Unfinished TRC business haunts nation

2026-03-17 - 06:14

Spiritual teacher Yehuda Berg says: “If you never heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.” When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was promulgated, its primary objective was to allow South Africans to reach back into their past, acknowledge the wrongs – pain and hurt – they have done to others, let the victims be acknowledged so that when the “new South Africa” was built, those who were hurt would not bleed on those who did not cause their pain. And the cherry on top was that those who voluntarily came forward and admitted they had hurt others in the course of furthering their political goals, would be granted amnesty if deemed to be completely honest and truthful in their acknowledgement of the wrongs that they had done to fellow South Africans. It was a revolutionary concept that had worked in South American countries that had survived brutal dictatorships: a simple concept, truth and remorse in exchange for freedom. The current stand-off between President Cyril Ramaphosa, former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma and the chair of the inquiry into the TRC, retired Justice Sisi Khampepe is confirmation of the TRC’s failure. Both Zuma and Mbeki have chosen to protect their “not-so-clear” legacies with regards to the TRC process by roping in Ramaphosa to remove Khampepe as chair of the inquiry as “she was part of the original TRC process”. ALSO READ: WATCH: Families slam Mbeki, Zuma over TRC delays as Ramaphosa pledges action Khampepe disagrees and so the families are still questioning why those that hurt them and their loved ones in the past were never prosecuted as suggested by the TRC, and are left in limbo 30 years later. There is a conspiracy theory that will never go away because successive leaders of the ANC have never come out to deal with the truth. The conspiracy theory is the ANC sold out victims of apartheid by striking an unholy deal with the outgoing apartheid government that they will not allow the prosecutions of those that committed apartheid atrocities in return for the then government’s silence on who within the liberation movements had become apartheid agents (spies) – and also so the ANC’s own people who allegedly committed atrocities in exile did not get prosecuted. Based on anecdotal evidence, the theory appears to hold water. The problem with the current state which promises no immediate prosecutions or remedy for families of victims, their pain and suffering remain unresolved. They remain victims with no chance to heal, meaning that they’ll “bleed on people who never hurt them” as Berg says. ALSO READ: TRC Commission: Are Mbeki and Zuma trying to cover their tracks? The summoning of recently appointed US ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III to account for his remark, “I don’t care about the court ruling on Kill the Boer song hate-speech,” is another example of a past that remains unresolved. Bozell and his boss Donald Trump have latched onto the song and genocide conspiracy theory to use as a basis of how they deal with the country diplomatically. This is what happens when those with the power to ensure the past is dealt with in a way that victims perceive as just, is not just. Ramaphosa, Mbeki and Zuma need to realise the TRC case is more than just about their own legacies or the legacy of the ANC. The case is about families of victims who lost their loved ones and need justice for themselves to feel that they are part of the “new South Africa”.