Apartheid and the TRC

The Afrikans word "apartheid" means "to be holy" or "to be set apart." Established as a community following the Boer War, Afrikaners with the support of the British developed the system of racial segregation and oppression known as apartheid. A system that was implemented and enforced by numerous acts and laws that institutionalized racial discrimination and ensured the dominance of white people over people of other races. Apartheid was distinguished from segregation practiced in other countries by the systematic ways it was formalized in law. Apartheid became a comprehensive legislative project only after the National Party came into power in 1948. However, it was preceded by many statutes established by previous British and Afrikaner administrations in South Africa's provinces.


Archbishop Tutu's spiritual leadership was instrumental in exposing the evils of apartheid through his  resistance to seeing an apartheid state as a city of God, which it declared itself to be. He said, "In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights." On May 10, 1994 Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically elected president. Within months he formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Mandela appointed Tutu as the Commission chair. The objective of the Commission was to promote national unity and reconciliation in a spirit of understanding which transcends the conflicts and divisions of the past." Tutu as chair of the TRC was charged with the task of establishing "as completely as possible the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights committed." The Commission was empowered to grant amnesty in exchange for what it termed a "full disclosure" of truth about violations of human rights. The Commission was also charged with establishing the fate of victims, enabling them or their survivors to tell their stories, and make arrangements for possible measures for reparations. The Commission conducted investigations and hearings of some 20,000 victims and 7,000 amnesty seekers for about two years, and released its final report on October 29, 1998.



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