Confronting the past

Although South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation (Commission) report has got bogged down in legalities and Archbishop Desmond Tutu despairs at the actions taken against the commission he chaired, it would be wrong to write off the exercise as a failure.

The intention was to confront the horrors of apartheid and to exorcise the ghosts of a dark past. This was a brave and visionary act. But success always relied on the good faith of all sides, as well as the willingness of witnesses to acknowledge misdeeds.

The former president, F. W. de Klerk, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in forging the new South Africa. The African National Congress emerged from the apartheid era with a high reputation as a movement which had struggled against a brutal white regime. Now it is these very people, once the heroes of their country's emergence from its shameful days, who are shrinking for allowing the truth to be made public.

For over two years the commission listened as ordinary South Africans gave evidence of crimes against humanity, and former security men admitted or denied past cruelties and injustice. The revelations have shed light on the inner workings of apartheid, but the exercise has not proved to be the intended unifying force to bind both sides together in a new spirit of nationhood.

In some cases, it actually appears to have increased the pain of old wounds as the perpetrators confess but still appear likely to escape punishment. Many black South Africans see the commission as having given offenders the means to avoid justice, while denying it to those who suffered. There may be more trouble when the commission decides on who among the 400 or so indicted in the report will be recommended for prosecution.

For all its frailties, the exercise was still the best way for a new regime to confront the past, and seek a new beginning. Despite all the praise heaped on truth, it is frequently painful and often ugly. But it is much more dangerous to conceal that truth than to bring it into the light of a new day.

-- The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong