Public hearings of the Human Rights Violations Committee and the Amnesty Committee

were held at many venues around South Africa, including Cape Town (at the
University of the Western Cape), Johannesburg (at the Central Methodist Mission),
and Randburg (at the Rhema Bible Church).

The commission was empowered to grant amnesty to those who committed abuses during
the apartheid era, as long as the crimes were politically motivated, proportionate,
and there was full disclosure by the person seeking amnesty. To avoid victor's
justice, no side was exempt from appearing before the commission. The commission
heard reports of human rights violations and considered amnesty applications from
all sides, from the apartheid state to the liberation forces, including the African
National Congress.
Numbers

The Commission found more than 19,050 people had been victims of gross human rights
violations. An additional 2,975 victims were identified through the applications
for amnesty. In reporting these numbers, the Commission voiced its regret that
there was very little overlap of victims between those seeking restitution and
those seeking amnesty. [5]

A total of 5,392 amnesty applications were refused, granting only 849 out of the
7,111 (which includes the number of additional categories, such as "withdrawn").[6]
Significance and impact

The TRC's emphasis on reconciliation was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by
the Nuremberg Trials and other de-Nazification measures. The reconciliatory
approach was seen as a successful way of dealing with human-rights violations after
political change, either from internal or external factors.[citation needed]
Consequently, other countries have instituted similar commissions, though not
always with the same scope or the allowance for charging those currently in power.

There are varying opinions as to whether the restorative justice method (as
employed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) is more or less effective than
the retributive justice method (which was used during the Nuremberg Trials). In one
survey study,[7] the effectiveness of the TRC Commission was measured on a variety
of levels:

Its usefulness in terms of confirming what had happened during the apartheid
regime ("bringing out the truth")
The feelings of reconciliation that could be linked to the Commission
The positive effects (both domestically and internationally) that the
Commission brought about (i.e. in the political and the economic environment of
South Africa).

In the study by Orlando Lentini, the opinions of three ethnic groups were measured
in this study: the British Africans, the Afrikaners, and the Xhosa.[7] According to
the researchers, all of the participants perceived the TRC to be effective in
bringing out the truth, but to varying degrees, depending on the group in question.

The differences in opinions about the effectiveness can be attributed to how each
group viewed the proceedings. Some viewed them as not entirely accurate, as many
people would lie in order to keep themselves out of trouble while receiving amnesty
for their crimes. (The Commission would grant amnesty to some with consideration
given to the weight of the crimes committed.) Some said that the proceedings only
helped to remind them of the horrors that had taken place in the past when they had
been working to forget such things. Thus, the TRC's effectiveness in terms of
achieving those very things within its title is still debatable.[7]
Media coverage
The hearings were initially set to be heard in camera, but the intervention of 23
non-governmental organisations eventually succeeded in gaining media access to the
hearings. On 15 April 1996, the South African National Broadcaster televised the
first two hours of the first human rights violation committee hearing live. With
funding from the Norwegian government, radio continued to broadcast live
throughout. Additional high-profile hearings, such as Winnie Mandela's testimony,
were also televised live.

The rest of the hearings were presented on television each Sunday, from April 1996
to June 1998, in hour-long episodes of the Truth Commission Special Report. The
programme was presented by progressive Afrikaner journalist Max du Preez, former
editor of the Vrye Weekblad.[8] The producers of the programme included Anneliese
Burgess, Jann Turner, Benedict Motau, Gael Reagon, Rene Schiebe and Bronwyn
Nicholson, a production assistant.[9]
In the arts and popular culture
Film

Various films have been made about the commission:

Documentary film

Confronting the Truth (2006) by Steve York. Produced in association with the
United States Institute of Peace.
Facing the Truth (1999) by Bill Moyers. Two-part PBS series.[10]
Long Night's Journey into Day (2000) by Frances Reid.[11] Won the Grand Jury
Prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.
A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake (2014) by Michael Lessac. Documentary. While not
documenting the TRC per se, it features diverse group of South African actors who
tour the war-torn regions of Northern Ireland, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia to
share their country's experiment with reconciliation.

Feature film

Forgiveness (2004) by Ian Gabriel. A South African feature film, starring South
African–born actor Arnold Vosloo as a disgraced ex-cop seeking forgiveness from the
family of the activist he killed under the apartheid regime. With Quanita Adams and
Zane Meas.
In My Country (2004). A feature film very loosely based on Country of My Skull,
a 1998 autobiographical text by Antjie Krog that dealt with her coverage of the
hearings. With Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche.
Red Dust (2004). A feature film based on the novel of the same title by South
African writer Gillian Slovo. With Hilary Swank, Jamie Bartlett and Chiwetel
Ejiofor.
Zulu Love Letter (2004). A film by Ramadan Suleman, starring Pamela Nomvete.
The Forgiven (2018). A film by Roland Joffé, starring Forest Whitaker as
Desmond Tutu and Eric Bana as Piet Blomfeld.

Theatre

Several plays have been produced about the TRC:

Truth in Translation (2006), by Paavo Tom Tammi, in collaboration with American

director, Michael Lessac and the company of Colonnades Theatre Lab, South Africa.
Ubu and the Truth Commission (1997), by Jane Taylor and William Kentridge.
Nothing but the Truth (2002), by John Kani.
The Story I Am About to Tell, created in collaboration with the Khulumani
support group.
The Dead Wait, by Paul Herzberg.
Truth and reconciliation, debbie tucker green (2011)
Fiction

Taylor, Jane. Ubu and the Truth Commission. Cape Town: University of Cape Town
Press, 2007.
Wicomb, Zoe. 2006. Playing in the Light
Slovo, Gillian 2000. Red Dust. Virago ISBN 978-0-393-32399-3
Flanery, Patrick. Absolution.

Poetry

Some of Ingrid de Kok's poetry in Terrestrial Things (2002) deals with the TRC
(e.g. "The Archbishop Chairs the First Session", "The Transcriber Speaks", "The
Sound Engineer").

Criticisms

A 1998 study by South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation
& the Khulumani Support Group,[12][13] which surveyed several hundred victims of
human rights abuse during the Apartheid era, found that most felt that the TRC had
failed to achieve reconciliation between the black and white communities. Most
believed that justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an
alternative to it, and that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators
of abuse.[14][15] As a result of the TRC's shortcomings and the unaddressed
injuries of many victims, victims' groups, together with NGOs and lawyers, took
various TRC-related matters to South African and US courts in the early 2000s.[16]

Another dilemma facing the TRC was how to do justice to the testimonials of those
witnesses for whom translation was necessary. It was believed that, with the great
discrepancy between the emotions of the witnesses and those translating them, much
of the impact was lost in interlingual rendition. A briefly tried solution was to
have the translators mimic the witnesses' emotions, but this proved disastrous and
was quickly scrapped.[17]

While former president F. W. de Klerk appeared before the commission and reiterated
his apology for the suffering caused by apartheid, many black South Africans were
angered at amnesty being granted for human rights abuses committed by the apartheid
government. The BBC described such criticisms as stemming from a "basic
misunderstanding" about the TRC's mandate,[18] which was to uncover the truth about
past abuse, using amnesty as a mechanism, rather than to punish past crimes.
Critics of the TRC dispute this, saying that their position is not a
misunderstanding but a rejection of the TRC's mandate.

Among the highest-profile of these objections were the criticism