South Africa's Truth Commission

Even after all-race elections in 1994 ended South Africa's long struggle over apartheid, vanished relatives didn't come back and the perpetrators of political violence still went unidentified. Failing to confront that history directly would have allowed it to fester forever.

No one believes that the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will soothe all the enmity from years of white- minority rule in South Africa. But the commission's report is the first step in helping citizens of a deeply divided nation establish a shared memory of the past.

The commission accused South Africa's judiciary, religious leaders and media for appeasing or directly supporting apartheid. In the end, though, the commission put most of the blame for political violence where it belongs: on South Africa's white rulers, especially former President P.W. Botha, who used the nation's police forces, killed opponents and sponsored bombings to preserve apartheid.

Yet the commission implicated anti-apartheid forces, too. Stung by those findings, the ANC sought to block the report's release. One official maintained that faulting the party's actions would essentially "criminalize the whole liberation struggle."

Fortunately, a judge rejected that argument. The release of the report two hours later raises the possibility that, after years of terror, South Africa can hope to live at least in a nation of laws.

-- The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, USA