The Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
A Foundation for Community Reconciliation?Hugo van der Merwe & Lazarus Kgalema
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been heralded as a model for reconciliation politics in post-transition societies. Yet, while not detracting from its relative merit, this article raises some serious questions. The TRC has been a catalyst and had an impact on the way reconciliation is viewed, but the real work still needs to be done. The TRC operated at the level of national reconciliation, with relatively little impact on building local reconciliation capacity.
TRC's Achievements?
The TRC has made reconciliation a public issue, and encouraged people to think about what they want to see in a reconciliation process. They have been made to articulate and voice their needs and goals. Political parties, churches and NGOs have considered their positions or policies. Victims of human rights abuses have been given an incentive to voice their concerns, become more organized, and now have an agenda. Ex-combatants have also been challenged to look at their stand on reconciliation and whether they have a role to play.
People from all sides have realized that reconciliation will require sacrifices. Victims realize that their rights have been compromised: there appears to be a slow shift from hopelessness and outrage to more pragmatic engagement and longer term strategizing.
Whites in general are still largely in denial. While blacks have been surprisingly forgiving, there is also a strong sense that reconciliation will ultimately demand something from those who benefited from apartheid. Direct perpetrators are not the only ones expected to account for their actions: the TRC has helped create awareness of the heavy price, and the continuing enjoyment of white privileges. The miracle of transition has given way to the complexity of competing rights and interests.
This process has generated conflict. Rather than leading to greater unity, disagreements about what reconciliation means, and what an appropriate process would be, has led to greater visibility of differences and increased tensions. The power of symbols of national unity (a new flag, the president, etc.), with their appeal to a sense of commonality have begun to wane. While emphasizing shared identity, they also obscured the divisions that still needed to be worked through. No longer is there glib talk about Mandela's rainbow: we know there is a lot that still needs to be thrashed out. We can not deny that the painful path forward will demand sacrifices from all sides.
Reconciliation through truth
The TRC presented a basic formula for reconciliation. Firstly, Reconciliation has to be based on full public knowledge. People can not be expected to forget what happened to them, nor to simply forgive the perpetrator unless they know what they are forgiving them for. Perpetrators must account for their actions. Secondly, victims must be compensated. While the state has morally taken over this responsibility (as a result of giving perpetrators immunity from civil actions by victims) perpetrators are still seen as owing a debt. The need for reparations, both symbolic and material is recognized. Many people still question the fairness or viability of this formula, and wonder whether the state will fulfil its obligation, for it has in effect indemnified itself. Payment to victims is not a legal obligation, only a moral imperative.
The viability of the "reconciliation through truth" formula has also been fundamentally undermined by the probability that most of the truth, at least of individual cases of human rights abuses, will remain hidden. We may know more about the various secretive state security structures' actions, but the actual perpetrators' identities will remain hidden or, for those who suspect specific persons, officially unconfirmed.
Victims break the silence
Giving the victims the chance to tell their stories in public has been tremendously powerful. The silence has been broken. Victims initially were reluctant to speak, have now often become angry that they have not been given enough of a voice. When the TRC leaves a community, the victims who did not get a chance to testify in public are very outspoken in their demands that it come back "and do its job properly" so that the full story can be told. Some victims feel that their suffering has gone unrecognized. Others feel that important aspects of their community's history have been left out, especially that certain perpetrators or a group responsible for ongoing suffering have not been exposed.
In its brief lifespan, the TRC has managed to paint in very broad strokes a picture that illuminates certain aspects of South Africa's painful history. It has, understandably, focused on the more general patterns of abuse and suffering. Yet, each community had its own specific dynamics, its own forms of shame and martyrdom. Some felt that the TRC was just a circus, whose statement taking process simply allowed individuals to perform according to a predetermined script, telling the TRC's version of the story.
A foundation for community reconciliation?
If we see the TRC as an intervention aimed at achieving some level of community reconciliation, then it is a failure. If it is seen as the start of a process, then it can be evaluated much more positively, especially if we recognize reconciliation as a process that requires empowerment, confrontation, pain, dialogue, exchange, experimentation, risk-taking, the building of common values and identity transformation.
Some communities have been divided against themselves by the apartheid struggle. People still live in fear of certain perpetrators, who themselves fear exposure. Suspicions and accusations about who informed or collaborated still create an atmosphere of mistrust and resentment. Other communities were split by political conflicts which also led to ethnic alignment and hostility. These tensions are only slowly being overcome as people try and recreate a sense of normality. Divided communities must undergo a process of reconciliation, rediscovery or recreation of community. For blacks and whites, it is not a question of returning to something that existed before: it is a process of creating something new.
The TRC has engaged people in a renewed debate about options for the future, looking beyond simple co-existence to deeper forms of community. In the process, however, the basis for our co-existence is also being challenged.
After the trc
As the TRC started realizing its limitations it increasingly presented itself as simply a first step in the reconciliation process. It has indeed set something in motion, but can this momentum be sustained? Is the process powerful enough to overcome all the obstacles to transformation? In some communities where the TRC did achieve a lot, there appears little hope that the process will be carried further.
In some cases where the TRC's community hearing elicited wide and enthusiastic interest, victims organized themselves, became vocal about their concerns, and started challenging the power structures that were resisting transformation. The disappointment that followed the TRC's exit from the community - the lack of investigations into perpetrators, the lack of follow-up of victim's concerns and a feeling of having been used - left little enthusiasm for further reconciliation efforts.
In other communities, victims and other groupings have managed to sustain an organized voice. Other initiatives emerged that did not rely on the TRC to address their problems. The TRC spurred mobilization or facilitated clearer articulation of needs and ideas, and legitimized certain voices, goals and strategies. People are now looking at other sources to take this process further and with greater sensitivity for local particularities.
Conference on trc-ngo relations
A conference hosted by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) in April evaluated the achievements of the TRC and examined the role of civil society in carrying forward the Commission's work. Delegates identified various key priorities, including reparations, prosecutions and investigations.
The TRC will only provide minimal relief to some victims, in the form of Urgent Interim Reparations. Its proposals to government regarding more substantial reparations are likely to take time, and be compromised by national budgetary constraints. Ongoing lobbying to ensure that substantial reparations are provided will be needed. The nature of these reparations are likely to include financial aid, symbolic forms of remembrance and recognition.
One participant quoted philosopher Hannah Arendt: "One can only forgive those whom one can punish", to highlight the fact that people were still angry with perpetrators. The conference realized that anger still exists amongst victims, particularly as very few perpetrators had come forward to confess their role in past atrocities. A call to address further prosecutions was widely supported; delegates recommended that prosecutions must be pursued against those who did not apply for and those who failed to secure amnesty. The NGO sector was asked to assist victims in instituting appeal proceedings for certain amnesty decisions. A need for therapeutic services for perpetrators, who must perform community services as a personal act of reparation, was also proposed.
Many victims expressed the need for further truth recovery as few of the perpetrators had come clear about the past, and many amnesty applicants appeared to have only revealed convenient aspects of the truth. One suggestion was for the TRC's investigative unit to continue after the Commission's demise, or for a body with similar investigative powers to be established.
One widely supported suggestion was to publicize the names of amnesty recipients and to bar them from holding public office.
Much of the burden for future reconciliation initiatives will rest with NGOs and church structures, most of whom have been involved in this work for many years. The TRC has introduced both new opportunities and new obstacles. One common complaint is that the TRC has not engaged people sufficiently in its work. In its attempt to be even handed, it has distanced itself from civil society. Many fear that that it will be difficult to pick up where the TRC left off without any clear co-ordination among the different sectors.
Hugo van der Merwe is a Project Manager and Lazarus Kgalema is a former Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.
In Reconciliation International, June 1998
© Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation
