Special Report Transcript Episode 17, Section 6, Time 35:08

We asked the lawyers of the Bafokeng tribe and the two applicants Greg Nott and Brian Currin what the verdict means. // It was great news for the two applicants. I believe they were released today at ten o’clock. And I think for the whole community itself, if one was there to actually hear the application and to see and feel the effect on the community, it means a reconciliation within the Bafokeng nation itself, the community. It was almost tangible when looking and hearing the application. And so, for the community, it’s going to be a healing, a rift that was there is now going to be healed and we’ll move on. In fact it’s a sort of microcosm for the greater good of South Africa. // The importance of the Amnesty Committee’s process as opposed to the Human Rights Violations Committee is that that is the forum where the perpetrator meets the victim and the family members of the victim and that’s what we witnessed during that particular application, where the applicants asked for forgiveness from the family of the deceased. // And the community itself. // And the community. But what was also interesting was that the sons of the deceased also asked forgiveness of the tribe and asked to be accepted into the tribe because they’d been ostracized as a result of their association with Lucas Mangope. So it was a two way forgiveness and reconciliation which took place. // At least a few thousand perpetrators are dying to know how the judges’ minds work on this issue. Do we know more now? // I think we know a little bit more, not as much more as I would have liked. What we for example know is that murder by its nature is not excluded because of its gravity.

Notes: Greg Nott; Brian Currin; Nott; Currin; Du Preez; Currin

References: there are no references for this transcript