Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
February 21, 1997
STATEMENT BY THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
The Commission this afternoon completed a two-day meeting, the first day of which was attended by additional members of the TRC's three standing committees. The meeting began yesterday with the Chairperson outlining his vision for the rest of the Commission's life.
The following are among our decisions:
1. Amnesty Committee
We have agreed in principle to ask Parliament to enlarge the Amnesty Committee to help it through its workload. The proposal is to add enough members to enable the Committee to hold two hearings in different places at the same time, and for some members to consider applications in chambers. Final details of the proposal have still to be worked out. Possibilities that will be discussed include appointing members from among the Commission's members and appointing additional members. We have still to make a formal proposal to Government.
The Amnesty Committee reported that we have received 5,200 amnesty applications so far. However, this is not indicative of the Committee's likely workload: a few thousand - the final total is not yet established - have been and will be dealt with administratively.
2. Effect of the Appellate Division's judgement on notice of hearings
As a consequence of the Appellate Division's judgement to the effect that we give proper, reasonable and timeous notice to those who may be detrimentally implicated or prejudicially affected at hearings, we will re-introduce with immediate effect the practice of giving alleged perpetrators advance notice that they could be named in hearings. They will receive witnesses statements and/or other relevant documentation to enable them to identify the events, incidents and persons which the evidence concerns. However, we will not necessarily disclose the identity of witnesses.
Our aim is to send notices out 21 days in advance of hearings. This will result in the postponement of the next two Human Rights Violations Committee hearings - in the Northern Province and in the Eastern Cape - to enable adequate notice to be given. The effect on hearings themselves has still to be judged but the new procedure will undoubtedly be more time-consuming and increase the Commission's workload.
3. Statement-taking project
The Commission is poised to announce a major drive to gather new statements from victims of gross violations of human rights. Until now most of the 7,700 statements made to the TRC have been collected by our own statement-takers. Our intention this year is to re-deploy resources to intensify the statement-taking process, and - most important - to launch a Designated Statement Taking Project.
In the DST Project, we will use R2,4 million in donor funding to involve Non-Governmental Organisations in an extensive programme to gather statements from people in communities around the country. We will sign agreements with NGOs, the objectives of which are outlined in the attached form. We will also organise training programmes for designated statement-takers.