Public Reconciliation at the South African Trc: the Impact of the Victim Hearings

Summary

THE SOUTH AFRICAN TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was called into existence in July 1995. The Preamble of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act No 34 of 1995 (the TRC Act) stated that the objectives of the TRC were to promote national unity and reconciliation, amongst others by establishing as complete a picture as possible of the gross violations of human rights which were committed under apartheid, by facilitating the granting of amnesty to apartheid perpetrators under certain conditions, and by providing recommendations to prevent future violations of human rights. In order to achieve these ambitious tasks, three committees were put into place: the Committee on Human Rights Violations (HRVC), the Amnesty Committee and the Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation.

The HRV Committee – which is the focus of this article – was in charge of collecting written victim statements and of organising the Human Rights Violations hearings, where a representative sample of victims was allowed to testify in public. The HRVC gathered close to 22,000 statements, covering 37,000 violations; this is more than any other previous truth commission had achieved. These statements were recorded by trained statement takers who conducted interviews with victims of apartheid all over the country. Between April 1996 and June 1997 a little under 2000 of these victims told their stories before the HRV Committee. Over these 15 months 83 hearings took place in public places such as town halls, schools, churches and civic centres. The emphasis of the HRV hearings was on “the validation of the individual subjective experiences of people who had previously been silenced or voiceless”. Supporters of the TRC claimed that to tell their stories of suffering and misery was a healing and cathartic experience for most of the victims. The mere fact that these survivors were allowed to talk about the past meant a lot to them; it showed that their experiences were officially acknowledged and this made them feel respected as human beings.

Because of the impact it had on the victims and also because the media brought this Committee to the attention of the national and international public, the Human Rights Violations Committee has often been considered as one of the most successful components of the TRC.