TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 11

Part OtherDepts

Subsection 23

■ MAKING STATEMENTS

11 People who gave public testimony represented only a small percentage (about 10 per cent) of those who approached the Commission. The more usual route was by making a statement, a process that could take from thirty minutes to three hours.

12 Three kinds of people made statements: direct victims, family members and witnesses. Each approached the Commission for a range of different reasons. All imagined there would be some benefit in doing so. People’s reasons for participating included: contributing to national reconciliation, finding out why family members had disappeared, requesting financial assistance to pay for expenses incurred as a result of human rights violations, and demanding that the perpetrator pay or account to the public in person.

13 Statement takers reported that the mental state of deponents varied greatly and that often there was little time to enquire more fully into the state of a deponent’s mental health, let alone to make any kind of accurate assessment. The encounter between the statement taker and deponent was always powerful and often painful: full of promise for the deponent and, for the statement taker, often a question of managing expectations and the re-emergence of trauma. The degree to which the deponent was able to benefit from the experience depended on the statement taker’s ability to handle the encounter.

14 Statement takers reported that often, for the deponent, the statement taker was the Commission and embodied all the Commission stood for. Bonds formed while taking a statement often continued, as the statement taker came to be seen as the only conduit through which the statement giver could follow up with the Commission.

15 By the same token, the length of time it took for information and reparations to reach the deponent was often a cause of frustration, and undermined what had begun as a relationship of trust. This was also frustrating for the statement taker who felt helpless at being unable to feed back the required information.

16 Making a statement to the Commission brought relief to some. The experience itself helped to break an emotional silence, started the process of integrating experiences that had been repressed or shut out for years, alleviated feelings of shame and, in an atmosphere of acceptance, began to restore dignity and self-respect. The experience initiated more than it closed, however, except perhaps where the statement was made at the end of a process of healing. In the majority of cases, making a statement represented a brave confrontation with something deeply painful. The result was often the re-emergence of trauma that, without an appropriate intervention, might have been ‘managed’ historically through negative coping behaviour - which would have been counter productive and served to repress traumatic and psychological realities.

17 On occasion, individuals were referred to briefers for onward referral to support services. However, by and large the only way (barring final reparations) that the deponents’ needs could be identified was through the screening of their statements - particularly the information they provided on the consequences of their experiences, their means of coping and their expectations. The quality of this information varied, depending on the statement taker’s ability to probe, as well as the deponent’s readiness to articulate a need.

18 Support services were given free of charge and depended on the good will of those organisations that had made a commitment to bridge the gap between people’s immediate needs and the delivery of final reparations.

■ THE EXPERIENCE OF FAMILIES

19 In its endeavour to capture the experience of the individual through personal testimony, the Commission often could not gauge the impact of gross human rights violations on the family system. Family members often gave testimony on behalf of their deceased loved ones without articulating their own suffering. This was especially true of the mothers whose children had been killed. Although the family was often a powerful support system in the event of trauma, the focus on the primary victim drew attention away from the trauma experienced by family members. The Act made provision for this, describing victims as “such relatives or dependants of victims as may be prescribed”. However, dependants or relatives only received supportive intervention in cases of urgency, which were picked up in consultation at case conferences or at the urgent interim stage.