reflective and self-analytical flashbacks keep open rather than close the doors of the truth commission

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report to President Nelson Mandela in Pretoria on the 29^th of October 1998. This was the commission’s primary finding: The apartheid state committed the most gross violations of human rights through its security and law-enforcement agencies. The National Party government became involved in criminal activities when it knowingly planned, undertook, condoned and covered up unlawful acts inside and outside South Africa. It also colluded with certain political groupings, most notably the Inkatha Freedom Party. In turn, the Truth Commission found the ANC morally and politically accountable for gross human rights abuses committed during the liberation struggle. Its security department was found to have routinely tortured and severely ill-treated detainees in exile to extract confessions. Darren Taylor reports on the day that the ANC went to court to try to stop the Truth Commission from releasing its findings.

…I’m devastated! Here we are waiting to hand over a report where we have done this work with integrity, conscientiousness, with passion…

Desmond Tutu

…and it is desperately, desperately distressing that this should … uh … occur. We are just sad. I am desperately sad…

The Truth Commission and Archbishop Desmond Tutu come full circle. Two-and-a-half years ago when the commission’s public hearings began in East London, it was the Azanian People’s Organisation, the families of high-profile activists and the agents of apartheid who went to court to stop the process. But on this sticky Pretoria morning, it’s the ANC that turns to a judge to stop the commission from handing over its final report to the president and ultimately to the public.

…We believe in the work that we’ve done. And we believe that what the ANC has done has actually created a turning point in our country, in the history of our country…

Yasmin Sooka

…We think that this blow is not against us. This is about the people who died. The people who disappeared. The people we will never know about…

Mmm…

It is about them! And we are striking…

A representative group of 40 victims of apartheid abuses waits for the handing-over ceremony. A throng of journalists from around the world waits to see the Truth Commission’s findings and recommendations. Waiting, too, is the nation as the ANC and the commission fight it out 1 500 kilometres away in a Cape Town divorce court. "You didn’t give us enough time to respond to your findings," says the ANC. "Yes we did," says the commission. "In fact, you failed to meet your own, self-imposed deadlines." Truth Commissioner Yasmin Sooka is seething with anger.

…We don’t owe a duty to politicians!…

Mmm…

We owe a duty to the victims in our country who suffered over the last number of years. And it is for that reason that we stand here before you. We … we are defiant, but we will operate within the law!…

"Don’t you feel betrayed?" is the question almost every journalist wants to ask the archbishop. "Betrayed by the very people with whom you fought against apartheid?" Although Desmond Tutu insists he’s had a good night’s sleep, his eyes are glassy. Thoughts return to the previous night when he learnt of the ANC’s unexpected legal challenge and said: "A pall is hanging over us." Suddenly Tutu lifts his head. His eyes sharpen. "I have struggled against a tyranny," he says. "I didn’t do that in order to substitute another."

…If there is a tyranny and an abuse of power, let them know that I will oppose it with every fibre of my being. That is … that is who I am!…

[Sings "Die Stem"]

The ANC loses. The judge rules that the Truth Commission can release its final report, including a blacked-out page on findings against former president FW de Klerk. President Nelson Mandela shuffles on to the stage with his wife, Graça Machel. But it’s the tiny man in the charcoal cassock who towers over everyone. He strides over to the president with the heavy report – five volumes bound in leather and gold.

[Sings "Die Stem"]

…Many will be upset by this report. Some have sought to discredit it pre-emptively. Even if they were to succeed, what is that to the point? It won’t change the fact that they killed Stanza Bopape. They bombed Khotso House. They tortured their own people in their camps in Tanzania, in Angola. They necklaced people. Those are not inventions by this commission. That is what the perpetrators themselves told us…

[Sings "Bayete"]

But the moment is not Desmond Tutu’s alone. Neither does it belong solely to his Truth Commission.

[Sings "Bayete"]

…This is an auspicious day in the history of our land for which South Africa and indeed the entire world has waited with eager expectation. We thank the victims and all who came to testify with such dignity, despite their anguish and trauma. They are the heroes and heroines of our story. And we dedicate our work to all of them and others who did not come. And I ask that we give the … these and all of the others a very warm hand in expression of our deep respect and tribute to them…

[Applauds]

It’s now the turn of President Nelson Mandela, the man who wasn’t aware until too late that his very own political party had taken the Truth Commission to court. When asked what Mandela’s reaction had been, his spokesperson would only say: "I’d rather not comment on that."

…Many of us will have reservations about aspects of what is contained in these five volumes. It has put the spotlight on all of us!…

Nelson Mandela

…I therefore take this opportunity to say that I accept the report as it is, with all its imperfections, as an aid that the TRC has given to us to help reconcile and build our nation…

Even though the Truth Commission’s public amnesty hearings continue, there’s a sense of finality. The commission’s findings and recommendations are in black and white. The volumes that run to about 2 800 pages and weigh about five kilograms can now be dissected, disputed and slated. But they can’t be ignored.

…We will have looked the beast in the eye. We will have come to terms with our horrendous past and it will no longer keep us hostage. We will cast off its shackles and, holding hands together, black and white, we will stride together into the future. And looking at our past, we will commit ourselves: Never again! Nooit weer nie! Ngeke futhi! Ga re no tlola!…

[Applauds]

["Lonely Refrain"]

The defining moment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission varies from person to person. For some it will always be the moment the Truth Commission opened the floodgates of human suffering in East London in 1996. Or those rare moments of reconciliation, intimacy and even destruction between victim and perpetrator. For others, it is the pall of brutality and senselessness that has been exhumed with plastic-sealed skeletons and shattered bones from unmarked graves. Then there is the so-called "triumph of the truth" – the day that the architect of the Truth Commission, the ANC, failed in court to stop the release of the TRC’s findings. Angie Kapelianis asked the men and women tasked with exposing the truth and promoting reconciliation what defined the Truth Commission for them.

…We went down to King William’s Town a few days before the first hearing in East London to perform the briefing or emotional preparation of the witnesses who were coming to the hearing…

Wendy Orr

…It was a new concept, a new idea, it was the first hearing. I’d certainly never done anything like it before and really didn’t know how it was going to go and we were met with so many things. Um … I remember that we … we broke into small groups and … and even though I very often didn’t understand what the people in my group were saying because they … they … they didn’t speak English, there was this sense of … of overwhelming pain and suffering and we all ended up crying together. And the sense I had at … at the end of the day was that we were in for a very long and difficult journey, but that I was 100 per cent committed to it…

…Shoo. I suppose it had to be the first public hearing in East London…

Alex Boraine

…Up till then, we were talking in theory, we were organising tables and chairs and appointing staff and all the usual thing that a commission has to do from scratch. But that first mind-blowing, heart-stopping, soul-searching day in East London where we didn’t quite know how it was going to go. The place was packed. We were sitting nervously on the stage. There were bomb threats, there were all sorts of…

…Eh … I … I’m very sorry to interrupt, but it does indicate the kind of things we have to deal with in our country. There is a bomb threat…

Desmond Tutu

…Eh … we apologise … eh … Mrs … uh … [Nohle] Mohapi that we have to do this at this stage. But it makes … it makes all of us aware that … eh … there are some people who will stop at nothing to try and prevent this commission from carrying out its work…

…We could have … um … stuffed it up very badly because we were so new to this and inexperienced and … um … nervous. But it was a tremendous day because people began to speak. And the moment the first victim uttered those first words, I knew … I just knew that whatever else we may do badly, the commission was going to be worthwhile. And whenever I think…

…After the death of Mapetla [Mohapi], I … I … I was full of hate. I was hating anybody who’s a police…

Nohle Mohapi

…Those were the people who were enforcing apartheid laws on us. They wanted us not to have rights…

…At last, voices that had been stilled were … were heard. And this gave me an enormous sense, a moment of destiny almost that … um … this was going to start a process in this country, which would have repercussions for years to come…

…The defining moment was that first day. We really did not realise how important and how significant that day was…

Fazel Randera

…And then listening to the stories, to mothers, wives, husbands talking about the loss that they suffered made it so real for all of us involved…

…The room was full of police…men. I was scared…

Elizabeth Hashe

…This white man with very big face, with … w… with moustache, he was called Strydom from the murder and robbery squad. He said to me: "Mrs Hashe, do you know that your husband was found at Veeplaas burnt? We could only identify him with his lower parts. From the waist downwards." I said: "There is nothing of that kind." He said to me: "What do you expect me to say?" I said to him, he argued with me, he said: "I’m telling you the truth! They were burnt. He is not here."…

…It is really the personal moments, the people who have testified before us. And I can’t think of one particular one, it’s just so many of those hearings, those brave but wounded people speaking to us…

Mary Burton

…And for me particularly the firm impression that remains is the hearings that we had in the rural areas where people came forward with such high hope of what the commission could do to transform their lives…

…You know, my problem is I was a shepherd. I’m staying with Thomas Likotsi. That is my son…

Joang Likotsi

…He’s now the father in the house because he is working. He’s the breadwinner and he’s also taking care of the one I’ve just said that he is mentally disturbed. My wife cannot w… walk. I am not in a position to buy her a wheelchair. And we have to go to doctors all around the country and we are lacking funds for the transport…

…Transformation has to come. Their lives or at least their … uh … secure knowledge that their children’s lives will be different is very important if we’re talking about reconciliation…

…I think the dawning of the tremendous pain and loss that this country has experienced through our youth…

Glenda Wildschut

…Any society can be judged by the way in which we treat our most vulnerable and our children were not well treated in the past…

…I’m severely stressed, depressed, angry, frustrated…

Riefaat Hattas

…I’ve no confidence in myself. I’m sometimes suicidal. I’m messed up because of what I went through during my high school years…

…That saddened me the most and … and if there’s anything that I want to … to actually work on, [it] is really to say: "How can we put in place structures that will revere children, that will honour children and see them as a national asset, our country’s national asset?"…

…There were moments of truth, which for me were really exciting. You know, like some of the testimonies about the involvement of the police…

Hlengiwe Mkhize

…Mainly from the amnesty process where they began to tell the truth, making full disclosure. I mean, they really made me feel that this process was worth it…

…Kaptein [Sakkie] Van Zyl het vir meneer [Sipho] Hashe met ’n punt-22-geweer geskiet…

Gideon Nieuwoudt

…Hy’t die geweer aan my oorhandig, waar ek op my beurt vir meneer [Qaqawuli] Godolozi geskiet het…

Captain Sakkie van Zyl shot Mr Sipho Hashe with a modified point-two-two rifle. I, in turn, shot Mr Qaqawuli Godolozi. Mr Gert Lotz shot Mr Champion Galela. All three bodies were put on the pyre and doused with diesel.

…Ek het die vuur…

I lit the fire, Your Honour. The corpses were burnt to ashes after about six to eight hours, Your Honour.

…Totaal uitgebrand gewees na ongeveer ses na agt ure, u edele…

…The most enduring moment, the one that will stay with me, the image that … that will stay with me for the rest of my life is the first exhumation, which was done in KwaZulu-Natal…

Richard Lyster

…It was, involved a young woman who’d been a senior ANC … MK member in Swaziland. She was abducted by a man called Andy Taylor – notorious Security Branch policeman. She was taken to a farm, which was rented by the Security Branch in a remote area of the Natal Midlands. Um … she was kept naked in a … in a small concrete room. We know this because the people who killed her have applied for amnesty. The purpose of keeping her there and torturing her, because they said they did torture her, was to persuade her to become an informer. And then when they had no further use for her, they made her kneel down and shot her in the back of the head. They’d dug a … a fairly deep grave, but a … a short grave and they had to bend her knees up to put her in and she was on her back. And when we uncovered her body, she … um … had a blue plastic bag on her … on her waist. And we asked the … um … the people what it was. And they said that she had … uh … put this plastic bag over her to try and maintain some sense of feminine dignity while she was being interrogated and tortured. For me it just … it said so many things about the people who killed her and it said so many things about people like her, people who died. And they said things like: "She was very brave."…

…One can be quite intellectual about this process and one can debate in great … uh … philosophical detail concepts like "reconciliation" and you can get all sorts of interesting points of view…

Denzil Potgieter

…But that doesn’t really capture the experience. When you experience it, when you witness it, then it really strikes you that, you know, what we’re doing is not really pie in the sky, it’s very, very doable, but very, very…

…I would like to hear from each one of you, as you look me in the face, that you are sorry for what you’ve done…

Dawie Ackerman

…That you regret it and that you want to be personally reconciled.

We are sorry for what we have done. Although people died during that struggle, we didn’t do that out of our own will. It’s the situation that we were living under. We are asking from you, please do forgive us.

[Claps slightly]

I want you to know that I forgive you unconditionally.

…The Winnie Mandela hearing had really moments of greatness…

Yasmin Sooka

…I think that is when you saw the mettle of some South African figures. And … uh … one example for me was when Paul [Verryn] makes his impassioned plea to Mrs Mandela. I thought that you saw what this man was made of…

…I have been profoundly, profoundly affected by some of the things that you have said about me, that have hurt me and cut me to the quick…

Paul Verryn

…I have had to struggle to come to some place of learning to forgive, even if you do not want forgiveness or even think that I deserve to offer that to you. I struggle to … to find a way in which we can be reconciled – for the sake of this nation and for the people that I believe God loves so deeply. And so I … I sit before you and want to say that to you…

…Another, of course, was at the end of the hearing, when the archbishop in fact appealed to Mrs Mandela to acknowledge that things had gone horribly wrong. For me there was what you call an electric silence in the room as he made this impassioned plea…

…There are people out there who want to embrace you. I … I still embrace you because I love you and I love you very deeply. There are many out there who would have wanted to do so, if you were able to bring yourself to say: "Something went wrong." And to say: "I’m sorry. I’m sorry for my part in what went wrong." I beg you! I beg you! I beg you! Please! You are a great person and you don’t know how your greatness would be enhanced if you had to say: "Sorry. Things went wrong. Forgive me." I beg you!

I am saying it is true. Things went horribly wrong. For that, I am deeply sorry…

[Applauds]

…I think that his gesture was misinterpreted by a number of people who saw it as him trying to give her a way out, but for me that’s the reality of what this is about. About saying things have gone wrong and we take responsibility for it. I think that was a very poignant and emotional moment. And I knew it was one of the sort of great cameos, I would call it, of the commission…

…Ahhh. I would say the Bisho [massacre] hearing. After the man who had been in charge of the Ciskeian Defence Force had spoken and really incensed everybody, and I’ve got to say I was upset…

…Were I to have the power to rewrite history, this would certainly be a chapter of our history and of my own military career, which I would expunge from the record…

Marius Oelschig

…I am unable to say who gave the orders to fire on the ground or in which terms those orders were communicated…

[Murmurs slightly]

…To have him f… followed almost immediately by four of his officers – three black and one white. The white is a spokesperson and he says to this hall jammed-packed with people and the tension, I mean, you could cut it with a knife after the testimony of this man. This guy says: "Yes, we gave the orders." And you thought, I mean, that place was going to explode. And then he turns to the audience and he says…

…We are sorry. I say the burden of the Bisho massacre will be on our shoulders for the rest of our lives. We cannot wish it away. It happened…

Horst Schobesberger

…But please, I ask specific the victims, not to forget, I cannot ask this, but to forgive us. To get the soldiers back into the community, to accept them fully, to try to understand also under the pressure they were then. This is all I can do. I … I’m sorry…

…That was a fantastic moment and … and I … I said at the end of it: "Please let’s keep quiet because we are in the presence of something holy." And then the other, I would … I would say, is recently with the revelation of this chemical and biological warfare [programme]. Now one knows they were not going to stop at anything…

…There were also plans to contaminate medication used by President Nelson Mandela at Pollsmoor [Prison] with the untraceable, heavy, metal poison Thallium…

Schalk van Rensburg

…In a conversation with André Immelman, shortly after Nelson Mandela’s release, he was very confident that Nelson Mandela’s brain function would be impaired progressively for some time…

…That is why I’ve said we’ve heard a lot of devastating evidence from all sides. But for me that was the worst because it was so calculated, so methodical, so clean, clinical and therefore utterly diabolical. I … one realised the awfulness of apartheid. That made me realise that … um … we have the capacity for remarkable evil. But you see, the other one says we have the capacity for remarkable good…

["Street Lonely"]

There is no roadmap for setting up a truth commission or a path to guaranteed success. That’s the view of Priscilla Hayner who has researched several truth commissions around the world. So how does one gauge the success of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Journalists who have covered the beat from day one will probably say that the commission’s greatest success is the face and voice it has put to apartheid. The public space and recognition it has given to the scarred faces and broken voices of victim, perpetrator and ultimately survivor. Angie Kapelianis asked the truth commissioners what they regarded as their greatest achievement.

…I think in a way the greatest success is just that it happened. That we’ve spent these years listening at last to people’s stories and experiences of what happened during those years…

Mary Burton

…It’s easy to describe it as … as part of the telling the truth, but it’s more than that. It’s the fact that the country saw fit to give proper attention to what was done in the past…

…The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concept was not taken out of any textbook or theory…

Dullah Omar

…It is a product of South Africa’s negotiated settlement and transition. It has been a human story filled with tears. Filled with sorrow. Filled with agony. It has been a story of a people seeking to establish their humanity and their dignity…

…The people who spoke, the people who listened, the people who tried not to listen but in a way were forced to do so, and so it drew in all the citizens of this country, whether willingly or not, into the process…

…All parties agreed to the TRC as a non-violent way of purging the nation from the moral filth that its politicians on all sides got us into…

Radio listener

…It was meant to be a truth commission, but now that the chickens come home to roost and all the main protagonists are found to have blood on their hands, it is no longer a truth commission, but it is now biased and inaccurate. If the TRC complies with the wishes of the PAC, the ANC, the Nats and the IFP and delete all the truths they’ve found, then the entire TRC operation, Desmond Tutu et al, lose all credibility. And the nation still awaits accountability for all the human rights abuses perpetuated by all parties in the past. We want justice, but if we can’t have justice, please let us have the truth in writing!…

…I think the Truth Commission has been far more successful than even the legislators had imagined it would be. I think that is its greatest success…

Dumisa Ntsebeza

…We have had to ask for extension after extension, precisely because the work has been overwhelming. We have had hearings, we have had amnesty applicants – far in excess of what was expected. In a way we are embarrassed by our success and our success has been the response. So, to me that is the single most important way in which I can say the commission has been successful. It has been successful in meeting the expectations of those who put their trust in it…

…Let me take this opportunity to commend the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the magnificent work they are doing to realise their mandate…

Nelson Mandela

…We did not expect their work to be easy and we are struck by the impact they are making, for theirs is a process that hurts as much as it cleanses. I take this opportunity to place before Parliament the recommendation that the cut-off date for amnesty be extended to 10^th May 1994…

[Applaud half-heartedly]

…I think the hearings have been our greatest success and obviously some hearings have been more successful than others. But I think as a … as a generic item…

Wendy Orr

…the opportunity for … for victims, perpetrators, members of institutions and … and various businesses to speak in public has … has certainly been our greatest success…

…During my period at The Star, I not only openly did military camps as an SADF infantry officer, but also served as an official undercover intelligence agent of the Security Branch of the SAP…

Craig Kotze

…Did I spy on my journalistic colleagues? Did I deliberately manipulate my reports or suppress news? The answer to both is no…

…For me … uh … the biggest success for the Truth Commission has been, it has enabled 22 000 people to come and tell their stories…

Fazel Randera

…Those stories went out to the country and all the people of the country, forcing people to acknowledge what had happened in the past. And the fact that there has been that public process, that television, radio and newspapers became so centrally involved in the whole process and people were able to listen, live often, to what victims were saying, I think it has played a very big role…

…Bishop Tutu has left the gathering of the truth and reconciliation commissioners and he’s moving up on to the stage. He’s going to be lighting the single candle, which will start the proceedings. It’s a large white candle with a red cross emblazoned on it. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu lights that candle…

…To really get people from different perspectives and communities talking about the past, i… in those broad terms, I would say that’s in a way a miracle…

Hlengiwe Mkhize

…because you remember when we started, for instance, there were groupings who were saying: "We’re not going to co-operate with this structure" and we … we picked up those voices from different constituencies, but I should think…

…And then we had to … um … go through a long inquest and we were bruised by it. Emotionally, ph… and physically…

Nyami Goniwe

…And I guess we … we had high hopes as well. And I remember when the [inquest] finding was announced, we were so disappointed. The second reluctance was over not knowing what is it that was going to happen here. But now that I’m here, I’m sort of humbled by the experiences of the others. I’m happy to say that … um … I’m happy that I came…

…The commission was put in place as part of the tender bridge to help us make the transition from repression, from evil, from ghastliness to democracy and freedom…

Desmond Tutu

…And I think it has succeeded to a very considerable extent. And, really, it’s the people. Our greatest resource is our people. They’re fantastic. I mean, when you can hear an Afrikaner father say, as Mr [Johan] Smit said after his boy had been killed, an eight-year-old, he was saying: "If I’m angry at all, I’m angry with the previous government…"

…I’s told the newspapers that I thought my son was a hero because … um … he died for freedom…

Johan Smit

…Kan ek maar oorslaan [na] Afrikaans? Vir mense wat onderdruk was… Everybody just branded the ANC as … as terrorists and never saw the other side of the coin. I would also never have … have realised this if I didn’t have my own business and saw with my own eyes how these people really struggled. They had to buy small amounts of…

…Sometimes we take too many things for granted. Maybe that is our greatest failing. That we don’t appreciate the wonder of who we are and where we are and just how God has blessed us. And those moments when we respond to the grace of God, we are unstoppable…

…I think when this thing [the TRC] started, we … well, certainly I was very apprehensive that it would be like holding a party that nobody would come to…

Richard Lyster

…And I think the fact that ordinary people came to this commission, for me really was its … its most dramatic success. Just that it … it did what it was intended to do. It provided a forum for ordinary people who’d suffered, who had been tortured, who’d been locked up, whose families had been killed. It provided a forum for them to come and tell us about it…

…I’ve opened the window. I heard the voice of Sifiso [Mkhize]…

Zamaswazi Mkhize

…I said: "But why are you killing my father? Why did you kill my dad? What has he done?" I went downstairs to enquire about this shooting. On the stairs, I fell and I was affected at the spinal cord. I was now crawling. Sifiso was red. He was cuddling his father in his hands. People stopped me. They didn’t want me to come very close to him. And after that I collapsed…

…Just to hear the anger, the sadness, the wretchedness, the tragedy of the lives of ordinary people was incredibly important … um … and I think that will endure and it will be the commission’s greatest success…

…Very early on in the life of the commission, we had made a very conscious decision that throughout the apartheid years, the voices of victims were silenced, particularly, quote unquote, "the small people"…

Glenda Wildschut

…And so we … we made a decision to consciously elevate those people to a position deserving of … of … of their suffering. And for me that was truly a wonderful decision and … and just the appreciation that people expressed at the hearings, in letters to us, in phone calls and … and other communications for me validated the fact that that was appreciated. So that for me…

…I thank you very much. You don’t know how much all this has meant to me or it means to me…

Sheila Masote

…We rarely kiss with my mother. We rarely hug, but we have started. And today we’ve done it in public and thank you very much…

[Applauds]

…The one important thing is that the commission has created a platform for a lot of people who would otherwise not have been recognised for what they had done, what they had suffered…

Denzil Potgieter

…In the process of the liberation and liberating the country…

…And yet I often find myself back in the dungeons of solitary confinement ready to take away my life for no explicable reason…

Joyce Rankin

…This all happens without any conscious thought on my part. I hate it when my mind brings those terrifying memories. But my mind just does it for me. It was orchestrated to destroy me…

…One of the Truth Commission’s great success is to discover the people who got lost and the families did not know where they were…

Khoza Mgojo

…until these perpetrators wanted to have amnesty, they’d to make a disclosure so that exhumations could be done. So that the families could know what had really happened to their loved ones…

…We don’t know what happened. We want to know what happened. What eventually happened to him?…

Buyile Zungu

…How did he disappear? Where did he go to? If he’s alive, we want to know what kind of life he’s living, where he is, how he’s living. We need him. We miss him. If he’s dead, we would like to know: When did he die? Who killed him? When and how?…

…Whilst we knew that things were happening in the country, I think the surprising thing is that none of us knew the extent of what had happened or, in fact, how many people it had affected…

Yasmin Sooka

…I saw people cry when they were allowed to unburden that, you know, and unlock that from themselves because I think for so many years people have been carrying around these stories. And an example for me is Mr [Mahlomola Isaac] Tlale, who’s now dead. He was a veteran of the 1960 resistance campaigns, and he spent time on Robben Island. And for more than 40 years he walked around all closed up, and he came to the hearing [in Alexandra] and he said: "I can now die in peace because I have been able to talk about what happened to me." I think for me that’s the crowning achievement that the commission made possible…

…The disclosure of truth is for me possibly the greatest achievement and accomplishment of the commission…

Alex Boraine

…I think that we have uncovered factually, now, in a very profound way from oral tradition, people sharing their experiences either as a victim or as a perpetrator or as both…

…I have taken this opportunity to speak the truth and to express my torturing regrets about wasted years and my shame about a mean and petty past…

Pete Mogoai

…I regard myself today as a disgrace to my mother, my family and my relatives, my friends and the families of the Pebco Three and the nation as such. It is with my deepest remorse that I ask for forgiveness. I say it now here today as I could not have done so in the earlier days for obvious reasons. I thank you…

…Now we can confirm what the state was about, what the liberation forces were attempting to do. And I think to … to get that behind us gives us a solid foundation on which to build a society which will never really allow this to happen again. I’ve always felt that you can’t really have reconciliation based on … on the unknown or the distorted or the deceitful. That you really have to come to bedrock and I think that’s what the commission has done and it’s been a very liberating … uh … experience for me personally…

["Second Thoughts"]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has taken a bold step in its final report by acknowledging some of its own failings and shortcomings. The Truth Commission admits that it failed to call certain key actors, especially IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It failed to make significant inroads into the post-1990 violence. It also failed to establish the complicity of local governments, universities, state-funded research bodies and former homelands like Venda, Lebowa and Bophuthatswana. The Truth Commission says its investigations into Military Intelligence and special forces were conducted too late for adequate follow-up. But it was also severely restricted from accessing military archives and classified records with the creation of the Defence Force nodal point. The truth commissioners shared some of these and other feelings of failure and regret with Angie Kapelianis.

…I think a failure of the commission was the inability to get the IFP, Inkatha, to participate in this commission…

Richard Lyster

…The commission did, I think, everything possible way and beyond the call of duty to get the IFP to participate. And when one looks at the sort of evidence that we heard in KwaZulu-Natal, it pointed directly to very, very high-level collusion between the IFP and the most sinister aspects of our security forces…

…It was at about two o’clock and I went into the toilet…

Gertrude Mbambo

…I heard a loud noise sounding like a machine gun. I cried and I went into the children’s bedroom. We were afraid even to peep through the window. We hid ourselves underneath the bed and we kept quiet. When I got out, I found many children lying dead on the ground. Their brains were scattered. I didn’t know what happened because they were dead…

…I think if one understands that evidence, then it becomes easier to understand why the IFP was reluctant to participate…

…But a party, the … the IFP cannot be in the dock…

Ziba Jiyane

…Because that’s what it has been all along. It’s been accused worldwide. It is still being accused by the government of the day. It is treated as the villain. For us to go to…

…And yet we needed them to participate. There’s no doubt that many, many of their people suffered, the most awful things were done to them. And they were not able to come forward. So we’re going to have a somewhat skewed picture at the end of the day. We’re also going to have anger and resentment if the government does … uh … hand out compensation to victims of human rights violations. The fact that IFP people won’t qualify for reparation is going to be used by the IFP as evidence that this commission is biased against them. It can have repercussions on the ground…

…Oh, I’m … I’m very full of a sense of the things that we should have done better at the moment, as we’re coming to the last stages of the process…

Mary Burton

…Firstly, for every single victim, I’m sorry that we weren’t able to do more, to offer more personal care and counselling, to investigate their stories…

…He couldn’t speak. Some of the bullets were still inside, inside…

Nokiki Gwedla

[Starts crying]

…It’s all right, Mama. You don’t have to be worried. We understand that … uh … you have to go through this pain again…

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

…If you want us to wait, Mama, yes, we will…

[Carries on testifying]

…To investigate their stories in greater depth, to give more prominence to their stories because they’re going to be very condensed in the final report. So although I realise it’s impractical, I still have a sense of wishing that there was more we could do…

…I wish that the commission can take care of the future of my children, which is something that I cannot do at the moment…

Lukas Sikwepere

…They are still going to school, but they don’t even have enough clothes. They are struggling. Their mother is not working and I’m only depending on the pension. Uh … that’s the only thing that I wish for…

…The greatest failure for me has been the fact that the victims have got nothing…

Desmond Tutu

…You know, we started in 1996. Two and a bit years later, none of the victims has received anything officially. Nothing! That I think … um … is something that we would have wished for it to be different. I think we would all of us say that that is the greatest weakness of our commission…

…Without a doubt, I think we have let down the mass of victims who have come to us. I think we’ve been very slow, painfully slow…

Alex Boraine

…Some of it was determined by the [Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation] Act itself, which made it clear that we couldn’t impose on victims what they wanted and what they needed and so on. So we had to hear them. But when I think of the amnesty process, which allows people to walk free if they’re granted amnesty, and the victim who may have been involved in that very action by the perpetrator is still waiting for some material response from the commission, then I think the Act was skewed. And I think we could have made better use of the time and the energy and the resources we’ve had. And I … I think we’ve failed … uh … quite dismally there…

…I really have a very big wish. A tombstone…

Toni Lillian Mazwai

…I want to see his tombstone because I didn’t see him when he was put into the grave. Because he also wanted big things for me. He … he used to call me "old lady". And he said: "Old lady, when I complete my studies, you will never struggle any more. You will sit down. You will relax."…

…We started running on day one and I should think there are things we could have done differently…

Hlengiwe Mkhize

…For instance, we could have realised how delicate the whole issue of revisiting the past in a country which is young in terms of its democracy is gonna to influence the reconci…liation, the healing, the reconstruction process…

…The reason why I came here today was because I thought it would be able to help me to be able to tell my story…

Dee Dicks

…So all I want to do now is like cry and it’s … it angers me because I’m not in control of my crying…

…The one big and major weakness of the Truth Commission has been this process of storytelling and the traumatic effect of that…

Fazel Randera

…Now we started off by saying that we don’t want to re-victimise the victim…

…Sir, do you know how deep this wound is?…

Kholisile Maroti

…While I’m standing here in front of this commission, the wound that the two of us have – myself and my wife – if this commission can try and heal that wound. My wife has a big lump in her throat because of the death of her son…

…But perhaps where we’ve … we haven’t been successful is that once those stories were told, what happened afterwards? And I suppose if there … if there’s one big regret for me, it’s that one…

…The other is that by and large the white community has not recognised that here was the one most generoused opportunity of coming to terms with the past where they were the beneficiaries of one of the most awful systems … uh … and … and that is a great pain…

…I think that this … uh … TRC is a complete shambles…

Radio listener

…All they’ve done is crucify all the people in the apartheid regime and … uh … all the atrocities perpetrated against the innocent civilians of this country by the ANC have been overlooked. The whole thing is a farce and it should be thrown out…

…I say this as a white South African, and that is the failure to incorporate the majority of white South Africans…

Wendy Orr

…I think our focus was primarily and … and I believe this is quite appropriate … um … on victims and by the nature of the struggle the majority of victims are black. So the very way in which we started out could have been interpreted as alienating white people. There was also this whole issue of … of guilt and I think a lot of people didn’t…

…Ons as jong Afrikaners word groot tussen twee strydende geslagte…

Jannie du Plessis

…Ons word betrek by argumente waarin ons…

As young Afrikaners, we are growing up between two conflicting generations.

…En ons ervaar huidiglik ’n geniepsige aanslag…

The stinging attack we are currently experiencing is very negative and definitely not in the interest of reconciliation.

…Ons leef in ’n era waar daar vir die room van die Afrikaners, jeug, plek is in Kanada…

…There was also this whole issue of … of guilt and I think a lot of people didn’t become involved because they … they found the issues just too difficult to face up to. And I remember talking very early on about a way of reinterpreting what was happening on an almost weekly basis for white South Africa and we never did it…

…Also I think that the commission was formed in a hurry. It had to make quick decisions about how it would work and there are many things which now, with hindsight, we could look back on and see how we could have done better. Trying really to grapple with the concept of the definition of "severe ill-treatment"…

…And at night, that particular night, they came and woke us up and they switched off the lights and said we should lie on our stomachs…

Joyce Marubini

…They started assaulting us with sjamboks and at the time we were dressed. And they started assaulting us on our buttocks up till such time that our panties were torn and our undergarments were exposed…

…In many ways it would have been much easier if we hadn’t had that as a category. It would have meant that we could devote much more attention to the tortures and the killings that are such clear … uh … gross human rights violations…

…The biggest failure in my view has been … uh … the fact that we were too modest in the way in which we approached investigations…

Dumisa Ntsebeza

…And I regret it because I must f… uh … in the end accept final accountability for the [TRC] Investigative Unit…

…I think that the commission could have been much more hard-nosed about accessing information…

Yasmin Sooka

…This is where I am going to be critical of the former head of the [TRC] investigations…

And you’re referring to Glen Goosen?

Yes. I think he signed an agreement which should never have been signed because, at the end of the day, the commission was given the power by Parliament to access all documentation and he allowed the military to in fact give us a run-around. You know, allowed them to put in place a nodal point, which actually subverted the process. And I think that has compromised us. And I think that you will probably need more investigation after this commission is over because there’s been a serious lack of co-operation from the military…

…I also regret the non-attention that the [TRC] Investigative Unit paid to atrocities in the Eastern Cape. I don’t know if our investigative re… I mean, if the final report will reflect some of the things that I know ought to be reflected there. The role of Military Intelligence. I mean we never ever even investigated them. We had some people who on their own admission were part of the old order military establishment. Gerrie Hugo, for instance, is a case in point…

…I was co-ordinator of certain operations where human right abuses took place. I didn’t physically get involved with the human rights abuses. The flip side of the coin is I didn’t physically try and stop them. People were abducted. People were tortured. That I know about. Even a abduction is a gross human right violation. So, of course I’ll have to apply and I’m … and I will apply for amnesty in that regard…

…And as a consequence, we have nothing on Hammer, and everybody who knows anything about atrocities in this country will know that Hammer was very much part of the Eastern Cape and nothing has ever been done on that. So I failed this commission dismally at that level…

…I think that there’re various drawbacks and there’re various weaknesses in the process. I think the one is that perhaps it has been unrealistic…

Denzil Potgieter

…to have placed the commission in a position where it has to do such an important job and has to cover such a large chunk of our history in such a limited period of time, and I think that is one of the big problems…

["Whaling Blues"]

Is there life after the TRC? This question has repeatedly been asked of those intimately involved in translating the story of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission since 1996. From the men and women who have shuttled between all the country’s major languages to interpret thousands of emotional stories and conflicting perspectives of the apartheid era. From the journalists who have criss-crossed the country almost every single week to reflect those personal accounts in words, pictures, voices and sounds. And from the truth commissioners who have had to keep the process glued together and make sense of it for everyone. Angie Kapelianis asked the truth commissioners what they planned to do with their lives after South Africa’s history of gross human rights abuses had been chronicled.

…I think there’s a time to be in such a commission, but there’s also a time to close and to … to go through that bereavement, if you like, and that sense of loss…

Alex Boraine

…so that we can move on in our lives and I’ve been very lucky that I … uh … [have] been invited to go to New York University, to the law school there, to give me a time to get distance, to try to understand what it was all about and then to try and to write as seriously as I know how. I have been keeping a diary because you get overwhelmed by so much. And I tried to reflect many, many days on planes and late at night just what I felt and what I experienced, what I saw, my horror, my revulsion, my agony, my sorrow and my joy. But I hope it’s going to be a little more than simply my particular pilgrimage through this. I would like to try to pull it together in such a way that it can be of help to other trouble spots of conflict. So apart from reflecting, writing, reading, researching, I’m going to have a helluva lot of fun…

…I have decided that it will be a year for Glenda and for my new baby…

Glenda Wildschut

…I have registered at UCT for some postgraduate work. And I will generally have fun – lie on the beach and cook and garden. That’s what I want to do…

…I’m struggling at the moment to decide what to do. But the … the overwhelming … um … desire in me is always to want to serve for the betterment of society…

Fazel Randera

…So I veer from looking at something in international affairs where one can continue the work the Truth Commission has initiated and … and continue building on this culture of human rights both within South Africa and elsewhere. Or, on the other side, going back to health care where I can be responsible for policy and … and how it affects many, many more people rather than what I was doing previously, which was providing very individualised care…

…I take with me a lot of frustration because we were not able to do all the things that we would have done…

Dumisa Ntsebeza

…I, however, also take back to the practice of the law a feeling for justice not in the sense of retribution. I would hope to be able to persuade in criminal courts those who preside that it is about retribution, yes, but it is also about rehabilitation in the sense that people should understand that the reconciliation process is part and parcel of bringing people who have been literally at each other’s throats together and it’s going to be with us for a long time. We are going to have to face to the reality that South Africa is going to see a generation of transition. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. A generation of transition…

…I don’t have very, very firm plans…

Mary Burton

…I will be available to the commission on a voluntary basis if necessary beyond its life span because I think that we will have people who have fallen through the cracks. Somehow I think there will be tidying up to do, so I’m not committing myself to anything else immediately after the commission. Otherwise there are lots of plans and dreams I’d like to go back to doing. Um … I’d like to do some reading and thinking. Uh … a lot of us think that it’s time the history of the Black Sash was written and maybe I’d like to have a stab at doing something towards that. But that’s all…

…Before I joined the commission already I had really gone to bed with government, wanting to support ministries, going all out…

Hlengiwe Mkhize

…I mean I had so much faith in governments. The Truth Commission has done a lot of damage to me when it comes to that, really, because it’s like just saying: What happens to people once they have power? So I should think whatever I do, I will have to have space to be able to strengthen the culture, the development of the culture of human rights in this country…

…I certainly want to take a holiday and I’m going to take a holiday with my family…

Richard Lyster

…Because that’s been very, very difficult. I’ve been away from home a lot and even when I’m at home, I’m not really there because the stuff does overwhelm you. Uh … I just feel that I need to wash it off me completely. I need to … to spend some time just … um … detoxifying because I do feel very toxic. It’s very difficult to find anything that will match up to this. As much as I want it to be finished, because I feel that it’s drained me, I know that when I go to work next year, wherever it is, you know, possibly something like doing labour arbitrations and mediations, something which I have experience in, I know that when I sit down and listen to somebody’s story about who stole the bread from the canteen, I’m going to think: Is this real? You know, is this important? Is this relevant? Um … is this what I need to be doing? So I think we’ll all have to climb down from where we are. But I’m not optimistic or confident that I’ll ever find something which will be as real and as rewarding as this…

["Dawn Lady"]

These scripts - © SABC 2000. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.