Closing a painful chapter in SA history

A significant chapter in South Africa's history closed on Friday with the handing over of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) final report.

President Thabo Mbeki was to receive the TRC document from its chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on national Human Rights Day.

The TRC was formed to delve into South Africa's apartheid past. It was an exercise in forgiveness, nation building and healing.

Since its first hearings in 1996 the TRC has heard evidence from tens of thousands of victims and perpetrators, granted amnesty to 1,200 people, but refused to give amnesty to 5,500 other applicants. Providing full disclosure of crimes and proving that they were politically motivated were critical to successfully applying for amnesty from the TRC.

The final report, including 22,000 case summaries, was delayed by a legal challenge brought by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). The IFP for years fought a bloody turf war with supporters of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) during apartheid.

The IFP instituted legal action after the TRC presented its report to former president Nelson Mandela on 29 October 1998. The report described the IFP, under the leadership of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, as the "primary non-state perpetrator ... responsible for approximately 33 percent of all the violations reported to the commission".

Buthelezi took umbrage and a settlement was presented to court in which the TRC agreed to certain changes to its final report. It also agreed to include an appendix to the agreement in which the IFP and its leader could express their views about the changes to the report.

However, the IFP still maintains that the final TRC report is a "flawed product of a flawed process conducted with flawed motives", its national chairman was quoted as saying on Friday.

Meanwhile, lobby groups have called for the payment of reparations for victims of gross human rights abuses under apartheid. Reparations have become a thorny issue for the present government, which has been accused of not doing enough to compensate genuine victims of rights abuse during apartheid.

The Khulumani NGO issued a statement saying that while it acknowledged the "complexity of the process that the government is faced with", the process of reparations was an integral "part of the healing of the nation". The Apartheid Debt and Reparations Campaign, Jubilee South Africa, said the issue of accountability for reparations for apartheid human rights violations was still unresolved and vowed to continue its fight for compensation for survivors.

One analyst told IRIN that despite these outstanding issues, the TRC's final report was the conclusion of a long and painful chapter in South African history.

"The main problem is that an event which should be significant is being completely overshadowed by the war [in Iraq], but also by the fact that with [recent] floor crossing legislation, the South African political community has focussed on other things. To a large extent the report of the TRC gains its significance and stature from the extent to which the politicians accept it, adopt it and convey its meaning to their supporters," said Paul Graham, executive director of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.

As to the report's significance, Graham added: "It is the end of an important chapter in our transition. What remains now is for a commitment to be made to reparations and more importantly, implementation of some of the recommendations the TRC made in its initial reports, such as the development of a culture of democracy and non-racialism. These things are still visions to be achieved in South Africa."

The TRC report was being given to a nation which, "while it is a new state, nevertheless has inherited the responsibilities of the past and therefore needs to take responsibility to declare publicly that a period is closed and a new period has begun", he added.