This thesis provides a baseline understanding of the support given by foreign governments to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The study endeavours, first, to analyze the instances of international assistance provided to the TRC to determine what aid worked well and why or why not. The thesis finds overall that foreign support has been an important bulwark to the Commission. Nevertheless, the thesis identifies shortcomings in the effectiveness of foreign assistance to the TRC. Based on these findings the thesis pursues a second objective: extracting lessons from the TRC to guide future international efforts in support of truth commissions in post-conflict and transitional states. The thesis underscores common challenges facing truth commissions. By extrapolating from the South African case the thesis recommends ways international actors can best help future truth commissions overcome these difficulties.

<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> <p align="left">This thesis is a discourse analysis of five testimonies from South Africa&rsquo / s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The aim of the analysis is to explore the ways in which the testifiers perform their identities, construe their experiences of life under apartheid, and position themselves and their audiences in relation to these experiences. The shaping role of context &ndash / both local and historical &ndash / is also considered.</p> </font></font></p>

This thesis examines the relationship between truth, justice, and reconciliation by comparing the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Rwandan Gacaca Court System. / Graduate

This study focuses on the structure and process of forgiveness as experienced by individuals, from the East London and surrounding areas, who either suffered gross human rights violations or who are related to someone who suffered gross human rights violations during the Apartheid era. Those who participated in the study testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and expressed forgiveness towards the perpetrators of the violations. The aims of the study were to reveal: the participants' structure cif forgiveness, i.e. how they define forgiveness; the process of forgiveness, i.e. the changes that took place from the time of the violation up until the participants forgave the perpetrators: and, the relation. if any. between the participants' structure and process of forgiveness. It is argued that mainstream Psychology has neglected to study forgiveness because the subject matter is incompatible with the natural scientific method. For this reason, the study was approached from a hermeneutical paradigm. This was motivated by its ability to explicate the meaning and content of phenomena. Unstructured qualitative interviews were conducted with the participants. Data was analyzed using a multi-layered process of progressively deeper interpretation, employing a reading guide technique. Results indicated that authentic forgiveness is an unconditional commitment on the part of victims and survivors to relate positively towards the perpetrators. The relationship should include non-bitterness, non-vengeance, unconditional love and respect for their human rights. Another significant dimension of the structure of forgiveness is the fact that the desire for the truth is not abandoned although forgiveness has taken place. Forgiveness also does not take away the effects of the violation. This means that one does not forget although forgiveness has been granted. Results further indicate that the forgiveness process is highly complex, individualized and not instantaneous. The individuals have to deal with various intrapersonal conflicts and anxieties as a result of the violation, before forgiveness is explored as an option, and before they can finally forgive. Significant interrelations between the structure and process of forgiveness were also identified.

The internal war that took place in Peru for two decades brought silence as one of its consequences. In this article we try to classify silence or aspects of silence. This classification, based on the experiences described in the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR, 2003), distinguishes an instrumental silence or silence for; a silence caused by the terrible events that took place or silence from; a silence resulting from the absence of important relations for an intimate communication, like relatives or friends, or silence with; and finally, a more profound silence, less describable, more personal but less manageable, simply a silence. / La guerra interna durante más de dos lustros en el Perú ha tenido como una de sus secuelas el silencio. En este artículo proponemos una clasificación de silencios o de aspectos del silencio. La clasificación, basada en un ordenamiento de las experiencias relatadas en el Informe de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR, 2003), consiste en distinguir un silencio instrumental o silencio para; un silencio producto de lo terrible de los hechos ocurridos, silencio de; uno producto de la ausencia de interlocutores importantes para la comunicación más íntima, como familiares o amigos, silencio con; y finalmente, un silencio más profundo, menos descriptible, más personal pero menos manejable, silencio a secas.

Esse trabalho é uma análise do Relatório Final da Comissão da Verdade e Reconciliação do Peru (CVR) e problematiza o tratamento dado pela Comissão na avaliação dos impactos da luta armada do Partido Comunista do Peru - Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL) e da resposta do Estado peruano a ela. A referência territorial do nosso trabalho é a serra sul central andina, particularmente o departamento de Ayacucho. Essa é uma das regiões de maior população quéchua-falante do país, é o local onde o PCP-SL surgiu e concentrou suas ações, sobretudo nos primeiros seis anos da década de 1980, e onde o conflito deixou mais vítimas e teve uma dinâmica mais acentuada de violência. Por este motivo, o foco deste trabalho é a questão indígena a partir da pergunta: de que modo ela é apresentada no Relatório Final da CVR? Para interpretar o Relatório, realizamos uma análise do discurso a partir de uma contextualização histórica e comparada do documento, e pela seleção de uma série de categorias-chave relacionadas ao horizonte étnico-racial colonial da sociedade peruana: índio, indígena, camponês(a), mestiço(a), misti e cholo(a). Como estratégias complementares para levantar e sintetizar outro tipo de dados e informações foram feitas duas viagens de campo ao Peru. A criação e o trabalho da Comissão têm uma importância histórica evidente no contexto latino-americano. Seu Relatório deve ser apreciado como ponto de partida importante para novas hipóteses, trabalhos de campo e na construção coletiva e popular de projetos de país que sejam plurais e democráticos. Quanto à questão indígena, o Relatório Final é produto de décadas de disputa de posições políticas e intelectuais, e como tal apresenta avanços, potencialidades, contradições e limites. A invisibilização dos povos indígenas andinos e o obscurecimento da questão remetem mais, portanto, a problemas próprios desses debates que antecedem à Comissão. A CVR localiza-se em um contexto de esgotamento dos discursos de mestiçagem como aposta das elites políticas e intelectuais para resolver a questão nacional pendente, mas situa-se em um momento que a valorização e o reconhecimento das diferenças como potencialidade na construção de um Estado popular e democrático é limitada / This work aims to analyze the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru (CVR in Portuguese), and discusses the Commission\'s treatment of the impacts of the armed struggle of the Communist Party of Peru - Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso, PCP-SL) and the response of the Peruvian state for it. The territorial reference of our report is the southern Andean mountain range, particularly the department of Ayacucho. This region has one of the largest Quechua-speaking population in the country, it is where PCP-SL emerged and concentrated its actions, overall in the first six years of the 1980s, when the conflict left more victims and was more violent. For this reason, the focus of this work is the indigenous issue based on the question: howis it presented in the CVR Final Report? In order to interpret the Report, a discourse analysis was conducted on a historical and comparative contextualization of the document, and the selection of categories related to the ethnic-racial colonial horizon of Peruvian society: Indian, indigenous, peasant, mestizo, misti and cholo. Two field trips to Peru were made in order to complement strategies to collect and synthesize other data and information. The creation and work of the Commission have historic importance in the Latin American context. Its Report should be appreciated as an important starting point for new hypotheses, fieldwork and the collective and popular construction of plural and democratic country projects. As for the indigenous issue, the Final Report is the product of decades of dispute over political and intellectual positions, and as such, it presents advances, potentialities, contradictions and limits. The invisibility of the Andean indigenous people and the obscuring of the issue are, therefore, more akin to the problems inherent in these debates which preceded the Commission. The CVR is in a context of the depletion of mestizaje discourses as a bet by the political and intellectual elites to solve the pending national question, but it is at a time when the valorization and recognition of differences as potentialities in the construction of a Popular and democratic state is limited

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This thesis is a discourse analysis of five testimonies from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The aim of the analysis is to explore the ways in which the testifiers perform their identities, construe their experiences of life under apartheid, and position themselves and their audiences in relation to these experiences. The shaping role of context – both local and historical – is also considered.

South African artist William Kentridge's (b. 1955) work frequently employs optical tools, such as the stereoscope, to highlight the contingency and instability of witness. These visual tools become metaphors for the process of historicization in post-apartheid South Africa. Kentridge is best known for his animations that are filmed by drawing with charcoal, photographing, erasing, redrawing and photographing again, leaving a palimpsest of previous traces on the paper's surface. Kentridge's prints, drawings, puppetry, theatrical projects and performances are also addressed in (un)Fixing the Eye. Kentridge's vast array of works narrates a history critical of the narrow and objective history of apartheid constructed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) official report. Furthermore, the metaphors suggested by Kentridge's optical tools undermine the ideology that apartheid is in the past. It suggests the necessity of colonial narratives as well as issues of class and materialism, within apartheid as traces that are very much part of the present. Each chapter of (un)Fixing the Eye uses a separate optical device to explore the narration of history in South Africa. To do so I draw from an eclectic group of thinkers: psychoanalytic models of melancholia and reparation, Jacques Derrida's work on forgiveness, Hayden White's theories of narrative and Jonathan Crary's work on optical tools and perception. Chapter one argues there is an ironic and impossible condition of forgiveness and truth in the TRC. Using Kentridge's Ubu Tells the Truth and its specific invocation of Dziga Vertov's realist 'kino-eye' and Alfred Jarry's brutal and absurd King Ubu as metaphors of absurdity and truth represented through the movie camera, this chapter argues that there is an impossibility of truth in the TRC. Chapter two reads Kentridge's Felix in Exile as a materialist response to the naturalized and a historical landscape tradition in South Africa. Felix's use of the theodolite and sextant as mapping and navigation tools highlights colonial mapping practices and the history of property ownership, particularly in the mining industry. In this way these optical tools link colonialism and mining alongside of the violence rendered in the film, unearthing a history of colonialism and class issues in apartheid narratives. Chapter three uses X-rays and CAT scans as metaphors for the testimony in the TRC, as both require an expert to decode and contextualize the testimony. Kentridge's films during the TRC use medical imaging technologies that are ambiguous and uncertain within the TRC's discourse of truth. Chapter four returns to the camera, this time as a colonial image in Namibia, arguing its usage in Black Box/Chambre Noir creates a melancholic relationship between Enlightenment Europe and colonial Africa. In this melancholia, Kentridge's history of the 20th century's first genocide in Namibia links a tremendous number of global histories. The focus in optical discourses, particularly the stereoscope is not new in Kentridge's work but (un)Fixing the Eye considers a number of tools that have not previously been a part of this optical work in Kentridge's art. It expands the political scope of Kentridge's work to include colonialism and class issues, insisting on their place in the current political landscape. Ultimately this project argues that Kentridge's work through a destabilized optical apparatus works both formally and allegorically as a way of conceiving of narrative and ideological critique in an expanded sense from the narrow confines set by the TRC.

"It is noted that special measures are always necessary in post-conflict situations to bring about the restoration of normalcy to societies. Truth commissions have been identified as a key to uniting, reconciling and helping the people to confidently deal with their past. Whilst these are noble notions, practically, truth commissions face serious challenges. The dissertation shall seek to highlight these problems and offer recommendations. ... The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter one is the general introduction. It gives a brief political history of Ghana and South Africa and their impact on the enjoyment of human rights. The chapter shall also discuss the need for national reconciliation in both countries. Chapter two discusses truth commissions in contemporary societies. It briefly discusses the establishment of national reconciliaton commissions and their mandates. Chapter three focuses on the laws establishing the TRC and NRC of South Africa and Ghana respectively. These legislation shall be considered in detail in order to analyse their objectives to know whether or not thet are achievable within their stated mandates. Chapter four discusses the challenges truth commission poses to international law and its implications on rule of law. The chapter shall discuss the issue of amnesty to perpetrators of gross human rights and the perpetuation of the culture of impunity in the light of international law. Chapter five considers the way forward and suggest recommendations." -- Chapter 1. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2003. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Masters of Art / The starting point of this thesis is the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Missing Person’s Task Team (MPTT), two instruments of the post-apartheid government, both of which have directly attended to the disappeared dead. The disappeared dead are defined in this thesis as persons abducted and subject to enforced disappearances, as well as those killed in other political circumstances whose bodies were buried by the apartheid state, in some cases as unnamed paupers, thus denying families the opportunity to bury and mourn according to familial or cultural norms. Today the MPTT still seeks to locate the gravesites of the disappeared dead, to exhume, identify and to return the mortal remains to their families.