TRC- your opinion?

[Fiona_j]

Hey!
What do you think about the work of the TRC? Do you think it was a good way to deal with the situation after SA was liberated from Apartheid? Did it work to gain ubuntu through the TRC? What solution (if not the TRC) would you have preferred?

Thx very very much to just spend a minute on (one of) my Questions I need your answers because I have to give a talk about the TRC in school and I have not yet really found out if the work of the TRC was succesful and what the southAfrican people think about it.
Lots of friendly greetings from Berlin!
Jenny

[Edited by Fiona_j on 16th May 2004 at 21:07]

[mluuu]

FIONA i personally feel that ,the TRC was a good start for a people who had a lot of differences, to be able to come out to the public and admit your mistakes, because we should understand that what ever happened, prior 1994 was a mistake ,it wasnt supposed to have happened,nobobdy deserved to die,nobody was supposed to be cruel to one another. this had to be the start, the work of a commission is not to procecute,but to gather facts and come up with a conclusion.A lot of our black people prior to 1994 felt that the principle of eye for an eye was best, now that would have been another option ,but then that was not good, as i said before all that happened was a mistake,killing another person because he killed is not the answer, sending another person to jail because he jailled other people for no reason was to to reconsile this nation, so the be option was for us to sit down and talk,admit our mistakes.Ubuntu was gained because finally got to settle down our fears of not knowing what happened to our fathers ,brothers ,friends and neigbours who disappeared,some only to be fond dead the next morning, some never to be seen till todays,some swallowed by the walls of prisons . Even though anot all south african were satisfied but a significant number were, for the sake of reconsiliation it happened.

[ches]

Here is the official TRC website: http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/

I highly recommend that you spend time there. The website contains information on how the TRC worked, as well as transcripts of the evidence and the verdicts. You will be surprised to see that many, if not most, of the amnesty applications were denied. (The amnesty was for criminal prosecution, and in many cases, people had already been prosecuted and served extended jail terms.)

The TRC was pioneering and was internationally acclaimed. Its model is being copied for other situations. (I could be wrong, but I think Bosnia is applying it.)

The purposes of the TRC were many. The spirit of reconciliation that the TRC fostered was almost a lucky byproduct.

Mostly, the people of South Africa needed answers. "My son disappeared in 1968. People say he was friends with people who were associated with the ANC. Please, can you tell me what happened to him? Is he still alive?"

The apartheid regime could never have succeeded if it were not for the help of many African people. Africans would be picked up for petty crimes and told they could choose between prison and being an informant. Some Africans were so indoctrinated, they did not believe that they really were equal. They wished that the "troublemakers" would stop so that the police stopped coming into the townships to make their lives hell.

Whatever the motivation, there were numerous informers and the people never knew who they were. This meant that they had to be on their guard and often their loved ones did not know that they were involved with the liberation movements.

The worst atrocities of the apartheid regime took place after the mid 1960's. The struggle prior to 1961 was peaceful, and the transition to armed struggle was slow, because in the midst of the transition, the main protagonists for it were rounded up and put on trial (the "Rivonia Trial") and sent off to Robben Island "for life" in 1964.

The liberation movements were forced underground, and the training for the armed struggle took place in neighboring countries.

Young men and women would disappear in the night and nobody would know whether the police had picked them up and they were in jail, had been beaten or tortured to death, or were in Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique or Tanzania undergoing training or fighting against the South African army who were indulging in cross-border activities in Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Hundreds of "comrades" died on the battlefields of foreign lands, and their families never got to hear of it.

The TRC offered amnesty from prosecution in return for the whole truth. There was a cut-off date for amnesty applications. In return, you were given a date to come and tell your story to the TRC. The families of your victims would be present, and you would have to answer questions.

People had lived in uncertainty and anguish for so long that they were ready for closure. They could handle the truth and they needed the truth. An ocean of tears was spilled at the TRC hearings, and as many were spilled in grief as those spilled in regret or relief.

Many people whom the Commission felt had not been completely open and honest were refused amnesty from prosecution.

The closure was as much for the oppressors as for the oppressed. Few people understand how good the apartheid regime was at what it did. A generation of people were left wondering who and what Nelson Mandela and the ANC, PAC, SACP were on February 10th, 1990. Songs, books, magazines, newspapers were censored. Children were miseducated in schools. People literally didn't know any better, and then, suddenly, after February 1990, their eyes were opened and they realised what a big mistake they had made. The TRC allowed them to own up to their mistakes.

Do not get me wrong: some things are possible out of ignorance, others are unforgivable. No matter how you were raised, somewhere in your head you must know that to beat a man simply because he is black and he wants a better life for his people is just not right. The majority of white South Africans, however, lived in ignorance of the fact that black people wanted a better future. Let alone that they were entitled to one.

The government tried at every junction to prevent them accessing that notion. The government was very good at what it did.

Just as all the Germans who voted for Hitler were not evil, nor were all the South Africans who voted for the National Party. White South Africa was as much a propaganda state as Nazi Germany.

Once the propaganda ceased and people's eyes were opened, they felt remorse and the TRC gave them an outlet.

In summary, I would say that the TRC was a way of writing down the true history of our country under apartheid, while at the same time providing an outlet to the people of South Africa for their grief, anger and remorse. It was a place for the oppressor to meet the oppressed and say "I am sorry. It will never happen again." It was a way for the people of South Africa to see the consequences of their actions.

As many black people testified to attrocities as white people. The perpetrators of the St James Massacre and the Heidelburg Tavern massacre, for instance.

As people testified, their testimony was translated. The hearings of the TRC were televised and after its conclusion, the transcripts were published in local newspapers.

The truth will indeed set you free, and the TRC is probably more to credit for the peaceful transition to democracy than any other factor.

[Fiona_j]

Wow, thank you so much for your serious and quick replies! Especially you, Ches! You didn't just spent a minute but real effort to answer, Thanx again. Dankeschön!
I read a lot of the information on the official trc-website and i read the hearings concerning the murder of Steve Biko (well I read about Siebert and Snyman - it's so much text... my eyes nearly turned into cubes). And for my talk I shortened the hearing with siebert so that we can read it in class. Just to give an impression how these amnesty hearings might have been. And I'll let them judge at the end wheather they would have granted amnesty or not. But it's really shocking what Siebert says during the hearing, what they did to Steve Biko and why.

So I hope it'll all go well tomorrow in the talk and please go on posting your opinion on the TRC, ppl! I put this thread as a link on my hand out, so every one from my class can see what you think about the TRC.

Eventually the sun came out today, so sunny greetings to South Africa and the rest of the world from Jenny in Berlin!

[ches]

Good luck!