As groups like the Consultative Group on the Past debate how best to deal with the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Bryan Collvisits South Africa to gauge the impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as the problems raised by its damaged legacy
IN A small room in downtown Johannesburg, Douglas Ntuli is sifting through a dauntingly high stack of forms. The 57-year-old reads page after page of scrawled handwriting before feeding each form through a scanner.
Once copied and logged in a database, the forms join the thousands of others spilling out of boxes, files and cupboards in the offices of the Khulumani Support Group. Next door, three of Ntuli's colleagues are following the same routine, their keyboards clattering incessantly.
In this administrative environment, Khulumani's needs assessment forms look fairly unremarkable. A quick glance though at the information they contain - first-hand accounts of murder, rape, police brutality and arson attacks - show these are anything but
ordinary pieces of paper. They are part of a library of evidence of human rights violations suffered by South Africans under the apartheid regime.
One neatly written form completed by an elderly woman explains how her son died after being thrown from a moving train by a policeman. A photocopy of his death certificate adds a silent weight to her story.
Since the beginning of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Khulumani (Zulu for "Speak Out") has processed more than 50,000 such forms. Ntuli and his colleagues are currently working through some 30,000 remaining submissions, with fresh batches arriving each month.
"We had to go and collect the forms in a van because there were so many," says director Dr Marjorie Jobson of recent field work in KwaZulu-Natal province.
Established after the first democratic elections of 1994, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission became one of the most powerful symbols of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. The court-like body received oral and written testimonies from South Africans who believed they were victims of the apartheid regime.
After receiving just under 22,000 declarations, the commission judged that 16,000 cases qualified as gross human rights violations. These "official" victims were the only individuals allowed to access financial reparations once the process terminated.
In addition to victims of apartheid, perpetrators of human rights abuses could also appear before the commission to ask for amnesty. According to Dr Jobson, however, the gaps in the commission's definition of victimhood have left thousands of South Africans out in the cold. "It was as if the TRC was saying [to victims], 'We know what's best for you. We will design a solution and you will live with it'."
About 90 per cent of those who have written to Khulumani to explain the crimes they suffered under apartheid did not participate in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Douglas Ntuli is one such case.
On June 16th, 1976 - the day of the Soweto uprising - Ntuli was shot by police while travelling on a train with friends. He survived, but remains semi-paralysed on the left side of his body. Ntuli says he was unable to testify at his local hearing as he lacked a valid form of identification.
Today, six years after the formal closure of the commission, Ntuli hopes that Khulumani's lobbying of the government will see his own case, and the thousands of others he helps process each month, being reconsidered.
"Victims have been short-changed by the TRC," says Zweli Mkhize, Khulumani's community liaison officer. "By confining people to categories, it added injury to inflicted wounds."
Mkhize, who was detained by police as a teenager because of his political activism, reserves his harshest criticism for the current South African government. He claims President Thabo Mbeki has little interest in meeting the needs of the growing number of South Africans now publicly declaring their individual suffering.
In its final report in 2003, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that each individual declared a victim by the commission be paid financial reparations over a six-year period to the sum of 120,000 rand (€9,650). However, the total amount eventually awarded by the Mbeki government was only a sixth of the recommended figure.
As well as dashing the hopes of officially recognised victims, Mkhize says the government has also turned a blind eye to compensation for the thousands of apartheid victims who remain outside commission criteria. He points to the 650 million rand (€5.2 million) in the president's fund from which victims can be paid, but which remains unspent.
"The big question is reparations and the empty promise of a better life for all," says Mkhize. "As survivors of gross human rights violations, we are misfits in this society."
Frustrated by political apathy to the crimes of apartheid, Khulumani has sought to raise awareness of its campaign abroad. The group is currently involved in a lawsuit filed in a US court against 23 multinationals it accuses of supporting and profiting from the apartheid regime.
At home, such is the hostility to Khulumani's work in government circles that the group's meetings and rallies are often monitored by South Africa's National Intelligence Agency.
"I despair of being perceived as the enemy," says director Marjorie Jobson. "We are trying to reclaim the dignity of people and we're being spied on because the government think we're a big threat."
In his foreword to the commission's final report, chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote: "The TRC process . . . is unique in the annals of history, one to be commended as a new way of living for humankind."
However, according to some of the leading personalities in the TRC, by setting the bar so high the commission gave itself an almost insurmountable challenge. "It was an impossible task in many ways," says Dr Alex Boraine, the commission's deputy chairman. "The standards were very high and inevitably we weren't going to able to meet them."
Boraine, a former president of the Methodist Church in South Africa, admits that the commission's granting of amnesty remains difficult for apartheid victims to accept, especially since the payment of reparations, seen by many as the quid pro quo for amnesty, is generally regarded as a failure.
"South Africa's settlement was a remarkable, open and laudable process but it was reached by the elites sitting round a table and millions were left out. There was a high price paid by people who had no part in the negotiations."
As one of the commission's principal architects, Boraine is understandably keen to salvage the TRC's increasingly damaged legacy. He believes it has become an easy target for victims. "Unfortunately some people want to stay as victims and it becomes almost a way of life for them," he says. "It's not healthy to constantly focus on victimhood. We should deal with the issue quickly and then move on."
As the former deputy chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's human rights violations committee, Yasmin Sooka's work on the commission saw her exposed to the brutality of the apartheid regime in its rawest form. Sooka believes "moving on" is impossible for many South Africans today.
The main obstacle in achieving reconciliation, she maintains, is no longer race, but class. "There has been no internalisation of what the commission meant. Yes, we might have had political reconciliation, but at a social and economic level, much more needs to be done."
A recent study carried out by the Ecumenical Foundation of Southern Africa (EFSA) demonstrates how the country's poverty gap has shown little sign of narrowing since the end of apartheid.
Today, South Africa is regarded as one of the most unequal countries in the world, with more than 40 per cent of the population living in poverty. About the same proportion of South Africans are also unemployed.
"In South Africa you can live quite happily in oblivion to what's going on if you're behind high walls and security," says Sooka. "The two worlds don't have to collide."
The country's recent wave of xenophobic murders, Sooka believes, has its roots in an increasing frustration at the failure of the commission's promises to materialise.
"At a time when South Africa was in transition, the TRC model was fantastic," she says. "The question is, where did we go wrong? We believed the mythology that we were a Rainbow Nation without having to work for it."
For Father Michael Lapsley, the scars of apartheid are simply part of daily life. The Anglican priest and former chaplain to the African National Congress was the victim of a letter-bomb sent to him by operatives of the apartheid state in 1990.
Lapsley survived, but lost both his hands and suffered severe burns in the attack. Today, instead of describing himself as a victim, Lapsley prefers the term "victor" - a conceptual change he believes many South Africans will find it difficult to make, as long as their suffering remains unacknowledged.
"Victims have moved from being centre- stage to being unpopular," he says. "People now think, 'you had your moment'." History's judgment of the commission, Lapsley believes, will depend on South Africa's success in tackling poverty and inequality. "If we go downhill, people will say the TRC was a waste of time, but if we get it together as a country, people will say it played a positive role."
The continuing question mark over the legacy of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is perhaps best demonstrated in Johannesburg's Apartheid Museum. After being issued with ID cards marked "white" or "non-white" at the museum's entrance, visitors journey from the earliest European settlements, through apartheid, the 1994 elections to the final exhibition: a selection of articles from the week's newspapers on apartheid-related themes, showing the stubborn residue of history in today's South Africa.
The only chapter of South African history the museum omits is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A small room with a bare concrete floor has been earmarked for a forthcoming TRC exhibition.
"They haven't decided what to put in there yet," says a museum security guard, gesturing towards the empty space. "It's a work in progress."