How did a truth commission examining the final thirty four years of apartheid manage to construct an account of the past that did not place race center stage? This article will argue that a constellation of ideological contexts and practical…
The following paper evaluates the contribution of the South African TRC to current understandings of history, identity, and reconciliation. The argument presented here is that the TRC, in its determined pursuit of a particular kind of reconciliation, was ironically silent…
This paper uses the interviews conducted by Bernard Spong (alongside previous research by the author) to examine the way the church interacted with the TRC and how this has affected the approach of the church in addressing the challenge of…
This paper examines aspects of structural violence in South Africa and suggests that true reconciliation can be achieved only if these aspects are redressed. The structural violence of the past has vital implications for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's enterprise to acknowledge and rewrite an often denied history of human rights abuses. It raises vital questions as to the nature of economic development and its relation to new and ongoing forms of social conflict.
This report is a culmination of eleven workshops conducted by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation with a sample of victims/survivors who belong to Khulumani Victim Support Group. The aim of the workshops was to elicit the views of victims/survivors on the recommendations to be made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in its final report.
A range of organisations had previously worked on human rights abuses under apartheid, particularly through the 1980s, when detention without trial, assassinations, torture and disappearances were daily occurrences for the oppressed in South Africa. These organisations held a wealth of information in their files, which had been gained from the statements and affidavits of victims and their families, from court records, newspapers and reports. The advent of the TRC provided an opportunity for the organisations to provide their material to the TRC so that it could gain an accurate picture of human rights abuses. This paper describes the project which was set up for this purpose. The use of EVSYS for the project is outlined in detail and evaluative comments on the project as a whole are provided.
