Magister Legum - LLM / The end of Apartheid and the transition to a new constitutional democracy in South Africa was ushered in by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The purpose of the TRC was to promote a dialogue between victims and perpetrators of gross human rights violations to try and achieve reconciliation in the country. To this end, the TRC was given the power to grant conditional amnesty to those who came forward to reveal the full truth to the country about the crimes that they had committed. Those who refused to apply for amnesty or who did apply but were denied amnesty were supposed to be prosecuted. A number of years have passed since the final TRC report was submitted and hardly any prosecutions have taken place. This paper argues, by comparing the transitions in Argentina and Chile to the one in South Africa, that the lack of post-Truth Commission prosecutions in South Africa has contributed to nurturing a culture of impunity for acts of corruption in high offices of state. It argues that in countries transitioning from repressive and authoritarian regimes to democratic governments, prosecutions of gross human rights violations are necessary for the creation and strengthening of the rule of law and a human rights culture. Therefore, the impunity for economic crimes such as corruption is detrimental to democracy.

In this dissertation I sketch a conception of personhood as understood from within an Afrocommunitarian worldview, and argue that this understanding of personhood has implications for understanding the concept of reconciliation. Understanding ‘being human’ as a collective, communal enterprise has implications for how responsibility, justice, forgiveness and humanization (all cognate concepts of reconciliation) are conceptualized. In line with this understanding of reconciliation and its cognate concepts, I argue that the humanization of self and other (according to the Afrocommunitarian understanding of personhood) is required for addressing the ‘inferiority’ and concurrent ‘superiority’ racial complexes as diagnosed by Franz Fanon and Steve Biko. These complexes reach deeply within individual and collective psyches and political identities, and I argue that political solutions to protracted conflict (in South Africa and other racially charged contexts) which do not address these deeply entrenched pathologies will be inadequate according to an Afrocommunitarian framework.

Forgiveness is traditionally understood as a personal change of heart, in which an individual victim of a wrongdoing overcomes her resentment towards the perpetrator of that wrongdoing. Peter Strawson (1974) famously argued that resentment is a personal participant retributive reactive attitude, and the overcoming of such an attitude through forgiveness is itself a personal reactive attitude – in other words, forgiveness is an affective response to a wrongdoing by an individual victim, that is devoid of a retributive element. Because reactive attitudes are personal, it is argued that collectives – groups of individuals – cannot forgive, since collectives cannot, as collectives, hold reactive attitudes. I argue against this. I show that it is possible for collectives to hold attitudes in a way that is not reducible to individuals holding attitudes as individuals, and yet these attitudes still remain personal. Individuals exist within communities, and are interdependent on one another. Much of an individual‟s beliefs and attitudes depend on the collectives that she is a part of. I argue that an attitude is collective when it is deemed to be the appropriate attitude for members of the collective to hold. Members of the collective will take this attitude on as their own insofar as they identify themselves as members of the collective. Individuals hold the attitude, making the attitude personal, but since the individuals hold the attitude in virtue of their membership to a collective, the attitude is also collective. Given that forgiveness is itself a reactive attitude, and that collectives can hold attitudes, I argue that it is possible for a collective to forgive. Members of a collective will come to forgive when forgiveness is held up as the appropriate attitude for them, and once enough members have taken on the attitude of forgiveness as their own attitude, a collective can be said to have forgiven.

This study investigates the role of the Afrikaans Churches in the quest for reconciliation in South Africa. Since it is a historical and analytical study, much use has been made of the relevant historical material. It is important in a study like this that there be a relevancy for this kind of study. South Africa is a nation with a complex society, who were weighed down for about forty years under an Apartheid policy, necessitating a probe into the influence of apartheid on society at large but also on the Afrikaans Churches. The different cultural groups in our country need to be reconciled to each other. But what kind of reconciliation? Many different definitions of reconciliation are given depending on who defines it. The politicians’ definitions were different from that of the church. Because reconciliation is a biblical term, it is necessary to look at the biblical mandate and how reconciliation is defined in biblical terms. Short overviews of the history of the origin of the different Afrikaans Churches under discussion are given. (Chapter 1) In order to understand the reaction of the different churches to the announcement of the constitution of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), it is necessary to look at those events that happened in the churches during the years of Apartheid. The fact that the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) is the largest church under the Afrikaners, explains why more space is given to occurrences in the DRC than to the others. Because Afrikaners work together in many situations, belong to the same clubs, etc. it is also clear that the occurrences in the DRC would have some effect on members of the other churches. Attention is paid to the polarisation and tension amongst churches due to race relations as it manifested itself within South Africa and also globally. (Chapter 2) Through Parliamentary legislation, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established for South Africa. It is important to take note of the mandate of the TRC and its method of work. Different reactions came from the faith communities and especially from the Afrikaans Churches. This researcher investigates the different attitudes in the churches as made known through correspondence in the different church magazines and daily newspapers. Attention is paid to the different reactions of the churches to the special hearings and the question whether churches must confess before the TRC or not. (Chapter 3) The reactions in the churches on the submission of evidence before the TRC are investigated. Only the DRC and the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) of the Afrikaans Churches and four theologians from the Reformed Churches of South Africa (RCSA) made their submissions. The other churches did not make use of this opportunity to clear their slates. The submission of the Uniting Reformed Church of South Africa (URCSA)is also mentioned as many of its members are Afrikaans speaking. (Chapter 4 ) The TRC suggested some proposals on reconciliation for the faith communities. This chapter looks at the responses of the churches to these proposals. There are wonderful things happening where churches were obedient and involved in their surroundings. Mostly they are helping in the areas of poverty relief and unemployment. The question about unity between the ‘sister’ churches amongst the Afrikaners and unification between the DRC and URSCA is discussed. (Chapter 5) Is there hope for our country for reconciliation? This question was addressed to a few leaders in the different churches and their responses are given. Churches do not always know how to go about helping their congregants working on reconciliation. Three models are currently being presented in South Africa on how reconciliation can become a reality and are briefly discussed. A new model is then worked out and proffered for use in and by the church to help congregants in the quest for reconciliation. (Chapter 6) Chapter 7 concludes this study by proposing a few conclusions. An extensive Addendum is given. This researcher interviewed church leaders. Their responses and other relevant material e.g. submissions by churches etc. to the TRC are given. A bibliography concludes this dissertation. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Science of Religion and Missiology / unrestricted

The classic slave narrative recounted a fugitive slave’s personal story condemning slavery and hence working towards abolition. The neo-slave narrative underlines the slave’s historical legacy by unveiling the past through foregrounding African Atlantic experiences in an attempt to create a critical historiography of the Black Atlantic. The neo-slave narrative is a genre that emerged following World War II and presents us with a dialogue combining the history of 1970 - 2000. In this thesis I seek to explore how the contemporary counter-part of the classic slave narrative draws, reflects or diverges from the general conventions of its predecessor. I argue that by scrutinizing our notion of truth, the neo-slave narrative remains a relevant, important witness to the history of slavery as well as to today’s still racialized society. The historiographic metafiction of the neo-slave narrative rewrites history with the goal of digesting the past and ultimately leading to future reconciliation.

Several Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) training workshops have been established to help transform correctional institutions worldwide. There is no evidence of any research on AVP conducted in the context of South African Schools to date. This research therefore aims to evaluate AVP training by the Quaker Peace Centre at five high schools on the Cape Flats. Taking a qualitative approach, the study provides a literary contextualization of the problem of violence in South African schools as well as the history of AVP programmes in South Africa and abroad. In respect of his data collection, the researcher used both evaluation forms submitted at the completion of training events, as well as a purpose-designed questionnaire, mailed to a convenience sample of 635 past participants in the training. The results of the study indicate that the AVP workshops have had an impact on the lives of the participants, and there is an acknowledgement of feelings of empowerment experienced by recipients, which enables sound recommendations to be made.

In recent years, there has been a noticeable turn towards the “local” in both the practice and academic study of transitional justice, exemplified by a belief that local transitional justice processes (LTJPs) are superior because they are rooted in cultural practices and closer to the communities and people seeking justice. However, this assumption, and the existing literature on these local initiatives, pays insufficient attention to asymmetric power relations between national and local actors and to the unseen domestic political interests that shape local transitional justice processes on the ground. By taking these factors into account, this dissertation contends that LTJPs can be used paradoxically to deflect justice in ways that allow ruling parties to avoid human rights accountability and that obscure the truth about wartime events. The dissertation further argues that the principal means by which justice is deflected is not through overt manipulation by ruling parties, but rather, through more indirect processes of “distortional framing” that ruling parties use to establish discursive limits around discussions of the past and to conceal their own human rights abuses. The cases of Cambodia and Mozambique are examined in detail to reveal and to trace the processes by which distortional framing has been employed as a tactic to deflect justice. This dissertation contributes to the study of transitional justice, not only by challenging the prevailing assumption that LTJPs are inherently preferable because they are more “authentic” or closer to the people, but by providing a novel explanation of how these processes can be manipulated to subvert their own stated goal of advancing the cause of justice, and by providing a detailed account of these distortionary processes at work in two post-conflict countries located on two different continents.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / In this dissertation, I problematize 'victim's justice' in post-genocide Rwanda. I argue that the kind of justice that was meted out in post-genocide Rwanda, namely victors' justice and complementary to it – victims’ justice, does not allow for the political reform required to break the cycle of violence in Rwanda. In the aftermath of the 1994-Rwandan Genocide, both state and society were faced with a moral and political dilemma, because the popular agency or mass participation of perpetrators derived from the Hutu majority, who targeted the Tutsi minority, with intent to annihilate them. There were massacres of both Hutus and Tutsis, but Hutus were targeted as individuals, whereas Tutsis were targeted as a group. It is the specific ‘intent to annihilate’ Tutsis as group, that makes this a Genocide against Tutsis. I draw and develop arguments made by Mahmood Mamdani, elaborating on the specific question of ‘victims justice’ for political reform in Rwanda. Both kinds of justice were outcomes of the logic of the Nuremburg Trials. Since its inception, the legacy of the Nuremburg Trial is demonstrated in how it was idealized at the end of the Cold-War by international law and human rights regime. In essence, the historical and political context of the Nuremburg trial has been removed, as it has been produced into a template- the 'Nuremburg-styled criminal trial'. 'Criminal justice' has come to define how we think of justice after mass violence, as the most morally acceptable form of justice for the victims, and the most politically viable response for constituting a 'new political order' after mass violence. This dissertation addresses the argument made, that victors' justice and victims' justice in Rwanda, has constituted two categories, which collectivise Tutsis as victims and Hutus as perpetrators. In the context of a genocide, where the perpetrators are derived from the Hutu majority and the victims from the Tutsi minority, this present both a moral and political dilemma for Rwanda’s state-building and national reconciliation project. Criminal justice also frames mass violence as being criminal, rather than addressing it as political violence. This has troubling consequences for intervening into the cycle of violence in Rwanda. The 'cycle of violence' in Rwanda, refers to the continuation of political violence, in which 'every round of perpetrators has justified the use of violence as the only effective guarantee against being victimised yet again. Thus, intervention into the cycle of violence would mean thinking out of the logic of victimhood and pursuing an alternative kind of justice. To think of the genocide as political violence, redirects the attention to the issues that made the genocide possible. I establish the importance and necessity of critically interrogating 'victims justice' in Rwanda, by placing the 1994-Genocide in its historical and political context, with a particular focus on the legacy of colonialism. The post-colonial regimes in Rwanda, inherited the colonial institutions of rule; and the politicisation of Hutu and Tutsi into racial categories, which have shaped particular meanings for power, justice and citizenship. I demonstrate in this dissertation that critical issues found in post-genocide Rwanda today, are symptomatic of the inherited colonial legacy. I address the prevailing political crisis through an analysis on post-genocide governance; national reconciliation; the 'land question'; and the Great Lakes refugee crisis. Furthermore, I found that it was critically important for my research question, to also adopt a regional perspective, because Rwanda lies at the epicentre of the Great Lakes regional crisis. This dissertation concludes with returning to the question of political reform, and breaking the 'cycle of violence'. My suggestion is that we need to think of Mamdani's concept of survivor's justice, rather than victims' justice or victors' justice, which assist in confronting the needs of political reform that address colonial legacies.

This study proposes and tests a comprehensive theory detailing the motivations behind political apologies. A brief survey of the literature shows a field rich in case studies but lacking in rigorous scientific analysis. The theory presented proposes a three-level examination of political apology at the state, dyadic, and system levels and incorporates the effects of culture, conflict, and the nature of the international system into analysis. This study makes use of a new dataset recording the occurrence of political apologies for interstate conflict atrocities from 1900 to 2006. The results suggest that the existing literature, while rich, does not account for all the motivating factors behind apology. The results also confirm that political apology is a creation of the modern era and a result of the liberalization of the international system. In conclusion, paths for future research are suggested and the advent of a global "age of apology" is confirmed.

In Zimbabwe, reconciliation has become a contentious process and has been politicised at the international, national and community levels. Criticisms have been raised against the government related to its failure to implement inclusive reconciliation processes that can amend broken relationships in Zimbabwe, particularly at the community level. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that are traditionally assumed to have a role in bringing about reconciliation on the community level have, in Zimbabwe, become part of the politicisation of reconciliation in various ways. This research has explored the challenges of reconciliation in Zimbabwe, with the Nkayi District in Matabeleland as a case study, because it stands at the intersection of the conflicts that have occurred in Zimbabwe over the past three decades. It serves to illustrate the political debates behind the alleged failure of government to implement reconciliation processes at the community level. Research findings revealed that the complexity of reconciliation in the Nkayi District is rooted in the lack of consensual understanding among stakeholders as to who ought to be reconciled and how the process should occur. This complexity is enhanced by the lack of an enabling environment due to the polarisation of the community by government security agents, a lack of political will by political actors, shortage of resources and a lack of common voice in the undertakings by CSOs. The research concluded that the systematic marginalisation of the Matabeleland region and the fact that the Gukurahundi massacres were never dealt with by the government, undermines any attempts at reconciliation in this region. This research argues that reconciliation in the Nkayi District begins when the government acknowledges all incidents of violence that occurred. / Political Sciences / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Unrestricted