SEVEN weeks before its public hearings are due to begin South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has yet to open a file on any of the thousands of crimes committed for and against apartheid.
Not only does the commission have no files, it still has no cabinets to put them in. Its Cape Town headquarters, which officially opened this week, are unfurnished and largely empty. The chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has yet to recruit a chief executive officer and the budget still hasn't been agreed with President Nelson Mandela's government.
Many other key staff positions remain unfilled and it is still far from clear how the commission will operate even, it seems to the commission itself. Yet Archbishop Tutu remains characteristically upbeat. Briefing journalists in Cape Town this week, a day after he and the other 16 commissioners were publicly "sworn in" in St George's Anglican Cathedral, Dr Tutu said it was still hoped to have the first public hearings "on the Tuesday after Easter we think it has a symbolic significance".
South Africa cannot raise its dead, but with the Truth Commission it hopes to lay some of them to rest. The ultimate purpose of the commission is to compile a report which sets out, as fully as possible, the human rights abuses committed on both sides of the apartheid struggle.
The task is vast and has to be completed in 16 months' time, so to carry it out the commission will divide into three committees. The most prominent, initially at least, will be the amnesty committee. Comprising three Supreme Court judges and two other members, this will be empowered to consider applications for amnesty from people confessing to political crimes committed between 1960 and December 1993.
Amnesty can be granted without a hearing in respect of minor political offences cases involving "gross violations of human rights" murder, torture, disappearances, or "serious mistreatment" the commission must hold public hearings before amnesty can be granted.
Even in these cases, however, amnesty is guaranteed provided the criteria of date, political motive and full disclosure are met. On the other hand, those who are guilty of such crimes but fail to come forward risk prosecution under the due process of the law. Several senior officials of apartheid's security apparatus, including former defence minister, Gen Magntis Malan are already charged with murder.
The second committee, the human rights committee is to hold public hearings around the country to take testimony and complaints from the victims of crime.
The third committee, the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee, will deal with the victims of abuse or their surviving relatives and seek to aid those still suffering from the effects of violence, either physical or psychological. It has the authority to order the payment of reparations. According to Dr Tutu, the committee is designed to express the corporate contrition of society as a whole", and any payments will represent reparation rather than compensation.
Mrs Mary Burton, a former Black Sash chairwoman now serving on the Truth Commission, agrees that the reparation committee could in effect end up as a sort of veteran's administration.
Despite the detailed legislation to establish the committee, many aspects of its operation remain unclear even, it seems, to those running the commission. Definitions such as "serious mistreatment", "gross human rights abuse" and "political crime", for instance, will have to be tested when the commission is up and running.
Where applicants are granted amnesty the commission must publish their names in the government gazette, together with enough information to "broadly" identify the crimes for which they are amnestied.
The commission is to have its own investigation unit, research unit and computerised data base and enjoys the power to investigate, search and subpoena. The commission says it will use these powers, but whether its investigators will merely test the veracity of statements or actively seek out and identify male factors remains unclear.
According to Mrs Burton, the intention of the commission is to establish facts and promote reconciliation, not to hold a Nuremburg style inquisition. Ideally, it would end with all crimes accounted for and nobody punished.
She admits that such a perfect outcome is unlikely, and even Dr Tutu is prepared to admit that proceeding with the Truth Commission is a risky business for South Africa's tender new democracy.
"If we don't heal then we will destroy" he calmly told journalists this week.