Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
STATEMENT FROM THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
(Issued by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair)
Today's meeting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission focussed on the practical measures which need to be implemented to enable the Commission to begin its work.
Two of the Commission's constituent committees, the Committee on Human Rights Violations and the Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation, have decided on Gauteng as their main seat. However, they will also operate from the regional offices of the Commission. Regional offices will be set up in Johannesburg, Durban, East London and Cape Town.
The Committee on Amnesty will be based in Cape Town and will decide later on whether regional offices are necessary. Next week some members of the Committee on Amnesty will scrutinise the approximately 2,000 representations concerning amnesty which have already been collected for the Commission. Applicants for amnesty are required by the law setting up the Commission to make applications on a prescribed form, and progress was made towards preparing a draft form for submission to the Government with a view to promulgation in the Government Gazette. The law stipulates that applications for amnesty must be made within a year of the formal establishment of the Commission. (This took place on December 15 last year.)
There was also detailed discussion of how written information from victims of human rights violations who approach the Commission will be collected, verified, co-ordinated and analysed in preparation for public hearings. The Commission envisages establishing a sophisticated computer database, with the capacity for extensive cross-referencing, to help it to piece together a comprehensive picture of the pattern and detail of human rights violations.
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