Special Report Transcript Episode 85, Section 2, Time 18:10

Let’s come back to Johannesburg. The question now of equal treatment, of one sidedness. Let’s take one part of that. I’m speaking to both of you. Should we have treated or should the Truth Commission have treated perpetrators of gross human rights violations on the apartheid government’s side on exactly the same level as perpetrators of gross human rights on the liberation movement’s side. Dr Mandela, your feelings. // Well, I think that if a country has decided that we’re going to go through a truth commission in an era where we have just established a democratic country, which is free, some level of fairness - one will say objectively - should have prevailed, but … // Did it you think? // I think to a certain extent it did. One has to understand, I don’t think there’s any process that has been engineered by human beings that has ever been perfect and one cannot expect that this process engineered by the ANC should be perfect in every respect. It’s an experiment as Donald Woods has said, experiment of its first kind in the world, and hopefully we’ll learn from that experiment. But I think that the ANC has been very open, very transparent in terms of how it has done things. Yes, people can complain that these were political appointees. It was a process that was in place. But the process right from its inception was transparent.

Notes: Max du Preez; Maki Mandela

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