When should society tire of the voices of the past?

The kitchen of a small house in downtown São Paulo, Brazil, is the meeting place of the Comissão de Familiares de Mortos e Desaparecidos Politicas (Commission of the Families of Political Murder Victims and the Disappeared), an organisation of family members whose loved ones were killed during the military dictatorship in Brazil.

The kitchen is lined with filing cabinets that contain information collected by the families on some 400 cases of murder and "disappearances".

Unlike in South Africa, there was no official investigation in Brazil following the military regime. Without any governmental support, it has been these families and human rights activists who have had to try to find information on the "missing" and the dead.

Some 20 years since the "disappearances" the relatives are still trying to establish the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

During the period of military rule in Brazil (1964 to 1985) thousands of citizens were persecuted, forced into exile, murdered and tortured. The official lists compiled by human rights organisations report thousands of cases of torture, 240 people murdered and 144 missing. Relative to other countries in South America, these numbers are negligible.

Rafael Rabello de Barros, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Comparisons to the 30 000 "disappeared" in Argentina are of little comfort to the relatives who feel that the atrocities committed by the Brazilian government have received little attention since the passing of a general amnesty in 1979.

Although a civilian government was instated in 1985, the families of the "disappeared" have continued to seek the truth and draw attention to the numerous atrocities carried out by the past government.

Groups of this nature are not uncommon around the world, and such organisations have emerged in at least 16 countries. Most of these organisations have developed spontaneously.

Their roots lie often with relatives who have met as a result of their common experiences. Stories of meeting one another at government offices and police stations while seeking information about their loved ones are common.

Groups exist in almost all Latin American countries and have also been established in African countries such as Chad, Ethiopia and Morocco. Similar groups also operate in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Turkey, Croatia and in China.

These groups are diverse in membership and objectives, but generally share three common aims: a demand for information about what happened to their loved ones; a need for official acknowledgment; and a quest for justice in respect of those responsible.

In Latin America truth, social and psychological rehabilitation, and acknowledgment are generally placed before the need for compensation. As most of the groups have developed in the context of blanket amnesties, there is an ongoing demand for justice.

Impunity for crimes committed under military regimes is the issue that sits hardest with relatives of the murdered and "disappeared" throughout the world.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is one of the boldest international efforts to try to meet some of these needs. Unlike a "blanket amnesty", the commission trades full disclosure or "truth recovery" for amnesty - thus potentially meeting victims' needs for truth and public acknowledgment.

In South Africa, amnesty is justified as being necessary to ensure peace. It is considered that prosecutions could not have been guaranteed due to inefficiencies in the criminal justice system and a lack of access to information necessary to sustain successful prosecutions.

Most victims would probably agree that an investigation like the truth commission is a necessary first step to uncovering the truth. However, the onus is not on victims to accept any amnesty agreements. Rather, the commission has the responsibility to explain amnesties and has to be prepared for the angry responses.

It is critical that it is not demanded, either implicity or explicity, that victims are expected to forgive the perpetrators. Families' anger or other emotional responses to the granting of amnesty to perpetrators has to be legitimised and space provided for people to express their feelings.

The lessons from other countries are that amnesties are always unpopular. Ironically, if the truth is uncovered, this may stimulate rather than eliminate families' demands for justice.

Even with the efforts of the truth commission, the varied nature of the cases and the impossible search for the truth means that the issues of the past can be expected to remain on the agenda for many years.

Despite the Chilean Commission of 1991 being reported as the most successful truth commission to date, today people still seek to report past cases and many are unaware that the commission even took place.

In South Africa we need to guard against the attitude that once the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is over, the chapter on the past is closed. For the victims of past abuses, the chapter only closes when they are personally ready.

This can be more challenging than it sounds. Take one faction of the victims' group the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, for example, who refuse any form of reparation and compensation. They will not even participate in any official investigations or bodies, and insist: "You took them away alive, we want them back alive".

Perhaps they only want others to experience the frustration thay have felt and are determined to offer constant reminders that, in reality, there is nothing that can ever be done to replace their "missing" loved ones. As bizarre as this extreme position sounds, if we are to truly sympathise with victims we are required to understand it. 

In Brazil, the government has recently agreed to compensate the families for the murdered and "disappeared", but the relatives say compensation was never their goal. They see this as the government's final attempt to buy their silence and close the book on the past, but without disclosing the facts of what happened. 

As a result, the families of the "disappeared" in Brazil are referred to by both those from the left and the right as "dinosaurs". They are seen as harping on the past. The society is tired of these mothers who will not be appeased or who cannot forget.

The real question is: at what point does a society become tired of hearing the voices of the past? In South Africa, despite even the most valiant efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, we can expect to hear the voices of victims long into the future.

The challenge to all South Africans is to learn to cope with, and accept as legitimate, the ongoing anger and even impossible demands of victims who will continue their struggle for an ever-elusive truth.

Originally published by Brandon Hamber in Mail and Guardian, 24 March 1997

Brandon Hamber is a clinical psychologist and at the time was the co-ordinator of the Transition and Reconciliation Unit at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation

 

Rape a symptom of transitional turmoil

Media coverage of cases has mystified and distorted the problem by not showing that this violent crime knows no boundaries of race, class or politics

Since the recent high-profile rapes in the Johannesburg suburbs of Malvern and Observatory, the phones at the Trauma Clinic of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) have been ringing off the hook. In itself, this is not unusual. Nor has the already high proportion of callers seeking counselling because they have been raped, gang-raped or victimized through domestic sexual violence, changed significantly. However, in the past two weeks an unusually large number of the callers have been journalists whose primary questions have been: "Can you give statistics on the upsurge in the number of rapes in the last two months? What is causing this rape epidemic?". To us, it appeared as if South Africa had suddenly discovered rape.

It is not disputed that South Africa has a very high incidence of rape. Nor is there any doubt that for the survivors, rape is one of the most devastating personal traumas - not least because of the stigma and "shame" often endured by victims as a result of the popular misconceptions and mythology associated with this kind of crime. For all these reasons, media attention and civic education with respect to rape is clearly to be welcomed.

But sensationalist and emotional media responses have arguably done more to mystify and distort the problem of rape, than they have done to elucidate it. Any observer of the media coverage given to the Observatory and Malvern rape cases could be forgiven for making at least two assumptions which are intrinsic to the mythology associated with rape in South Africa. Firstly, they may well assume that the majority of rape cases are across racial lines - that most rapists are young black men and that their preferred victims are young white women. Secondly, readers may also assume that rape is mostly committed by sexually motivated strangers.

It is ironic that these are the very myths about rape that so many women's organisations, NGOs and rape counsellors have for years being trying to redress. Rape as a crime - and the trauma which it causes - knows no boundaries of race, class or political persuasion. Although available information is sketchy, it is nonetheless apparent that rape occurs considerably more frequently within racial groups than it does across the "colour line". In South Africa, the majority of rape victims are impoverished black women who can least afford or access the medical and psychological attention which they so badly require.

Furthermore, despite receiving considerable media attention, the majority of rapes do not occur between strangers. More often than not the perpetrators are not unknown intruders, but rather are known to the victims. "Date-rape", rape by neighbours, husbands, fathers and relatives are the most common types of rape. Rather than being a product of rampant sexual desire, rape is an assertion of power and a violent crime of aggression.

Finally, far from being "new", the magnitude of the problems of rape and gang-rape have been enduring manifestations of the turmoil and social conflict of violent transition in apartheid South Africa. For at least the last decade, the political and criminal violence rooted in apartheid - and which has so dominated the front pages of the commercial press - has been matched by incremental increases in the more "private" phenomena of rape, marital battery and child abuse. This has been an ongoing symptomatic manifestation of the growing powerlessness and perceived emasculation of men in this violence-ridden and traditionally male-dominated society.

Source https://www.csvr.org.za/in-the-shadow-of-femicide-the-unseen-trauma-of-families-in-search-of-healing-and-justice/

There are some clear illustrations of this. It is no coincidence that the phenomenon of "jack-rolling" - a colloquial term given to gang-rape - emerged in Soweto during the tumultuous township conflicts of the mid and late 1980s. The term has its origins in the name of a youth gang called the "Jack-Rollers" who's modus operandi was primarily the gang-rape of young girls, rather than any other more "traditional" forms of acquisitive crime.

Rape and violence against women or children, represents a "displacement of aggression" which is rooted in violent social conflict. In this manner, men of all races symbolically reassert their power and masculinity within the last social arenas in which they still traditionally hold sway - over women and children in the family and the home.

Child rape too has continued unabated. On any one day, clinical psychologists at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation's Trauma Clinic, may see as many as fifteen cases of child rape. Yet even with a welcome recent upsurge in public awareness of child abuse, such crimes have routinely gone under-reported or under-analyzed in the commercial press.

The actions of gang-rapists cannot be divorced from the decayed social fabric bequeathed by apartheid, including the "bastardization" of the family and the destruction of benevolent parental authority. Nor can it be detached from the deficits in our criminal justice system, the failures of our education system, entrenched sexism, or the history of institutionalised violence in South African society. However, the media have often failed by not reporting on these issues and the complexities of the social phenomenon of rape. Instead they have tended to focus on the "drama" of serial rape or have chosen to report on - and have frequently sensationalized - the human dramas of the victims. This has often involved painting doomsday scenarios of victims who are irreparably damaged and for whom there appears to be no solution and no future. These are precisely the wrong messages to convey to the 20 or so other women whose rapes go unreported for every reported rape case. These scenarios deny the experiences of the women and children who have survived the ordeal of rape and who have embarked on a process of healing.

Perhaps most striking is the lack of public and media attention given to the ordeal which survivors of rape must endure in the form of "secondary victimisation" which they go through at the hands of the criminal justice system in South Africa once they have reported their cases. It is positive that the Observatory and Malvern cases have cast the public spotlight on such issues as the application of bail regulations. However, much of this has been shaped by a punitive obsession with alleged perpetrators, rather than being viewed through the perspectives of the victims themselves.

It is not a tightening of bail regulations that secures successful prosecutions or that will re-build the popular credibility of our criminal justice system. Until we deal with the investigative incompetencies and the grave difficulties of transforming police investigations into successful prosecutions, our criminal justice system will continue to re-victimise rape survivors by failing to apprehend the rapists.

In his stated intention to amend the Constitution so as to limit the right to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the Minister of Justice substitutes our collective human rights for the failures of the criminal justice system, as the major source of impunity for rapists. Yet it is arguable that it is in fact the "politics of impunity" which is more responsible.

Originally published by  Graeme Simpson, Mary Robertson and Brandon Hamber in The Star, 23 January 1997. 

Graeme Simpson is a founder and former Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), Mary Robertson is a former Manager of the Trauma Clinic and Brandon Hamber is Director of INCORE, University of Ulster. 

 

Picking up the pieces

The first Amnesty hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) provided the public with an interesting dimension, since the process started where the Amnesty Committee played the role as both judiciary and a reconciliatory body.

Although the applicants in this case did not receive amnesty as the committee still had to decide on their application, it achieved its purpose of reconciling a community torn apart by past action. Perpetrators of the murder and relatives of the victim were able to reconcile their differences.

The five-person Amnesty Committee which sat in Phokeng in North West province, heard evidence regarding the amnesty applications of Christopher Makgale and Boy Diale, for the 1990 murder of chief Glad Mokgatle.

Despite the need for the legal discipline, the Amnesty Committee played a reconciliatory role where the Bafokeng people were afforded the opportunity to reconcile with some of their broken past.

In terms of the legal process, the amnesty applicants and their legal team, headed by Brian Currin, were rigorously cross-examined to establish if the act of murdering the 85-year-old Mokgatle met the criteria required for amnesty.

At the same time, the Amnesty Committee gave the opportunity to various Bafokeng community members to make reconciliatory statements about the case and the effect on the community as a whole, even if this had no direct bearing on the granting of amnesty.

There were strong expressions of remorse for the crime on the part of both Makgale and Diale. Makgale asked for "forgiveness from the relatives of the deceased and the Bafokeng tribe."

Aaron Mokgatle, 54, son of the victim, told the committee, "Here in Phokeng we are one family. They (Makgale and Diale) performed a terrible deed - they killed their own grandfather, but we are still one family."

Charles Mokgatle, also a son of the deceased, pleaded with the community to b

ury the past and no longer persecute the family for their father's support of the Lucas Mangope government.

However, at the end of the day, it is the precise technicalities of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act which establishes the Commission, against which evidence must be weighed when determining whether perpetrators receive amnesty.

In order for someone to qualify for amnesty the committee must be satisfied that full disclosure by the perpetrators of the relevant facts has been made. The act must have been of a political nature and must have occurred between March 1, 1960 and December 5, 1993.

The committee will also be guided by certain considerations:

• The motive of the person who committed the act;
• The context in which the act was committed, whether it was part of a political uprising or disturbance;
• The legal and factual nature of the act, including the gravity of the act;
• The object or objective of the act, in other words, against whom the act was primarily directed;
• Whether the act was carried out by order or approval of a political body, institution or individual; and
• The relationship of the act and the political objective and the proportionality of the act.

In this week's hearing, Currin argued that the context in which the act was committed was characterised by intense political conflict and that the case needs to be understood in this light.

He stressed that the political objective was clear and that the applicants had broadly intended to regain control over Bafokeng political affairs, by attaining the keys from Mokgatle, to the Civic Centre, where all meeting and decisions regarding the tribe affairs took place. The vigorous approach of the TRC's legal team and members of the Amnesty Committee signalled the committee's intention to treat amnesty cases with the seriousness such violations demand.

The procedure of the hearings, determined by the Amnesty Committee, is modelled on court case proceedings, with the legal team leading the evidence on behalf of the TRC and the defence team on behalf of perpetrators.

The Commission, under the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, is obliged to appoint legal representation for the applicants where they cannot afford to do so, or where it is in the interests of justice.

On observing the first hearing, it seems crucial to all amnesty applicants to have legal representation, as clearly amnesty will not be granted automatically and the committee will carefully scrutinise each case.

Despite the need for the legal rigor the Amnesty Committee also played a reconciliatory role. The Bafokeng people were afforded an opportunity to reconcile some of the pieces of the past history.

The real challenge to the Amnesty Committee will be when it starts to consider the 400 amnesty applications received to date, which may not be so clear cut and where there may be little feelings of remorse shown by the amnesty applicants.

Published by Brandon Hamber and Bobby Rodwell,  New Nation, 24 May 1996.

At the time of writing, was the former Manager of the Transition and Reconciliation Unit at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Bobby Rodwell a freelance writer and researcher attached to the Centre.

Truth Commission Amnesty Committee Has an Uphill Battle

Rodwell, B., & Hamber, B. (1996, 24 May). Picking Up the Pieces: The Amnesty Committee Has an Uphill Battle. New Nation [Read Online]

Will reconciliation follow disclosure?

The first three weeks of hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have been marked by emotionally harrowing stories that victims across the political spectrum have related.

Time and time again, witnesses have broken down during their testimony and although some events occurred years ago, victims relate their stories as though they happened yesterday. Clearly, many wounds have not healed and scars carried by South Africans have been exposed by this difficult truth-telling process.

Many victims said that some of the burdens of the past have lifted as they told their stories. For those present, the question of "where was I when that happened?" must have gone through their minds forcing them to confront their own past.

The emotional impact of the hearings to date make it difficult to ask the question "Is this enough to build reconciliation in South Africa?" But it is a question we have to ask.

To answer this, a distinction between individual and national reconciliation needs to be made. Individually those giving testimony have themselves said that they have found telling their story healing. The hearings, however, only give us a brief look at the immense pain that many victims have had to reconcile within themselves.

We should not see particularly emotional testimony as an indicator of the individual coming to terms with his or her past. Individual healing is a personalised process; it depends on the support the individual gets before and after the hearing. However, it may also be the first step in coming to terms with what has happened and the personal road to individual reconciliation may be a long way off.

Opening of the TRC. Benny Gool—Oryx Media/Desmond Tutu Peace Centre

The issue of national reconciliation may be more complex. The media has covered the hearings extensively and this may have forced many South Africans to think about the dark days of apartheid.

This may anger some people when they think of past injustices. Others may begin to realise their role in either upholding or opposing apartheid and in doing so are coming to terms with what happened.

Interest will decline

Perhaps the question is what the hearings will mean in a year's time, when hundreds of stories have been told and heard. It can be predicted that media and public interest will decline over this time. Even if the interest was to continue, it is not guaranteed that simply listening to stories, as necessary as this is, will build lasting national reconciliation.

The Commission needs to ensure that the victims' voices are heard in schools, communities, and police and military institutions if we are to ensure that the lessons of the past will be learned. this needs to be happening at the same time as the Commission sits. If we wait for two years until the recommendations of the final report, the stories we have heard may be too far away.

A further challenge facing the Commission will come when the Amnesty hearings begin. One of the contributors to nation building has undoubtedly been the surprising willingness of victims to talk of forgiveness. However, one wonders how victims and the country will feel when perpetrators begin to tell of how they personally victimised and killed people.

This will be even more difficult if perpetrators do not show remorse. This is likely, as the granting of Amnesty rests on the perpetrator telling everything and not on merely being sorry for their deeds.

Marina Geldenhuys, a victim of the Church Street bombing, commented that "the new government is significant to me because now I can sit here and tell my story."

If she feels this, and she probably had more space to speak out than the majority of those victimised in the past, the initial hearings must have been successful in giving a voice to the victimised.

The challenge facing the Commission is to sustain this voice and draw the entire population into the process.

Originally published by Brandon Hamber, New Nation, 3 May 1996

The need for a survivor-centered approach to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is to be established in South Africa with the express purpose of facilitating a truth recovery process aimed at reconciling with the past. According to the objectives of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act this is to occur through the establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the causes, nature and extent of past abuses. The survivors of these abuses will be afforded the opportunity to relate their stories so as to restore their human and civil dignity. Thereafter, the TRC will drawup a policy, which the government will carry out, for the granting of reparations and rehabilitative measures to these survivors. Furthermore, the TRC intends to enhance reconciliation by granting amnesty to perpetrators of human rights abuses. A comprehensive report documenting these past abuses will be compiled and the report will also make recommendations as to how such events can be prevented from occurring again.

On the legal and political front it is envisaged that this will contribute to the re-establishing of the rule of law and to the creation of institutional apparatus which can contribute to the building of a human rights culture. This will largely depend upon factors like political legitimacy, dealing with the controversial issues of granting amnesty, the calibre of the commissioners, an efficient documentation system and the competent running of the process. However, these macro debates, and particularly the issue of amnesty, tends to over-shadow the implications of this process for the numerous "direct"(e.g. torture survivors, survivors of assault and attempted killings) and "indirect survivors" (e.g. relatives of the "disappeared") who will be interacting with the TRC.

"On my way..." by mripp is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

At present it appears that two main discourses exist concerning these survivors and their potential experience of the TRC. Either, those largely in favour of the TRC, argue that the TRC will heal the wounds of the past through survivors telling their stories to sympathetic individuals who, for the first time, will acknowledge their real pain. Alternatively, those opposed to the TRC, argue that the TRC is a destructive mechanism that will simply open up past wounds (which are presently healing) resulting in anger, bitterness and revenge. 

However, both these assertions are generally made by political role players without a real appreciation of the psychological processes at play. In terms of the first position which advocates the ability of the TRC to promote individual and collective healing, a basic principle of psychology teaches us that past traumas do not simply pass or disappear with the passage of time. Trauma requires revisiting if it is to be dealt with adequately. Giving testimony can facilitate this through the re-living of the event, building a context of meaning for survivors, allowing survivors to feel heard for the first time and acknowledging the enormity of impact of the events on their lives. Further, by creating an accurate picture of the past, individuals and broader society could be liberated from a skewed view of humanity constructed solely around the inhuman legacy of South African society. In addition, the process of truth recovery could also be instrumental in breaking this culture of silence that the misinformation and "official story" of the past repressive government so carefully created. 

Furthermore, although monetary values cannot be assigned or replace suffering experienced, the granting of reparation could also redress the past abuses to some degree. The TRC will not make monetary awards as reparation but will be focusing on rehabilitative strategies or measures like free schooling and medical aid schemes. Reparations is a complex and difficult task, but could serve the psychological process of concretising the event and symbolically acknowledging the individuals suffering. In other words, it is not the physical reparation but the process of amending, recognising and acknowledgment could serve the most restorative psychological function. The TRC could also serve as a symbol of a national willingness to deal with the past and build a new future. 

The more negative position with regards to the TRC points to the real danger of unearthing trauma without formulating a clear strategy to deal with the anger, sadness and other emotional difficulties that may arise. It is imperative that the TRC does not unearth painful memories or cause people to re-live difficult times without ensuring that appropriate services and support structures are available to them. The psychologically healing process of testifying or telling ones story is not dependent upon the content of the story (as lawyers tend to assert) but rather on the environment and the process of the actual re-telling. 

Reparations too, are not intrinsically guaranteed to redress the past abuses. Although symbolic compensation can be useful it can never be enough or replace ones suffering. In a context of real impoverishment, short-term monetary gain may be favoured over long-term reparative or rehabilitative policies. Unfulfilled expectations hold the singular most destructive potential for the TRC. Further, there are those who argue that the granting of amnesty will simply lead to revenge because many will feel that justice has not been done, and will therefore take the law into their own hands. 

However, the warnings posed above should not be equated with a rejection of the process entirely. Given that past trauma cannot just be expected to disappear with time (this is evidenced time and time again with trauma work in which past traumas are routinely revisited decades later), the TRC should be viewed as a necessary but not a sufficient mechanism for dealing with our past constructively. A range of additional structures and services will be required to ensure the success of the process. For example, for survivors and families of victims the availability of those who can support them through the process should be ensured. This would include appropriate counselling if necessary, and preparation for testifying and debriefing thereafter. These services should be supplied by a range of professionals both inside and outside the TRC, as well as trained volunteers and even other victims themselves who have been through the process. 

Informal forms of psychological support are also crucial. Groupings like the Khulumani or Speak-Out Support Group, who are a Gauteng based group of survivors and families of victims, need to be developed and supported. From the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation's experience of working with the group, the members provides valuable psychological support to one another. The group meetings are a safe environment in which many can come to terms with painful past memories and share experiences with other survivors. 

A national education programme is also undoubtedly necessary and expectations should be a key focus of such a programme. This will not be a simple task as expectations vary a great deal. Some people simply want the truth, others demand financial compensation, still others are hoping for a proper funeral for their "missing" loved ones and a range of individuals want formal apologies or recognition for the sacrifices they made during the process of liberation. Still for others the greatest compensation would be to see the perpetrators brought to justice. Expectations will need to be mediated by the TRC itself, organisations working with victims, community-based organisations, survivor support groups and churches who have grassroots contact with those who wish to testify. 

The issue of amnesty in this regard may pose a specific challenge. The context in which it was agreed to grant amnesty to those who violated human rights needs to be properly understood. It needs to be understood that amnesty was a compromise to ensure a democratic election, but at the same time that the granting of amnesty will not be automatic. There will be no blanket amnesties and the perpetrators of particularly brutal and heinous crimes will not qualify for amnesty. Amnesty applications will be carefully scrutinised and verified, and only full disclosure of each and every individual political crime will ensure a successful amnesty application. This will mean that the truth is always known when amnesty is granted and for some survivors, especially if the perpetrator suffers social repercussions, this may suffice as the demand for truth may be greater than the need for retribution. 

However, there will always be resultant feelings that need to be dealt with by support structures. Furthermore, it is crucial that it is not expected, either overtly or covertly, that survivors should forgive the perpetrators. Anger and other emotional responses by survivors needs to be legitimised and space provided for individuals to express their feelings openly. Survivors will feel great resentment and may desire to take revenge if they feel their emotions are not tolerated and understood. The TRC could contribute to a spirit of collective or national reconciliation but this does not necessarily equate with the difficult individual process of forgiveness which takes time and support. 

Clearly, therefore, if the TRC is to operate as a psychologically healing mechanism additional psychological and social support services will need to be developed and sustained throughout the life of the TRC. Responsibility should fall on the TRC to deliver some of these services but also support the development of other structures to run parallel to the TRC. Responsibility should also be taken by human rights organisations to support the process and build reconciliation through it. It is a fact that we have to deal with the ravages of the past violence with or without the TRC, and if the TRC provides structures and resources to do this, then all the better. The responsibilities of NGOs also extends beyond direct service provision. Organisations should engage actively with the process and consistently lobby to ensure the integrity of the process (e.g. ensuring that through public pressure perpetrators of past abuses are removed from office). A survivor-centered approach needs to be continually reinforced, broad commemorative initiatives should be undertaken (e.g. remembrance rallies) and survivor-based initiatives supported. 

In conclusion, we need to begin the process of truth and reconciliation through recognising the limits of the TRC or it will be doomed to failure. It cannot address all the apartheid ills, just as prosecutions alone will not lead to dealing with our past or a new national flag will guarantee reconciliation. Reconciliation cannot be confined to any one process or commission. In fact, any uniform mechanism is in itself is insufficient. Thus, the TRC needs to be viewed as one of the mechanisms for addressing the conflicts of the past. However, it needs to borne in mind that it is an artificially constructed phenomenon which will be profoundly different from individualised and personalised ways of coping with adversity. This reinforces the need for the process of reconciliation and social support to occur at an individual level, as well as collectively. As resources are needed to be rebuild our economic and social infrastructure, so too are they required to restore the human potential and dignity of our nation. 

Brandon Hamber is the former Manager of the Transition and Reconciliation Unit at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. 

Article appeared in Community Mediation Update, No. 9, pp.5-13, January 1996.