TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Part minority_position

Subsection 1

■ WHY A MINORITY POSITION?

6 The structure of the Commission was envisaged by the founding Act as an eighteen-month project with a clear three months to compile a report with recommendations to the President. No preparatory work was done. No infrastructure existed. No Commissioner was appointed because of any management expertise. We were all aware of the hugeness of the task and the urgency thereof. We hit the ground running. We did not plan our programme and scope of activities clearly. We initially agreed on an executive committee to plan and co-ordinate the Commission. For reasons that escaped my understanding, it was decided to abolish the executive on the grounds that it was ultra vires the Act. The deputy chair was mandated with overall planning and management responsibilities. In keeping with his responsibility, an outline for the report was prepared by a committee, with proposals for assigning different chapters to various authors, and the Research Department was given overall responsibility for its compilation. I had serious misgivings on both the principle and effect of submitting an outline for the report before we had reached a shared understanding of what we wanted to achieve, and before there had been some discussion on the analysis of data, which at that stage was in the early stages of being captured. The Commission accepted that discussion should precede drafts. A special meeting was arranged (facilitated by the head of Research and his staff) to discuss our understanding of the mandate and certain concepts and principles. This led to a process of drafts, lengthy discussions and positive interactions.

7 Our ever-expanding range of activities placed serious constraints on the time available. Meetings for discussion of the final report were often cancelled or reduced, yet we had to finish what we had set out to achieve. I give credit to the head of Research and his staff who tried their level best to facilitate discussions. Soon we fell back on a system of draft preparation followed by discussion, whilst at the same time working to meet the other requirements of the Act (victim findings, perpetrator findings, urgent interim reparation and amnesty hearings). Even reading of draft chapters became virtually impossible. We reverted to a committee system to read, discuss and recommend to the Commission the adoption of drafts. Of course, every Commissioner was entitled to attend and participate fully in any Committee discussion. However, since it was impossible even to read everything, the need to ‘trust each other’ became a recurrent theme. Of course we trust each other. But we can at best trust each other to reflect honestly our own narrow understandings and interpretations of information and data, not those of our fellow Commissioners. As I have already said, we all interpret facts to fit our various value systems.

8 As it is, various findings appear to me to display, if not a lack of understanding of, then certainly a lack of empathy with certain groups living within traditional or nationalistic value systems who were party to the conflict.

9 Furthermore, it became clear in plenary sessions for the adoption of the report that the discussions were based on the drafts, and the limited time for such discussion precluded any structural or philosophical change. The schedule for adoption and printing, determined by the lead times for editing by the Research Department and for the actual printing of the report, made any fundamental change impossible.

10 It followed that drafts virtually became final documents by default. Where already it had been impossible to read all, we now found it impossible even to check revised drafts, even though Commissioners had serious reservations on some of them. Speaking for myself and considering the sheer volume of this report, much of which I haven’t read, it goes against the grain for me to endorse (or reject) what I am surely not prepared or able to defend after publication. I proposed a delay in finalising the report, with some support but ultimately without success. Publication will lead to some reaction that we might have been able to avoid.

11 We agreed that I should withdraw from plenary sessions to read as much as was possible and prepare a position within the body of the report. Even where I did not share the views expressed, I would comment for the sake of a clear and better understanding of such views.

12 I sincerely hope that we will be able to find a way to revisit this report in our supplementary report after completion of the amnesty process, and that this report can be viewed as preliminary. I hope damage will be limited. The public debate that will ensue will assist us. My signature attached to this report is my identification with the idea and process envisaged in the Act. It is not to be read as an endorsement of the content.

13 What follows should therefore be seen as an attempt to facilitate a debate, which is bound to continue, with the aim of further promoting the overarching goal of national unity.