South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

a historical and philosophical backgroundTsering TashiDepartment of Political ScienceCentral European University

Apartheid

literally means “"the state of being apart”

An officially structured policy of racial segregation.

legislation by the National party 1948 to 1994.

classified into four groups: black, white, colored and Indian.

But racial segregation was rooted since the colonial period

under Dutch and British Empire.

Series of intolerable acts passed ❖ The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949: prohibition of interracial marriage. ...sexual relations

between different races is a criminal offence.

❖ Population Registration Act of 1950: laid the foundation of racial discrimination by issuing identity cards

specifying their racial groups.

❖ Group Areas Act of 1950: government decided where a person had to live according to his race ….forceful

removal of people from their original land.

❖ The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953: white privileges.. example: separately reserved

school, library, university for white population.

❖ all socioeconomic and political rights are deprived.

Arend LijphardIntroduced the idea of consociational democracy.

Power-Sharing in South Africa (1985)

“The choice will be between sharing power and losing power”

“I think i really made an important contribution to politics

especially in south African context. i am prouder of that achievement

than any particular piece of writing i have done”

The South African Model: sought a middle way to deal with the past

Nelson Mandela committed to forgiveness and urged his own people to work for reconciliation

Archbishop Tutu was appointed as the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation

No retributive justice

No blanket amnesty

South African Model: included elements of both models to deal with the legacy of gross human rights violation

Ubuntu and Restorative justice

The sense of restorative justice was sought based on their deep belief in Ubuntuism.

TRC emphasizes that the process of forgiveness requires the perpetrator’s acknowledgement.

Both perpetrators and victims give their testimony.

The work of the TRC was accomplished through three committees:

❖ HRV Committee was authorized to investigate human rights abuses that occurred between 1960 and 1994 based on victim’s statement and personal stories.

❖ Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee was assigned the responsibility to restore the dignity of identified victims and formulating proposals to assist with rehabilitation.

❖ Amnesty Committee considered applications from individuals who applied for amnesty. Perpetrators were granted amnesty based on revealing the whole truth of their past act. (7112 petitioners, 5392 refused amnesty and 849 were granted amnesty)

A carrot and stick approach

Amnesty was granted based on individual based applications with full disclosure of crime on the part of perpetrators at public hearing (state actors and members of liberation movement)

The blending of Amnesty and disclosure was an innovative in the sense it is neither a total impunity nor a large-scale prosecution.

Questions:

Can the South African model be a good model for other post conflict societies to replicate?

Do you think the emotional wound of South Africa healed after all as former leaders were allegedly lied to commissioners or just confessed as a sort of formality?