Nelson Mandela Guide: Truth & Reconciliation Commission

South's Africa's violent and complex history is chronicled in the five-volume Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, a chilling record of the hearings that exposed atrocities perpetrated by the South African apartheid government and opposing parties over the thirty-four year period of 1960-1994.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to deal with the human rights violations of apartheid. However, the TRC's restorative justice approach did not always serve the needs of communities at a local level. Based on extended anthropological fieldwork, this book illustrates the impact of the TRC in urban African communities in Johannesburg. It argues that the TRC had little effect on popular ideas of justice as retribution.

Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa provides a comprehensive evaluation of the TRC process and its impact on South African society. Based on a six-year study, the volume draws on an analysis of the victim hearings, amnesty hearings, institutional hearings, public opinion survey data, and extensive interviews with a range of TRC staff, people who worked with the commission, and members of different communities affected by the TRC.

For over forty years, South Africa was governed by the most notorious form of racial domination since Nazi Germany. When it finally collapsed, those who had enforced apartheid's rule wanted amnesty for their crimes. Their victims wanted justice. As a compromise, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed. As it investigated the crimes of apartheid, the Commission brought together victims and perpetrators to relive South Africa's brutal history. By revealing the past instead of burying it, the TRC hoped to pave the way to a peaceful future.

This film tells the story of one family, the Mtimkulu family, stretching back over two decades. Through the unfolding of personal narratives, this film raises far reaching questions about the nature of truth, forgiveness and reconciliation. It illustrates the ripple effect of an injustice, the disappearance and murder of Siphiwo Mtimkulu, twenty years ago to show how fragile the 'miracle' of South Africa's transition really is.

The years 1960 through 1994 were a time of terror in South Africa. With the destruction of the yoke of apartheid in 1994, South Africa had to come to terms with its oppressive past: recrimination or punishment, or forgiveness? This compelling program describes the efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to investigate human rights violations and to help South Africa in its process of reinvention. Official website with viewer's guides.