The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been given a necessary but difficult task, if not impossible, task. It was set up by the new Government under President Mandela to both expose the crime of the apartheid era and act as a process for reconciliation and forgiveness. It was specifically not given the task of punishment.
One cannot have reconcilitation and forgiveness without truth and acknowledgement of crime by the perpetrators. Until this week the commission had uncovered some perpetrators but had received much more information about crime from victims. There was a mismatch … too many crimes and too few uncovered perpetrators.
But now five senior security policemen have confessed to 40 murders and sought amnesty on the grounds that they had been committed in a political context. Of more importance, though, they will point up the line to others who ordered or conspired in murder and other crimes.
There is a delicate balance needed here between justified moral outrage and the practicality of the judicial system not being able to cope with all criminal prosecutions. This week’s confessions may help the commission’s credibility as a vehicle that can achieve at least the exposure of the truth about crime as well as perpetrators, even if it cannot exact punishment.
In the light of the acquittal of murder in the court system of former defence minister Magnus Malan and several generals and officers under his command, it may well be that the path of the commission is the better one for South Africa to go.