The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice[1] body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid.
[a] Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings.
The mandate of the commission was to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as offering reparation and rehabilitation to the victims.
The commission heard reports of human rights violations and considered amnesty applications from all sides, from the apartheid state to the liberation forces, including the African National Congress.
On 15 April 1996, the South African National Broadcaster televised the first two hours of the first human rights violation committee hearing live.
[13] The producers of the programme included Anneliese Burgess, Jann Turner, Benedict Motau, Gael Reagon, Rene Schiebe and Bronwyn Nicholson, a production assistant.
[14] Various films have been made about the commission: Several plays have been produced about the TRC: A 1998 study by South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation & the Khulumani Support Group,[17][18] which surveyed several hundred victims of human rights abuse during the Apartheid era, found that most felt that the TRC had failed to achieve reconciliation between the black and white communities.
[20]: xiv [22] While former president F. W. de Klerk appeared before the commission and reiterated his apology for the suffering caused by apartheid, many black South Africans were angered at amnesty being granted for human rights abuses committed by the apartheid government; local reports at the time noted that his failure to accept that the former NP government's policies had given security forces a "licence to kill" - evidenced to him personally in different ways - drove the chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu almost to tears.
Among the highest-profile of these objections were the criticisms levelled by the family of prominent anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who was killed by the security police, and whose story was featured in the film Cry Freedom.
[26] The family opposed amnesty for his killers on these grounds and brought a legal action in South Africa's highest court, arguing that the TRC was unconstitutional.
Its place in small rural communities, for example, when it establishes itself in a local church hall, and absorbs substantial numbers of the population, is very different from its situation in large urban centres, where its presence is marginalised by other social and economic activities.