Special Report Transcript Episode 87, Section 1, Time 00:32

A warm welcome to the Special Report on the Truth and Reconciliation process. After almost two years of reporting to you every week this is our very last programme. We’re going to look back over the two years in this programme and we’re asking Archbishop Desmond Tutu to reflect on the process. We also ask the question: have we begun to create a new moral order in South Africa. The South African Truth Commission has been the biggest and most open process of its kind in history. It was created by legislation after negotiations between all the political parties who agreed to the settlement that brought us our freedom and democracy four years ago. The Commission has essentially four legs. First the Human Rights Violations hearings which dominated the first few months of the process. Any citizen who had been on the receiving end of a politically related gross human rights violation, that is murder, torture, abduction or severe ill treatment could make a statement to the Truth Commission. Some 2000 of these people were asked to tell their stories at public hearings. The second leg was special hearings. The Truth Commission also has the mandate to explain the history and context of what went wrong in our past and for this purpose it called on all political parties and many interest groups like the media, the medical profession and business to take part in public hearings. There were also special event hearings like those on the State Security Council and the wrongdoings of the Mandela United Football Club. The third leg is the hearings of the Amnesty Committees. Headed by judges of the High Court these Committees have the power to grant amnesty from prosecution to applicants who had committed politically motivated crimes. And the fourth leg of the TRC is reparation to and rehabilitation of victims of human rights violations. The bulk of that work is still to be done. My colleagues Anneliese Burgess, René Schiebe and Jann Turner prepared this compelling overview of the last two years.

Notes: Max du Preez

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