NCJ Number
204868
Date Published
2004
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This chapter analyzes the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which focused on discovering the truth about the past in terms of victims, perpetrators, and apartheid.
Abstract
Truth commissions tend to be mounted at times of political transition in order to discover the “truth” about the illegitimacy of past political regimes. The truth discovered through such truth commissions tends to promote the transition of political power and enhance the new authority by shining light on the old political authorities’ illegitimate activities. The current analysis examines two aspects of the TRC work: the collection of knowledge that is authorized as truth and how knowledge becomes qualified as truth. The authors assert that truth commissions enact possibilities that are desirable under new authorities, possibilities such as victim’s dignity. The TRC is viewed as creating or enacting both democracy and justice by exposing the official version of truth about victims, perpetrators, and apartheid. Six sections comprise the chapter; the first two present a brief description of the TRC process. Meeting for the first time in December 1995, the Commission assigned three committees, two of which are discussed: the Committee on Human Rights Violations and the Committee on Amnesty. A series of hearings were held in which the truth was sought through the telling of victims’ and perpetrators’ stories. The next three sections turn to an analysis of the TRC’s treatment of victims, perpetrators, and history. The restorative justice process mounted by the TRC recruited the participation of victims, who were then labeled the truth-holders. These truth-holders recounted narratives of a “shameful past” which legitimated and celebrated the efforts of the new administration. Perpetrators were not as TRC-compliant as victims had been and did not produce the desirable narrative, thus the commissioners adjusted the script to produce satisfactory results resembling their official truth. Finally, the past in the TRC inquiry was left virtually unexamined as part of the TRC strategy of reconciliation. If reconciliation and acceptance of a new administration were to be realized, it was important not be demonize South Africans altogether. Thus the past was glossed over as “background” to a report that focused only on specific incidents rather than an entire history of human rights violations. In the end, the truth produced by the TRC was far from historically accurate yet helped accomplish social order. Notes, references