THE TRUTH COMMISSION AND ITS BURDENS: perpetrator findings and their consequences

182pp., 4to., illus., paperback, Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology, Stellenbosch, 2024

ISBN: 9781037000218

The second and concluding volume of a study of the amnesty negotiations during the South African transition, and the consequent activities and legacy of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The first volume, Amnesty Chronicles, the inner history of the amnesty negotiations during the South African transition, and the origins of the TRC's amnesty process, was published in 2022.

"At a time when the NPA's failure to prosecute those names as perpetrators by the TRC is back in the public eye, this volume is a relevant and important contribution to the debate. Provocative yet balanced, controversial and considered, it provides a necessary reflection on the findings of the TRC, and on the important question of whether and how to hold people and their parties accountable for human rights violations." Professor Janet Cherry, Nelson Mandela University, and a former TRC researcher

"Drawing on years of study, du Toit provides critical concepts with which to analyse the TRC, and truth commissions in general, as well as other forms of official and unofficial bodies designed to investigate past political violence ... While many texts have been written about the TRC, this work adds a new dimension." Dr Claire-Anne Lester, Stellenbosh University

André du Toit is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Cape Town, and Associate Research Fellow of its Centre for Social Science Research. As Emeritus Professor, he founded and directed a graduate interdisciplinary programme on Justice and Transformation, dealing with transitional justice and the legacy of the TRC. In earlier years, he taught political philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch. 

He was a member of the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society (SPRO-CAS), and was responsible for the report of its political commission, titled South Africa’s Political Alternatives (1973).

He was a founding co-editor of Die Suid-Afrikaan and a member of the group of Afrikaans academics and business people which met with an ANC delegation in Dakar in 1987.

From the early 1990s he was a board member of Idasa, and was closely involved in preparatory discussions for the TRC under the aegis of the NGO Justice in Transition, established by Alex Boraine.