understanding and trust, and tolerance for one’s former enemies. The TRC has done much to build bridges between the formerly segregated groups of South Africa and the aim of this paper is to shed some light on these changes in attitudes.

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Charlton, Edward James. "Testimony in transition : bearing witness on stage and screen in South Africa after the Truth Commission." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708705.

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Adonis, Cyril Kenneth. "An investigation into the structure and process of forgiveness following gross human rights violations." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002430.

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This study focuses on the structure and process of forgiveness as experienced by individuals, from the East London and surrounding areas, who either suffered gross human rights violations or who are related to someone who suffered gross human rights violations during the Apartheid era. Those who participated in the study testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and expressed forgiveness towards the perpetrators of the violations. The aims of the study were to reveal: the participants' structure cif forgiveness, i.e. how they define forgiveness; the process of forgiveness, i.e. the changes that took place from the time of the violation up until the participants forgave the perpetrators: and, the relation. if any. between the participants' structure and process of forgiveness. It is argued that mainstream Psychology has neglected to study forgiveness because the subject matter is incompatible with the natural scientific method. For this reason, the study was approached from a hermeneutical paradigm. This was motivated by its ability to explicate the meaning and content of phenomena. Unstructured qualitative interviews were conducted with the participants. Data was analyzed using a multi-layered process of progressively deeper interpretation, employing a reading guide technique. Results indicated that authentic forgiveness is an unconditional commitment on the part of victims and survivors to relate positively towards the perpetrators. The relationship should include non-bitterness, non-vengeance, unconditional love and respect for their human rights. Another significant dimension of the structure of forgiveness is the fact that the desire for the truth is not abandoned although forgiveness has taken place. Forgiveness also does not take away the effects of the violation. This means that one does not forget although forgiveness has been granted. Results further indicate that the forgiveness process is highly complex, individualized and not instantaneous. The individuals have to deal with various intrapersonal conflicts and anxieties as a result of the violation, before forgiveness is explored as an option, and before they can finally forgive. Significant interrelations between the structure and process of forgiveness were also identified.

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Scott, Heather Ashley. "The Narrative of the ‘new' South Africa: Bearing Witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on its 20th Anniversary." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32729.

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2015 was a telling year in the ‘new' South Africa's short history. Twenty-one years of democracy, 60 years of the Freedom Charter and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) saw its 20th anniversary. This has gone relatively unacknowledged, eclipsed by socio-political and economic turmoil. A struggling economy, rising inequality, unemployment, ‘xenophobia' and democratic, constitutional and parliamentary crises appear to be the way this year will be remembered. South Africa has reached a critical point as its democracy enters adulthood. Twenty years ago the TRC was also such a watershed moment in South African society and politics. I return to this national work of ‘truth', reconciliation, nation-building, healing and remembrance to see what this radical (and radically important) process can teach us about the more ethical (re-)definition of our ‘new' nation(alism). Particularly I address the ‘official' rhetoric and narrative of the ‘new' South Africa it birthed 20 years ago - South Africa as reconciled rainbow nation and progressive constitutional democracy united in the spirit of ‘traditional' pan-African ubuntu - and its (in)appropriability on the lived level (Sauter, 2015:190). I use Antjie Krog, Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele's quasi-literary, quasi-academic engagement with the TRC and the ‘unintelligible' truth of an-‘other' in There was this Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile (2009) to do so.

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Le, Fort Olivia. "The politics of amnesty /." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=83955.

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Since Antiquity, the granting of amnesty to past atrocities has played a prominent role in political transitions. However, the moralized discourse of human rights that has emerged after the end of the Second World War has called for prosecutions in such cases. This study shows that granting individual amnesties to those responsible for past atrocities, as opposed to their prosecution, is a critical element in paving the way towards homonoia---harmony or concord---in a community that has been affected by civil strife. After having explored the origins of amnesty in Ancient Athens and its similarities with the amnesties granted by early modern European peace treaties and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the author argues that individual amnesty constitutes the only way of uncovering the truth about past atrocities. This is turn facilitates the forgiving of perpetrators and thus the achievement of homonoia. Moreover, individual amnesty, as mainly a political act, can nevertheless encompass considerations of justice, when the notion is not restricted merely to its punitive aspect.

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Wilson, Corey Carter. "Dis/entwining Bodies: Magical Realism, Corporeality, and Reconciliation in Achmat Dangor’s Short Fiction." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1307.

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Following the formal conclusion of reconciliatory processes in a newly post-apartheid South Africa, narrative remained a perdurable, centripetal force. Extending into the realm of literature, the inquiries of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were altered and enlarged. The mode of magical realism, in particular, emerged as a viable method not only for representing the world, but for working through uncertain futures and traumatic histories. Shimmering with the extraordinary and ineffable strangeness of the magical realist text, Achmat Dangor’s short story “The Devil”, offers expansive, recognizable and revelatory ways of dealing with the trauma of apartheid. Crucially, the narrative represents the private efforts of individual, personal healing in contradistinction with official processes of reconciliation. This thesis examines the ways in which “The Devil” proposes the body as a site of exploring the structuring antipodes of individual-collective and public-private, ultimately untethering these binaries through a process of bodily dis/entwining.

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Faku-Juqula, Nthabiseng Anna. "Fourteen years on : the legacy of giving testimony to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission for survivors of human rights violations." Thesis, Brunel University, 2014. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8749.

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Objectives : This study focused, unusually, on the experience of people who gave testimony in person to the TRC many years previously. The study’s objectives were firstly to explore the personal, social and political events that participants recounted as motivating them to testify to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and secondly to analyse the meanings that participants gave retrospectively, about fourteen years later, to testifying before the TRC. METHOD: 30 participants were recruited, from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, in Gauteng and Western Cape provinces, South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in participants’ preferred SA languages. Data were analysed using principles of modified grounded theory. Findings: Participants from the two provinces testified through shared hopes for change but differed in the specific political and violent events that they wished to make public. Looking back, many participants expressed disillusionment with the TRC’s effectiveness. Participants were concerned by unfulfilled promises, inadequate reparations and lack of socioeconomic improvement. Memories of horrific abuses were still vivid, and most doubted that the TRC process could result in forgiveness, amnesty, reconciliation and healing. Participants felt unacknowledged, invalidated and inadequately recompensed, symbolically and monetarily. Nonetheless, participants expressed suspended hope, if not for themselves but for the future generations. ‘Misrecognition’ emerged as the overarching theme, an experience of feeling ignored and dismissed, finding promises for material recompense broken, and their contribution to the seemingly successful TRC processes not recognised. Conclusion: The TRC process neglected the abuse of the apartheid period, which has left a legacy. This study has shown that many participants continue to struggle with the legacy of a very unequal society, and further follow-up research is vital to review participants’ long-term needs. Lack of improvement in social and economic conditions has led some people in South Africa to question the effectiveness of the TRC.

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Harris, Brent. "'Unearthing' the 'essential' past: The making of a public 'national' memory through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1994-1998." University of the Western Cape, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/7502.

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Masters of Art
At a lecture presented in London on June 5, 1994, Jacques Derrida discussed the complexities of the meaning of the archive. He described the duality in meaning of the word archive-in terms of temporality and spatiality-as a place of "commencement" and as the place "where men and gods command" or the ''place from which order is given". As the place of commencement, "there where things commence" the archive is more ambivalent. It houses, what could best be described as 'traces" of particular objects of the past in the form of documents. These documents were produced in the past and are subjective constructions with their own histories of negotiations and contestations. As such, the archive represents the end of instability, or the outcome of negotiations and contestations over knowledge. Yet as sources of evidence the archive also represents the moment of ending instability, of creating stasis and the fixing of meaning and knowledge.

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Carman, Marina School of Politics &amp International Relations UNSW. "Responsibility and accountability in theory and practice: the truth and reconciliation commission???s investigation of human rights abuse in South Africa." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Politics and International Relations, 2005. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/23475.

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The main aims of the investigation conducted here are to draw out important debates in theory and in the South African social context over the concepts of responsibility and accountability for human rights abuse, and to look at how these were present within, and impacted on, discussions within and around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The TRC did not specifically discuss or define theoretical concepts of responsibility or accountability. However, I argue that it is possible to draw out some important features of its implicit approach ??? particularly in terms of its emphasis on collective responsibility and social context (in addition to individual responsibility), and its emphasis on moral arguments for individuals and collectives to accept responsibility and hold themselves accountable by contributing to future change. This ambitious and complex approach raised some important theoretical issues, which have been discussed and debated in the theoretical literature. These include: the relationship between individual responsibility, collective responsibility and the influence of ???the system???; the nature of collective responsibility; the nature of morality; the distinction between moral and political responsibility; and how individuals and collectives can or should be held accountable. In South Africa, these theoretical debates inter-mingled with a range of other factors, including individual and collective interests, motives and political perspectives. From an analysis of the existing literature on the TRC and original interviews conducted with key informants, I draw out three main opposing views which I argue arose in the South African social context about responsibility and accountability, and what the TRC could and should have done to address these. In a detailed analysis of the TRC???s hearings and Final Report, I draw out how theoretical debates, and these three opposing views, were present within and impacted on the TRC???s work. I argue that it was impossible for the TRC to satisfy everyone and resolve these debates, and that its approach led to unrealistic expectations of its work and its role more generally. This has impacted negatively on how the TRC was and is perceived.

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Mabunda, Sagwadi. "Has the failure to conduct post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission prosecutions in South Africa contributed to a culture of impunity for economic crimes?" Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5163.

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Magister Legum - LLM
The end of Apartheid and the transition to a new constitutional democracy in South Africa was ushered in by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The purpose of the TRC was to promote a dialogue between victims and perpetrators of gross human rights violations to try and achieve reconciliation in the country. To this end, the TRC was given the power to grant conditional amnesty to those who came forward to reveal the full truth to the country about the crimes that they had committed. Those who refused to apply for amnesty or who did apply but were denied amnesty were supposed to be prosecuted. A number of years have passed since the final TRC report was submitted and hardly any prosecutions have taken place. This paper argues, by comparing the transitions in Argentina and Chile to the one in South Africa, that the lack of post-Truth Commission prosecutions in South Africa has contributed to nurturing a culture of impunity for acts of corruption in high offices of state. It argues that in countries transitioning from repressive and authoritarian regimes to democratic governments, prosecutions of gross human rights violations are necessary for the creation and strengthening of the rule of law and a human rights culture. Therefore, the impunity for economic crimes such as corruption is detrimental to democracy.

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Rayneard, Max James Anthony. "Performing Literariness: Literature in the Event in South Africa and the United States." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12083.

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x, 208 p.
In this dissertation "literariness" is defined not merely as a quality of form by which texts are evaluated as literary, but as an immanent and critical sensibility by which reading, writing, speaking, learning, and teaching subjects within the literary humanities engage language in its immediate aesthetic (and thus also historical and ethical) aspect. This reorientation seeks to address the literary academy's overwhelming archival focus, which risks eliding literary endeavor as an embodied undertaking that inevitably reflects the historical contingency of its enactment. Literary endeavor in higher education is thus understood as a performance by which subjects enact not only the effect of literary texts upon themselves but also the contingencies of their socio-economic, national, cultural, and personal contexts. Subjects' responses to literature are seen as implicit identity claims that, inevitably constituted of biases, can be evaluated through the lens of post-positivist realism in terms of their ethical and pragmatic usefulness. Framing this reoriented literariness in terms of its enactment in higher education literature classrooms, this dissertation addresses its pedagogical, methodological, and personal implications. The events of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the literature arising from it serve as a pivotal case study. The TRC Hearings, publically broadcast and pervasive in the national discourse of the time, enacted a scenario in which South Africans confronted the implications for personal and national identities of apartheid's racial abuses. The dissertation demonstrates through close reading and anecdotal evidence how J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace and Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull formally reactivate this scenario in the subject in the event of reading, while surveys of critical responses to these texts show how readers often resisted the texts' destabilizing effects. A critical account of the process that resulted in Telling, Eugene - a stage production in which U.S. military veterans tell their stories to their civilian communities - analyzes the idea of literariness in the U.S. and assesses its potential for socially engaged literary praxis.
Committee in charge: Linda Kintz, Chairperson; Suzanne Clark, Member; Michael Hames-Garcia, Member; John Schmor, Outside Member

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Mosler, David. "Reconciliation Through Truth? - A Comparison of the Judicial Approach of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Amnesty Principle of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa." Thesis, Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-21615.

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Throughout the past three decades the world has witnessed an increased transition of states from autocratic systems to liberal democracies. During such transitions the reconciliation of societies fractured by previous human atrocities is an integral part for success. This article explores the impacts of principles of truth and justice on reconciliation of fractured societies during the process of transitional justice. Throughout the process it will provide an insight on different aspects and levels of the terminology of reconciliation. To illustrate the difference between a judicial approach and the process of amnesty giving, it will contrast the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. Furthermore, it will provide an analytical account on the impact of internal actors versus external actors on reconciliation of fractured societies. This analysis will provide an understanding of the factors at work during reconciliation as a process and an outcome.

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Sakinofsky, Phyllis Celia. "Imprints of memories, shadows and silences shaping the Jewish South African story /." Phd thesis, Australia : Macquarie University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/47942.

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Thesis contains the novel "Waterval" by Phyllis Sakinofsky.
Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Media, Music, and Cultural Studies, 2009.
Bibliography: p. 128-138.
PART ONE -- Introduction -- Section One -- Early history -- The apartheid years - two realities -- Post-apartheid South Africa -- The creative response of Jews to apartheid -- Section Two -- Our relationship with the past: placing narrative in the context of history -- Rememory and representation -- Telling the truth through stories -- Section Three -- Imprints of memories, shadows and silences: shaping the Jewish South African story -- PART TWO -- Waterval: a work of fiction by Phyllis Sakinofsky
This is a non-traditional thesis which comprises a work of fiction and a dissertation. -- The novel is set in South Africa and provides an account of events that took place among three families, Jewish, Coloured and Afrikaans, over three generations. -- The dissertation is constructed in three sections. The first section describes the settlement of South Africa's Jewish community, its divergent responses to apartheid and how this is mirrored in its literary output. -- In the second section, the relationship between history and fiction since the advent of postmodernism is discussed, how there has been a demand for historical truthfulness through multiple points of view and how consequently there has been an upsurge in memories and memorials for those previously denigrated as the defeated or victims. -- Fiction has been re-valued because it is through the novel that these once-submerged stories are being told. The novel has the capacity to explore uncomfortable or silenced episodes in our history, tell important truths and record stories and losses in a meaningful and relevant way. A novel might be shaped by history but it is through the writer's insights and interpretations that messages or meanings can reach many. -- South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission report is an example of how the written word can expose the relationship between the re-telling of history and finding an alternate truth. By recording the many conflicting stories of its peoples, it has linked truth and literature, ensuring an indelible imprint on the country's future writing. The past cannot be changed, but how the nation deals with it in the future will be determined by language and narrative. -- The final section is self-reflexive and illustrates the symbiotic bond between the research and creative components, citing examples from the dissertation of how the two streams influenced one another.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
145 p

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McConnell, Jesse. "A just culture : restoring justice towards a culture of human rights." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007594.

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This thesis seeks to investigate the possibility that the binary opposition between retributive and restorative forms of justice that structures the discourse on justice is unhelpful and unnecessary, particularly for societies seeking to extricate themselves from violent conflict and towards building peace and democracy. I shall argue for the importance of considering restorative justice as conceptually and historically prior to the possibility of retributive justice rather than the negation of one or the other, as well as advocate the potentially greater transformative power of the values of restorative justice which may provide a constructive alternative to retributive justice in the context of post-conflict peacebuilding.

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Abrahams, Brent Nicholas. "Unfinished lives: The biographies of Nokuthula Simelane." University of the Western Cape, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/6246.

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Magister Artium - MA (History)
Nokuthula Simelane, born near Bethal in Mpumalanga, joined the ANC's armed-wing uMKhonto we Sizwe (MK) as a courier while studying at the University of Swaziland in the early 1980s. In 1983 she set out on a mission to South Africa on the pretext of purchasing clothing for her up-coming graduation. Simelane was however abducted, and has since not been heard from nor has her body been found. Her disappearance was one of those examined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa. These are some facts about Simelane. This thesis seeks to explore how Simelane's biographies manifest themselves across multiple genres and in so doing determine their similarities and differences, with a view to understanding the difficulties of producing the biography of a missing person. The genres of biography I examine relation to Simelane are: the TRC's Amnesty Committee (AC) hearings, the Human Rights Violations Committee (HRVC) hearing, their transcripts and the TRC reports; a documentary film called Betrayal directed by Mark Kaplan; and a statue of Simelane located in Bethal sculpted by Ruhan Janse van Vuuren.

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Els, Cornelius Wilhelmus. "Reconciliation in Southern Africa the role of the Afrikaans Churches : a historical and analytical study of the contributions of the Afrikaans Churches to the process of reconciliation in Southern Africa, with special reference to their response to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission /." Pretoria : [S.n.], 2007. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-10232008-173602/.

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Luthuli, Vuyokazi. "Re-humanisation, history and a forensic aesthetic: Understanding a politics of the dead in the figuring of Ntombikayise Priscilla Kubheka." University of Western Cape, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/8103.

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Magister Artium - MA
In 1987 Ntombikayise Priscilla Kubheka was abducted, tortured, killed and her body dumped by apartheid security police. She was an uMkhonto WeSizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), commander based in Durban and was in charge of weaponry storage and organised safe houses for those returning from exile. Amnesty applications and perpetrator testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty hearings alleged that Kubheka had died, while being interrogated, from a heart attack. The perpetrators claimed the heart attack was possibly as a result of Kubheka being overweight. In 1997 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) exhumed skeletal remains and items of clothing, including a floral dress, from a pauper grave in Charlottedale cemetery, Groutville. The exhumed skull indicated a bullet wound. The post-mortem and numerous forensic examinations confirmed the identification of the skeletal remains to be those of Kubheka. The forensic examinations of the items of clothing confirmed the findings of the skeletal examinations in establishing identification. These forensic examinations and its findings contested testimony given by the perpetrators. Through the TRC investigations and its findings, a question of what it may mean to re-humanise the once missing emerges. This mini-thesis underscores a notion of re-humanisation through the work of the TRC in its investigation into the enforced disappearance of Kubheka. It suggests that figuring Kubheka through a notion of re-humanisation in the context of the TRC requires one to understand both de-humanisation and re-humanisation and the ways in which gender complicates these understandings. It does so by examining testimonies, t he exhumation, the forensic examinations, the emergence of a forensic aesthetic and the productions of biographies and forensic memory to understand how these might be processes and strategies of re-humanisation. This mini-thesis then is a forensic history that navigates a politics of the dead by examining the figuring of Kubheka through various fields and in various forums. In so doing, the argument presented in what follows is that the notion of re-humanisation is an inherently unstable one but at its core is a politics of the dead that misses gender it its figuring of the human.
2023-12-01

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Toma, Marijana. "The plea agreements process in the International criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia in the light of the amnesty process in the Truth and Reconciliation commission in South Africa." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6808.

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While many countries are facing difficulties in implementing transitional justice mechanisms, designed mainly to include different stakeholders in the process, in very few contexts have perpetrators been perceived as active participants who represent a potential resource to the process. This study examines and compares two contexts in which this has been so. Its central objective is to understand to what extent the practice of plea bargaining with perpetrators of war crimes at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) contributed to the process of establishing the truth about past abuses and to compare this with probably the most controversial aspect of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa (TRC) -- granting of amnesty to the responsible for the atrocities during apartheid. Drawing on both contexts, this study argues that that acknowledgment given by perpetrators potentially constitutes a legitimate and in some contexts crucial transitional justice mechanism. The study has not examined all the issues relating to these processes, recognizing their complexity in both the historical development of the field of transitional justice and the specific features of the process in each context. The study was developed at two levels, firstly through a normative analysis of the aims and objectives of the plea bargaining process at the ICTY and amnesty process at the TRC and secondly, through historical and factual investigation of the processes and outcomes in relation to the criteria set out for processes ICTY and TRC adopted. The main aim was to analyze what were the outcomes of these two processes in terms of contributing to the process of establishment of truth. Recognizing that these processes were inherently different from each other ? one being implemented in criminal trials, and other in truth commission, it is important to note that these have been the only two examples to date to include a form of compromise with perpetrators as one of their main strategies for the process of establishing truth. While recognizing that serious criticism have been made against both institutions for this compromises, this study concludes that any truth process, if trying to be comprehensive, will have to include perpetrators, because only they can provide the most important element in dealing with the human rights violations and the one most difficult to be obtained - acknowledgment by those who actually committed the crime.

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Bernard, Taryn. "Justificatory discourse of the perpetrator in TRC testimonies : a discourse-historical analysis." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1571.

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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

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Baard, Marissa. "Die standpunt van Die Burger teenoor die Suid-Afrikaanse Waarheids- en Versoeningskommissie, 1990-2003." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/333.

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Lindqvist-McGowan, Angelica. "From the Ashes of Scorched Earth : The role of procedural justice, provision of promised benefits, and respectful and dignified treatment on perceived truth commission legitimacy." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Hugo Valentin-centrum, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-384534.

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37

Hennlich, Andrew Joseph. "(un)Fixing the Eye : William Kentridge and the optics of witness." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2011. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/unfixing-the-eye-william-kentridge-and-the-optics-of-witness(9d9a31ed-43b8-4f5a-9121-8b98cc7e7fde).html.

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South African artist William Kentridge's (b. 1955) work frequently employs optical tools, such as the stereoscope, to highlight the contingency and instability of witness. These visual tools become metaphors for the process of historicization in post-apartheid South Africa. Kentridge is best known for his animations that are filmed by drawing with charcoal, photographing, erasing, redrawing and photographing again, leaving a palimpsest of previous traces on the paper's surface. Kentridge's prints, drawings, puppetry, theatrical projects and performances are also addressed in (un)Fixing the Eye. Kentridge's vast array of works narrates a history critical of the narrow and objective history of apartheid constructed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) official report. Furthermore, the metaphors suggested by Kentridge's optical tools undermine the ideology that apartheid is in the past. It suggests the necessity of colonial narratives as well as issues of class and materialism, within apartheid as traces that are very much part of the present. Each chapter of (un)Fixing the Eye uses a separate optical device to explore the narration of history in South Africa. To do so I draw from an eclectic group of thinkers: psychoanalytic models of melancholia and reparation, Jacques Derrida's work on forgiveness, Hayden White's theories of narrative and Jonathan Crary's work on optical tools and perception. Chapter one argues there is an ironic and impossible condition of forgiveness and truth in the TRC. Using Kentridge's Ubu Tells the Truth and its specific invocation of Dziga Vertov's realist 'kino-eye' and Alfred Jarry's brutal and absurd King Ubu as metaphors of absurdity and truth represented through the movie camera, this chapter argues that there is an impossibility of truth in the TRC. Chapter two reads Kentridge's Felix in Exile as a materialist response to the naturalized and a historical landscape tradition in South Africa. Felix's use of the theodolite and sextant as mapping and navigation tools highlights colonial mapping practices and the history of property ownership, particularly in the mining industry. In this way these optical tools link colonialism and mining alongside of the violence rendered in the film, unearthing a history of colonialism and class issues in apartheid narratives. Chapter three uses X-rays and CAT scans as metaphors for the testimony in the TRC, as both require an expert to decode and contextualize the testimony. Kentridge's films during the TRC use medical imaging technologies that are ambiguous and uncertain within the TRC's discourse of truth. Chapter four returns to the camera, this time as a colonial image in Namibia, arguing its usage in Black Box/Chambre Noir creates a melancholic relationship between Enlightenment Europe and colonial Africa. In this melancholia, Kentridge's history of the 20th century's first genocide in Namibia links a tremendous number of global histories. The focus in optical discourses, particularly the stereoscope is not new in Kentridge's work but (un)Fixing the Eye considers a number of tools that have not previously been a part of this optical work in Kentridge's art. It expands the political scope of Kentridge's work to include colonialism and class issues, insisting on their place in the current political landscape. Ultimately this project argues that Kentridge's work through a destabilized optical apparatus works both formally and allegorically as a way of conceiving of narrative and ideological critique in an expanded sense from the narrow confines set by the TRC.

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Ray, Giulia. ""Wiping the Slate Clean of What Has Never Been Written". The Sout African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, History Education and the Building of National Identity." Thesis, Linköping University, Department of Thematic Studies, 2002. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-2621.

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During Apartheid, the history subject in South African national education and the use of history served as fuel both for apartheid as well as for counterhistoriography. Afterthe 1994 elections, the official debate used phrases like "reconciliation through truth" and "knowledge about the past" in order to"move on". The national institution the Truth and Reconciliation Commission advocated a shared understanding of the past for promoting reconciliation. Considering historiography’s earlier contested use, one might expect the history subject in post-apartheid national education would be emphasised as very important, serving as an important tool for the general shaping of South African identity.

Earlier research as well as my own study, has shown that this is not the case. From the viewpoint of history teachers in South African schools and through various documents on South African post-apartheid education, it seems that the major shift in South African education is the one to an outcome-based approach (OBE). The approach and the new Curriculum (C2005) seem, in fact, have minimised the history subject to the extent that it is no longer a subject in its own right. In addition, the new Curriculum does not list a specific content, which allows the individual teacher large freedom to teach as much or as little about the past as they like. Moreover, what have been emphasised are subjects like science and technology, as well as learning practical skills of "constitutional value". In addition, phrases like "the new patriotism" and "allegiance to the flag" seems to be a recent way to create and promote a shared South African identity.

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39

Moon, Claire. "Narrating reconciliation : South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.268827.

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40

Audretsch, Andreas. "Die südafrikanische Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission : eine exemplarische Studie zum Umgang mit Unrechtssystemen." Universität Potsdam, 2008. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2008/1957/.

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Die Apartheid in Südafrika war ein Unrechtssystem. Zu den Grausamkeiten des Regimes zählten Massaker, Folter, Mord, Freiheitsberaubung, Zwangsumsiedlung, ökonomische Benachteiligung und alltägliche Diskriminierung. Was nach dem Ende eines solchen Unrechtssystems bleibt, ist die Frage nach dem Umgang mit der Vergangenheit. Die drei grundlegenden Möglichkeiten der Vergangenheitsbewältigung sind die rein justiziare Aufarbeitung, eine Generalamnestie oder ein drittes Modell, das zum Ziel hat, die Vorteile der beiden anderen Strategien zu vereinen. In Südafrika versuchte man, auch als Kompromiss aller Beteiligter, diesen dritten Weg mit der Einrichtung der Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission, die mittlerweile weltweit zum Sinnbild dieser Form der Vergangenheitsbewältigung geworden ist. Das Ziel der Studie war dabei zu klären: War die Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission in Südafrika als Strategie der Vergangenheitsbewältigung erfolgreich? Im Einzelnen widmete sich die TRC in drei Hauptausschüssen (Menschenrechtsausschuss, Amnestieausschuss und Wiedergutmachungsausschuss) den folgenden Zielen: Aufklärung der Menschenrechtsverletzungen, Klärung des Verbleibs verschwundener Personen, Klärung dessen, was während der Apartheid und der Übergangsphase zerstört wurde um die Verbrechen zu verschleiern, Wiedergutmachung für die Opfer und Amnestierung der Täter bei politisch motivierten Taten. Dieser letzte Punkt war jedoch an die völlige Offenlegung der Tat und ein öffentliches Eingeständnis gebunden. Zum einen zeigt die Analyse die großen Erfolge der Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission in Südafrika. Sie hat mehr und vor allem genauere Informationen über die Apartheid zusammengetragen, als je eine andere Untersuchung es geschafft hat. Mit der starken Beteiligung der Bevölkerung am Prozess der Aufklärung konnte sie einen Prozess in Gang bringen, der zur Entstehung einer neuen Menschenrechtskultur beitrug und auch einen Anstoß zur Versöhnung gab. Durch die intensive Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit in einem gesamtgesellschaftlichen Prozess schaffte es die TRC auch, eine politische Kultur anzuregen, die unentbehrlich ist, will man nach einem Unrechtssystem eine demokratische Zukunft aufbauen. Das Verständnis oder zumindest eine Ahnung von dem was Menschenrechtsverletzungen bedeuten, wurde in dieser Zeit tief im Bewusstsein der meisten Südafrikaner verankert. Es wurde eine „operative Wahrheit“ geschaffen, die, wenn auch unter Protesten aller Parteien, letztlich anerkannt wurde und somit ein zukünftiges Leugnen der Apartheidsverbrechen unmöglich machte. Aber auch die Befreiungsbewegungen mussten brutale Verbrechen eingestehen. Zum anderen wird ebenso deutlich, dass die gestellten Anforderungen bei weitem zu hoch waren. Obwohl große Bereiche der alltäglichen Apartheid komplett unberücksichtigt blieben. Bei der Wahrheitsfindung wurde deutlich, dass die drei Ausschüsse weit von einer wirklichen Aufklärung der Untaten der Apartheid entfernt blieben. Auch in Bezug auf die Täter erreichte die Kommission nur zum Teil ihre Ziele. Verglichen mit den aufgeklärten Verbrechen, beantragte nur ein Bruchteil der Täter Amnestie. Die Logik, durch den Anreiz der Straffreiheit eine rege Beteiligung der Täter am Aufklärungsprozess zu erreichen, ging nicht auf. Bei der Wiedergutmachung zeigte sich, dass es einer der größten Konstruktionsfehler der TRC war, die Umsetzung der Entschädigungen dem Parlament und der Regierung zu überlassen. Der Wiedergutmachungsausschuss erarbeitete lediglich Vorschläge an den Präsidenten. Die wurden jedoch nie in dieser Form umgesetzt und stellten damit die TRC als Ganze bei Teilen der schwarzen und farbigen Bevölkerung in Frage. Einen direkten Zusammenhang zwischen der TRC und einer Befriedung der Bevölkerung herzustellen, wäre vermessen. Noch immer ist Südafrika ein gespaltenes Land. Ähnliches gilt bei der Legitimierung und Konsolidierung der neuen demokratischen Ordnung. Auch hier ist die Kommission ein Baustein, auf den nicht verzichtet werden konnte. Ihr diesen Erfolg, und es ist ein Erfolg im heutigen Südafrika, alleine zuzuschreiben, wäre eine extreme Überschätzung ihrer Möglichkeiten. Unterm Strich bleibt: Die TRC konnte nicht all ihre Ziele erreichen, aber sie hat sich gerade unter den Voraussetzungen des Übergangsprozesses als eine sinnvolle Form der Vergangenheitsbewältigung erwiesen, die grundlegend wichtige Ergebnisse erarbeiten konnte. Sie kann somit trotz der Berücksichtigung einer Vielzahl von Problemen als Erfolg gewertet werden.
Apartheid in South Africa was a system of injustice. Atrocities committed by the regime were e.g. massacres, torture, murder, deprivation of personal liberty, forced relocation, economical and daily discrimination. After the existence of such an unjust system, the question of how to deal with the past remains. Basically there are three possibilities. Firstly the judicial approach, secondly a general pardon and finally a third model of coping with the past, which has the aim to combine the advantages of the first two strategies. In South Africa all parties involved tried to find such a third model as a compromise. The Truth- and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established and has become a symbol of this way of dealing with the past by now. The aim of the survey was to find out, weather the TRC in South Africa was successful as strategy of dealing with the past. In detail the TRC dealt in three main committees (Human Rights Violations Committee, Amnesty Committee, Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee) with the following goals: Clarification of the human rights violations, clarification of the fate of missing people, clarification of what has been destroyed during Apartheid and in the transitional period in order to camouflage the crimes, compensation for the victims and giving amnesty to perpetrators if their crimes have had a political motivation. This last point was tied to an entire disclosure of the crime and a public confession. On the one hand the survey shows the great successes of the TRC in South Africa. The commission brought up more, and - above all - more detailed information about the Apartheid, than any other investigation ever has before. Due to the strong participation of the population in the process of clarification, the TRC was able to stir up a process, which contributed to the emergence of a new culture and to an understanding of human rights and therefore gave an impetus to reconciliation. As a result of the intensive debate about the past in a process that involved the whole society, the TRC achieved to encourage a political culture, which is indispensable for the development of a democratic society after the experience of a system of injustice. Almost every South African gained an understanding, or at least an imagination, of what is meant by human rights violations. An “operational truth” was established, which was widely acknowledged, despite the protest of all parties. A denial of the crimes of Apartheid became impossible. But the liberation movement had to admit brutal crimes as well. On the other hand it becomes clear, that the contrived tasks were far too high, even though many parts of daily Apartheid were ignored completely. The commission did not succeed in clarifying all crimes of Apartheid. Also concerning the perpetrators, the commission did only partly achieve its goals. Compared to the clarified crimes, only a fractional amount of the perpetrators applied for amnesty. The idea, that many perpetrators would participate in the clarification-process with the perspective of being amnestied did not work out. Concerning the reparation, the TRC showed one of its most basic constructional defects. The Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee developed suggestions, which were then never implemented by the president in the way the committee had intended. This made many black and coloured people doubt the work of the commission as a whole. There is no direct relation between the TRC and a pacification of the population. South Africa still is a divided country. The same has to be said about the legitimation and consolidation of the new democratic order. The commission made a contribution that could not be set aside. But to refer this succes, and it is a succes in today’s South Africa, only to the TRC, would be a total overestimation of its possibilities. What remains is: The TRC could not achieve all its goals. Nevertheless, it proved to be a sensible form of dealing with the past. Above all, under the preconditions of a transitional process, it came to important results. Despite many problems, the commission can be judged as a success.

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41

Audretsch, Andreas. "Die südafrikanische Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission : eine exemplarische Studie zum Umgang mit Unrechtssystemen." Master's thesis, Universität Potsdam, 2007. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2008/1825/.

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Abstract:

Die Apartheid in Südafrika war ein Unrechtssystem. Zu den Grausamkeiten des Regimes zählten Massaker, Folter, Mord, Freiheitsberaubung, Zwangsumsiedlung, ökonomische Benachteiligung und alltägliche Diskriminierung. Was nach dem Ende eines solchen Unrechtssystems bleibt, ist die Frage nach dem Umgang mit der Vergangenheit. Die drei grundlegenden Möglichkeiten der Vergangenheitsbewältigung sind die rein justiziare Aufarbeitung, eine Generalamnestie oder ein drittes Modell, das zum Ziel hat, die Vorteile der beiden anderen Strategien zu vereinen. In Südafrika versuchte man, auch als Kompromiss aller Beteiligter, diesen dritten Weg mit der Einrichtung der Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission, die mittlerweile weltweit zum Sinnbild dieser Form der Vergangenheitsbewältigung geworden ist. Das Ziel der Studie war dabei zu klären: War die Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission in Südafrika als Strategie der Vergangenheitsbewältigung erfolgreich? Im Einzelnen widmete sich die TRC in drei Hauptausschüssen (Menschenrechtsausschuss, Amnestieausschuss und Wiedergutmachungsausschuss) den folgenden Zielen: Aufklärung der Menschenrechtsverletzungen, Klärung des Verbleibs verschwundener Personen, Klärung dessen, was während der Apartheid und der Übergangsphase zerstört wurde um die Verbrechen zu verschleiern, Wiedergutmachung für die Opfer und Amnestierung der Täter bei politisch motivierten Taten. Dieser letzte Punkt war jedoch an die völlige Offenlegung der Tat und ein öffentliches Eingeständnis gebunden. Zum einen zeigt die Analyse die großen Erfolge der Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission in Südafrika. Sie hat mehr und vor allem genauere Informationen über die Apartheid zusammengetragen, als je eine andere Untersuchung es geschafft hat. Mit der starken Beteiligung der Bevölkerung am Prozess der Aufklärung konnte sie einen Prozess in Gang bringen, der zur Entstehung einer neuen Menschenrechtskultur beitrug und auch einen Anstoß zur Versöhnung gab. Durch die intensive Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit in einem gesamtgesellschaftlichen Prozess schaffte es die TRC auch, eine politische Kultur anzuregen, die unentbehrlich ist, will man nach einem Unrechtssystem eine demokratische Zukunft aufbauen. Das Verständnis oder zumindest eine Ahnung von dem was Menschenrechtsverletzungen bedeuten, wurde in dieser Zeit tief im Bewusstsein der meisten Südafrikaner verankert. Es wurde eine „operative Wahrheit“ geschaffen, die, wenn auch unter Protesten aller Parteien, letztlich anerkannt wurde und somit ein zukünftiges Leugnen der Apartheidsverbrechen unmöglich machte. Aber auch die Befreiungsbewegungen mussten brutale Verbrechen eingestehen. Zum anderen wird ebenso deutlich, dass die gestellten Anforderungen bei weitem zu hoch waren. Obwohl große Bereiche der alltäglichen Apartheid komplett unberücksichtigt blieben. Bei der Wahrheitsfindung wurde deutlich, dass die drei Ausschüsse weit von einer wirklichen Aufklärung der Untaten der Apartheid entfernt blieben. Auch in Bezug auf die Täter erreichte die Kommission nur zum Teil ihre Ziele. Verglichen mit den aufgeklärten Verbrechen, beantragte nur ein Bruchteil der Täter Amnestie. Die Logik, durch den Anreiz der Straffreiheit eine rege Beteiligung der Täter am Aufklärungsprozess zu erreichen, ging nicht auf. Bei der Wiedergutmachung zeigte sich, dass es einer der größten Konstruktionsfehler der TRC war, die Umsetzung der Entschädigungen dem Parlament und der Regierung zu überlassen. Der Wiedergutmachungsausschuss erarbeitete lediglich Vorschläge an den Präsidenten. Die wurden jedoch nie in dieser Form umgesetzt und stellten damit die TRC als Ganze bei Teilen der schwarzen und farbigen Bevölkerung in Frage. Einen direkten Zusammenhang zwischen der TRC und einer Befriedung der Bevölkerung herzustellen, wäre vermessen. Noch immer ist Südafrika ein gespaltenes Land. Ähnliches gilt bei der Legitimierung und Konsolidierung der neuen demokratischen Ordnung. Auch hier ist die Kommission ein Baustein, auf den nicht verzichtet werden konnte. Ihr diesen Erfolg, und es ist ein Erfolg im heutigen Südafrika, alleine zuzuschreiben, wäre eine extreme Überschätzung ihrer Möglichkeiten. Unterm Strich bleibt: Die TRC konnte nicht all ihre Ziele erreichen, aber sie hat sich gerade unter den Voraussetzungen des Übergangsprozesses als eine sinnvolle Form der Vergangenheitsbewältigung erwiesen, die grundlegend wichtige Ergebnisse erarbeiten konnte. Sie kann somit trotz der Berücksichtigung einer Vielzahl von Problemen als Erfolg gewertet werden.
Apartheid in South Africa was a system of injustice. Atrocities committed by the regime were e.g. massacres, torture, murder, deprivation of personal liberty, forced relocation, economical and daily discrimination. After the existence of such an unjust system, the question of how to deal with the past remains. Basically there are three possibilities. Firstly the judicial approach, secondly a general pardon and finally a third model of coping with the past, which has the aim to combine the advantages of the first two strategies. In South Africa all parties involved tried to find such a third model as a compromise. The Truth- and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established and has become a symbol of this way of dealing with the past by now. The aim of the survey was to find out, weather the TRC in South Africa was successful as strategy of dealing with the past. In detail the TRC dealt in three main committees (Human Rights Violations Committee, Amnesty Committee, Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee) with the following goals: Clarification of the human rights violations, clarification of the fate of missing people, clarification of what has been destroyed during Apartheid and in the transitional period in order to camouflage the crimes, compensation for the victims and giving amnesty to perpetrators if their crimes have had a political motivation. This last point was tied to an entire disclosure of the crime and a public confession. On the one hand the survey shows the great successes of the TRC in South Africa. The commission brought up more, and - above all - more detailed information about the Apartheid, than any other investigation ever has before. Due to the strong participation of the population in the process of clarification, the TRC was able to stir up a process, which contributed to the emergence of a new culture and to an understanding of human rights and therefore gave an impetus to reconciliation. As a result of the intensive debate about the past in a process that involved the whole society, the TRC achieved to encourage a political culture, which is indispensable for the development of a democratic society after the experience of a system of injustice. Almost every South African gained an understanding, or at least an imagination, of what is meant by human rights violations. An “operational truth” was established, which was widely acknowledged, despite the protest of all parties. A denial of the crimes of Apartheid became impossible. But the liberation movement had to admit brutal crimes as well. On the other hand it becomes clear, that the contrived tasks were far too high, even though many parts of daily Apartheid were ignored completely. The commission did not succeed in clarifying all crimes of Apartheid. Also concerning the perpetrators, the commission did only partly achieve its goals. Compared to the clarified crimes, only a fractional amount of the perpetrators applied for amnesty. The idea, that many perpetrators would participate in the clarification-process with the perspective of being amnestied did not work out. Concerning the reparation, the TRC showed one of its most basic constructional defects. The Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee developed suggestions, which were then never implemented by the president in the way the committee had intended. This made many black and coloured people doubt the work of the commission as a whole. There is no direct relation between the TRC and a pacification of the population. South Africa still is a divided country. The same has to be said about the legitimation and consolidation of the new democratic order. The commission made a contribution that could not be set aside. But to refer this succes, and it is a succes in today’s South Africa, only to the TRC, would be a total overestimation of its possibilities. What remains is: The TRC could not achieve all its goals. Nevertheless, it proved to be a sensible form of dealing with the past. Above all, under the preconditions of a transitional process, it came to important results. Despite many problems, the commission can be judged as a success.

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42

Johnstone, Anika Ceric. "Making memory national : South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission /." Title page, abstract and contents only, 1999. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09AR/09arj718.pdf.

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43

Ross, Fiona C. "Bearing witness : women and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3618.

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44

Kumordzie, Beatrice. "The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2019. https://hdl.handle.net/11427/31612.

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The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been subject to numerous debates across a wide range of disciplines, including peace and conflict studies, justice and transformation studies, as well as religious studies. In political science, the debates concerning the TRC have mainly revolved around the peace versus justice dichotomy, and more recently - the heated question of whether symbolic measures as opposed to socioeconomic measures can pave the ideal path to justice and reconciliation in post-conflict societies. Arguably, the debates that have dominated the discourse on justice and transformation in South Africa so far has failed to acknowledge and unpack the central role that religion played in the country’s process of transition. My argument is that religion was instrumentalized politically in the TRC, and thereby used to morally justify certain political compromises that were made during the negotiations between the apartheid National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC) in the early 1990s. By political instrumentalization, I am referring to the strategy of using an identity marker, in this case Christianity, to achieve political ends. I propose that that the Mandela administration purposely employed religious elements in the political nation-building-tool of the TRC with the intent to create an atmosphere of “spiritual healing”. This symbolic and inter-personal understanding of justice in turn, it can be argued, came at the expense of retributive and/ or socio-economic justice. The influence of religion within the TRC can be seen most strongly in the identity of the key people involved (the chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and four of the commissioners who were theologians), the overt biblical rhetoric employed both in the hearings and in the final report, as well as in the design of the commission. The constructivist theories in which this paper will frame its understanding of “the religious” suggests any space can become holy through the performance of religious practices. In this regard, I propose that the TRC, while appearing to be a court-like body, became a sacred space through practices including prayers, lighting of candles and singing of hymns.

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Price, Neroli. "Politics and prosthesis : representing disability in South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20620.

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This dissertation aims to put two seemingly stable and unchanging categories, namely the 'nation' and the 'body', into conversation with each other in order to interrogate how the disabled body, in particular, became a site for nation building in South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy in the 1990s. More specifically, this dissertation aims to explore how, framed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), different bodies took on disparate meanings that both affirmed and challenged the emergence of the euphemistically termed, 'New Nation'. Relying on insights from disability studies, postcolonial scholarship and critical race and gender studies, this dissertation endeavours to interrogate how the emergent post-apartheid state relied on the collective memory and identity generated through particular ideas of violence and politics evidenced by the injured bodies on display at the TRC. Drawing on the TRC transcripts, the TRC Final Report and the Truth Commission Special Report coverage of the proceedings, this dissertation seeks to ask new questions about the shifting and uneven sites of embodied meaning-making in post-apartheid South Africa.

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Leman-Langlois, Stéphane. "Constructing post-conflict justice, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an ongoing invention of reconciliation and truth." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ53688.pdf.

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Smit, Erasmus Johannes. "Die bydrae van die gereformeerde kerklied tot versoening en eenheid in 'n multikulturele Suid-Afrika / Erasmus Johannes Smit." Thesis, North-West University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/1310.

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Grimes, John. "Defining “Third Force” Activity: The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Eugene de Kock." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2012. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1440.

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This paper examines claims about a purported “third force,” individuals and organizations that operated in South Africa during the “transitional period,” from 1990 to1994, who aimed to destabilize the country and prevent a democratic election. This paper focuses on the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and testimony contained in the official Amnesty Committee’s transcripts of former Colonel Eugene de Kock. This paper argues that the “third force” was not a designated government agency and former President F.W. de Klerk did not order “third force” violence. This paper further argues that numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations worked collectively to disrupt a transfer of power.

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Malan, Yvonne. "The spectre of justice : the problematic legacy of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.496581.

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Daniel, Kobina Egyir. "Amnesty as a tool of transitional justice : the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in profile." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/967.

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"This dissertation seeks firstly to re-examine the merits of the competing philosophies on the role of amnesties in transitional justice. It seeks in particular to investigate the currently popular notion that justice is necessarily retributive and even beyond that, to determine the veracity of the claim that prosecution represents a necessary element of retributivist justice. The objective is to contribute to the ongoing debate by examining and drawing practical lessons from the case of South Africa, which emerged in 1994 from several generations of institutionalised gross violatoins of human rights. Accordingly the Amnesty Committee of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the law and the political philosophy undergirding its functions represent the focus of this study. ... This dissertation unfolds into five parts. Chapter 1, as an introduction to the rest of the work, sets out the relevance of the subject under review, the methodology and a brief overview of the chapters. Chapter two reviews the extensive literature on transitional justice and discusses the concepts that may be distilled therefrom. It discusses the contextual determinants of models of transitional justice and sets out the essence of the debate between vengeance and forgiveness as tools for achieving transitional justice. It also discusses the development of international law with respect to the permissiveness of amnesties and both the articulated and other justifications for their use. The burden of the third chapter is to first recount the factual circumstances of South Africa's trnsition and the factors that predicated the promulgation of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 34 of 1995. It then briefly examines the provisions of the statute and it's implementation. It also engages in an empirical assessment of the almost 800 amnesties granted and employs a number of indices to determine whteher the process was even handed and achieved its objectives. These indices are: the politicl affiliations of the awardees; whether or not the crimes for which they received amnesty involved the loss of life; whether or not they had already been punished for thier transgressions and; whether or not they received forgiveness from the vicitms - actual or constructive. Chapter four focuses on some fo the criticisms that the TRC received. It assesses their merits and determines to what extent they subverted the quest for justice in transitional South Africa. In particular it looks at the reasoning of the Constitutional Court in the AZAPO Case, the alleged lack of objectivity of the TRC, its almost exclusively Christian orientation and its almost exclusive focus on abuses of civil and political rights. Chapter five concludes the dissertation by first determining whether or not there are any lessons to be learnt from South Africa's amnesty experience. It then outlines what the lessons are or should be. It closes by making recommendations as to what factors or particular considerations should guide the efforts and aspirations of abused societies that embark on the quest for transitional justice." -- Chapter 1.
Prepared under the supervision of Professor Frans Viljoen, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2001.
http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html
Centre for Human Rights
LLM

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Truth commissions – South Africa'

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