Commission for Truth and Reconciliation in Africa such as South Africa

Date: Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Lectures: 16:00 to 18:00 clock

Location: Amerlinghaus, Stiftgasse 8
1070 Vienna

The so-called truth commissions have been since the 1980s in many states after the transition from dictatorship to democracy. The South African Commission, the Rettig Commission in Chile from 1991 to the model. Ten years later there was the Comisión Nacional de Política y Tortura Prison convened.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)) was a South African institution to investigate politically motivated crimes committed during the period of apartheid have been committed. She goes into their origins back to an initiative of the ANC and the then Justice Minister Dullah Omar in 1994 and was completed in January 1996 by President Nelson Mandela used. Desmond Tutu was chairman. The Commission worked until 1998.

The Commission has been convened for 18 months. You could order half a year. The relatively short period of their work was already on the convening controversial, because the abundance of cases to be dealt with at this time hardly seemed to work. However, it was also the consequences of the apartheid system to make public soon. In order to detect any compensation does not take many years to pay, but also to the painful process of education is not unnecessarily to prolong.

The ideals of Gandhi, who over two decades in South Africa, lived and worked, are found in the principles of Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Not the confrontation, but the perception of "others" stood in the foreground.

The defendants were promised amnesty if they admitted their acts, the victims were promised financial assistance. The goal was the reconciliation with the perpetrators as well as a complete picture of the crimes committed during the apartheid perpetrated were getting. All the hearings were so publicly.

Break

Panel Discussion: 19:00 to 22:00 clock

Cause of politically motivated crimes - apartheid.

What are the foundations of reconciliation?

How important is the reconciliation after the crimes of racial separation (apartheid) in South Africa to other countries?

Speakers

Are under discussion