TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 6

Subsection 3

Statement taking

15 The Commission employed trained statement takers and volunteers (called ‘designated statement takers’) from non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), religious and civic organisations to take statements from deponents. The statement taking process served two different functions. First, it helped to ensure that information on gross violations of human rights was gathered from victims of these violations. Second, it served a therapeutic purpose in that it provided victims with an opportunity to speak about their suffering or that of their families to people who listened sympathetically and acknowledged their pain. The methodological difficulties of attempting to serve both functions in the statement taking process will be discussed in greater detail.

16 The Commission took statements in three different ways.

a It took statements at its offices. In other words, trained statement takers, employed by the Commission, were available to take statements from victims who travelled to the Commission’s offices in their region.

b It took statements in communities. In these instances, statement takers attended hearings held by the Commission in various communities throughout South Africa. Because these hearings generated interest and awareness, they usually had the result of prompting people to come forward and make statements. In other instances, the Commission generated awareness about its work, either by holding public meetings in various communities, or by implementing a communications strategy in specific areas. Thereafter statement takers made themselves available to take statements in these areas.

c The third way in which the Commission solicited statements was through the designated statement taker programme.² This programme was launched by the Commission in order to extend its reach and to ensure that as many communities as possible were given the opportunity to make statements. The designated statement taker programme was funded by a foreign donor and involved training staff based in community organisations throughout the country to take statements on behalf of the Commission. The project increased the number of statements taken by the Commission by almost 50 per cent and allowed for a focus on victims in rural communities or those communities that had experienced a high incidence of human rights abuse. It also concentrated on communities in which the Commission did not hold hearings and in which, therefore, there may not have been knowledge about the Commission and its work. The local recruitment of statement takers meant, too, that victims could tell their stories in their mother tongue, often to people they knew, thereby enhancing the quality and reliability of the testimony and reassuring victims who felt apprehensive. Some, however, chose not to share intimate details with neighbours and others from their own communities – not least where differences between rival groups was a continuing factor.

Registration

17 The statements were brought back to the regional offices where they were registered on the Commission’s database. They were then photocopied and the originals stored in strong rooms.

Data processing

18 Each regional office employed a team of data processors who read and analysed the statements in order to identify each discrete violation of human rights mentioned in them. A statement might, for example, identify one or more victims, each of whom may have suffered one or more different violations of their human rights at different times in different places. The violations suffered by the victims were then categorised into one of the four violations types defined in the Act. Data processors also generated a brief narrative summary of each statement in order to provide those working on corroboration and findings with a quick overview of the salient facts.

19 The data processors identified the nature of each violation, its date and place, its consequences for the victim and the political context in which it occurred. They also noted the organisational affiliations of the victims and alleged perpetrators. Each violation of human rights was captured on the Commission’s database as a separate act. This provided the basis for a powerful and sophisticated analysis of the data gathered. It allowed, for example, for an analysis of the number and kinds of violations suffered by each victim over a period, as well as an assessment of the categories of victims who experienced the largest number of violations over certain periods in time. This analytic capacity greatly enhanced the quality of the final report.