Commissioning the Past: Understanding South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annelies Verdoolaege ◽  
Deborah Posel ◽  
Graeme Simpson ◽  
Lyn S. Graybill
Keyword(s):  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past

EXPRESS: New Order and Old Institutions: South Africa and the Institutional Work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2021 ◽  
pp. 017084062110062
Author(s):  
Tapiwa Seremani ◽  
Carine Farias ◽  
Stewart Clegg
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
New Order ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Maintenance Work ◽  
Institutional Maintenance ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

The paper contributes to literatures on settlements and institutional maintenance work. It does so by unpacking post-settlement legitimation efforts required to maintain contentious institutions between previously conflicting actors. Settlements often necessitate the maintenance of institutions from the past whose legitimacy is dubious for the new regime. We study the role played by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in re-legitimating and maintaining the institution of the armed forces in the transition from apartheid to democracy. Maintaining this legitimacy required collaboration between the incoming government as well as the apartheid era armed forces. We term these unexpected collaborative efforts “reluctant accommodation work”. Our findings show that the lines of allegiance may be more fluid than currently depicted in the literature. Actors that previously conflicted need to find an interest in collaborating in their efforts to shape central institutions. Second, we show that for settlements to shape the field, they need to agree on the terms of collaboration, what we term “passage points” as well as engage in public ceremonies to broadly legitimate the settlement and the institution it seeks to preserve.

scholarly journals Khoisan Identity: A Contribution towards Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Stephanus Klaasen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Significant Period ◽  
Fixed Boundaries ◽  
Or History

This article seeks to explore the identity of the Khoisan as symbolic for reconciliation in South Africa. What contributions can the narrative of a marginalised people such as the Khoisan make to reconciling a divided nation such as South Africa? The Khoisan have been victims of continuous dispossession since the arrival of Bartholomew Diaz at the Cape in 1488. However, it was the taking of land in 1657 from the Khoisan for the free burgers that marked a significant period for the current discourse on land and for identity and reconciliation within post-apartheid South Africa. Notwithstanding the attempts by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to use narratives for healing, restoration, and continuing engagement with the meta-narratives of the past, my own use of narrative is open-ended with space for dialogue through interaction. The past or history does not have fixed boundaries, but rather blurred boundaries that function as spaces of transcendence. The narrative approach has four interactionist variables which are personhood, communication, power as reflected experience, and fluid community. I point out weaknesses of the use of narrative by the TRC as well as the interaction between experience and theory by practical theologians to construct an open-ended narrative of the Khoisan for reconciliation in South Africa.  

scholarly journals A Bridge to Reconciliation: A Critique of the Indian Residential School Truth Commission

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Flisfeder
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Dispute Resolution ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
Dispute Resolution Mechanism

In the past year, the Government of Canada has established the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to address the deleterious effect that the IRS system has had on Aboriginal communities. This paper argues that the TRC as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism is flawed since it focuses too much on truth at the expense of reconciliation. While the proliferation of historical truths is of great importance, without mapping a path to reconciliation, the Canadian public will simply learn about the mistakes of the past without addressing the residual, communal impacts of the IRS system that continue to linger. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission must therefore approach its mandate broadly and in a manner reminiscent of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples of 1996.

scholarly journals Recognizing Settler Ignorance in the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Cook
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
White Ignorance

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been mandated to collect testimonies from survivors of the Indian Residential Schools system. The TRC demands survivors of the residential school system to share their personal narratives under the assumption that the sharing of narratives will inform the Canadian public of the residential school legacy and will motivate a transformation of settler identity. I contend, however, that the TRC provides a concrete example of how a politics of recognition fails to transform relationships between Native and settler Canadians not only because it enacts an internalization of colonial recognition, but because it fails to account for what I call “settler ignorance.” Work in epistemologies of ignorance and epistemic oppression gives language to explain sustained denial and provide tools to further understand how settler denial is sustained, and how it can be made visible, and so challenged. For this task, Mills’s articulation of white ignorance should be expanded to a consideration of white settler ignorance. Over and above an account of white ignorance, such an account will have to consider the underlying logics of settler colonialism. This characterization of settler ignorance will show that the denial of past and ongoing violence against Indigenous peoples, through the reconstruction of the past to assert the primacy of settlers, is not explainable in terms of a lack of recognition but is rather structural ignorance.

South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Process and International Humanitarian Law

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 254-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dugard
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
International Community ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The South ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
African Experience

Since its establishment in 1995, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has captured the attention of an international community preoccupied with the problem of dealing with crimes of the past in divided societies. While the creation of a permanent international criminal court to punish those guilty of atrocities constituting international crimes has been the first priority, the international community has, albeit grudgingly, accepted that there may be circumstances in which amnesty and reconciliation hold out more hope for troubled societies than punishment. This realisation has led to the search for an acceptable alternative to punishment that does not result in absolute amnesty for those guilty of gross human rights abuses. The South African model, of conditional amnesty accompanied by the uncovering of the past, appears to offer such an alternative. This factor, together with the relief over the fact that apartheid has at last been laid to rest, accounts for the interest shown in the South African experience.The present note will not attempt to describe and analyse the South African precedent in detail. Instead it will provide an overview of the history, establishment and work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC); examine the significance of the Report of the TRC for international humanitarian law; and consider the status of amnesty under contemporary international law in the context of the South African experience.

scholarly journals Reparating Women’s Rights Violation Within Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
M.Yakub Aiyub Kadir ◽  
Firmanila Firmanila
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Indonesian Government ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Free Aceh Movement

The establishment of Aceh TRC is based on the 2005 peace agreement between the Indonesian Government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which then regulated under Act No. 11 year 2006 on Governing of Aceh, and was manifested through the Aceh Qanun No. 17 year 2013 on Aceh TRC. Three years later, the commissioner of Aceh TRC was chosen and inaugurated by Aceh House of Representative on July 2016. This paper investigates Aceh TRC and its progress in fulfilling the rights of women as the victim of Aceh’s conflict,  challenges and some recommendation for better implementation of TRC. Using a normative and empirical research, this paper found that Aceh TRC is an institution to uncover the truth of the past human rights violations, to achieve reconciliation and to recommend a comprehensive reparation. Currently (May 2019), Aceh TRC is collecting data to achieve the first goal that is uncovering the truth, while the rights of women as victim in Aceh’s conflict is remain alienated. It is recommended that Aceh TRC should implement the urgent reparations as soon as possible considering the condition of the women’s victim and their rights, and also for the central and provincial government to be supportive in terms of financial and moral support.

Evaluating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2001 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stanley
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Level

Following a negotiated transition to democracy in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established to deal with crimes of the past regime. Despite the detail of submissions and the length of the Final Report, this article highlights the partiality of truth recognised by the Commission. The usefulness of acknowledged truth to deal with South Africa's past is shown to have been neutralised by wider concerns of social and criminal justice. In detailing the governmental reticence to provide reparations, the judicial disregard to pursue prosecutions, and the dismissal of responsibility for apartheid at a wider social level, the author argues that opportunities for reconciliation and developmental change are limited. Against the problems of crime, violence and unresolved land issues, the potential of the TRC to build a ‘reconciliatory bridge’ is called into question. The truth offered by the Commission increasingly appears of limited value.

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