Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
STATEMENT BY ADV DENZIL POTGIETER SC, CHAIRPERSON, MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE, TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has set May 30 this year as the deadline for submissions on the role which the media played in South Africa during the period from 1960 to the 1994 election.
The TRC's working group on the media - set up by the Human Rights Violations Committee of the Commission - is pleased to report that it has already begun to receive submissions in connection with a possible special hearing on the media. Submissions from a number of individual journalists, as well as organisations, are expected.
Submissions received so far support the impression given by the current public debate that there is considerable interest in this matter, not only within the media but also from the public.
Submissions, whether from individuals or organisations, should be sent to any regional office of the Truth Commission, or to the head office at P O Box 3162, Cape Town, 8000, to reach the Commission by 30 May 1997.
A decision will then finally be made as to whether a special hearing on the media needs to take place, and what form it should take.
The Commission has been given the responsibility by the Promotion of National Unity & Reconciliation Act to "establish the truth in relation to past events". These events specifically involve "gross human rights violations" perpetrated within a political context between March 1960 and 10 May 1994.
The Commission has a dual responsibility here, which suggests two sorts of submissions from the media: firstly, to offer victims, particularly those journalists whose stories of abuse under apartheid have not been heard, the opportunity of telling their stories; and, secondly, to provide "as complete a picture as possible" of the "nature, causes and extent of" such abuses, including "the antecedents, circumstances, factors and context of such violations..."
So it is not simply a question of looking at the role of the media during the apartheid years, and the experiences of individual journalists during those years, but also of describing the context in which the media functioned.
At the same time, the Commission has the added responsibility of producing a final report in which recommendations are made to Parliament as to the future of those sectors covered by Commission hearings. This too provides all sectors of the media with an opportunity - and a challenge - to make suggestions for their future development.
Inquiries: John Allen, 082- 452-7859
15 March 1997