| |
Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
|
Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
|
Special Report
Transcripts for Section 3 of Episode 20
| Time | Summary | | | 13:41 | We certainly can expect a greater sense of urgency from the Truth Commission from now on. Perpetrators of human rights violations go to the Truth Commission to ask for amnesty, but what is in it for the victims? Everyone appearing at a human rights violations hearing requests something of the Commission. Jann Turner prepared this report. | Full Transcript and References | | 14:01 | If the Commission can succeed and make thorough investigations just to get where my husband is, even if it is his remains, even if he was burnt to death, even if I can get his ashes; even if it is the bones belonging to his body. | Full Transcript | | 14:29 | This simple plea for the return of a loved one’s remains has been echoed by dozens of witnesses testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Among the thousands of requests heard by Commissioners are calls for cash hand outs, for shelter, for education, for medical care, for counselling and often for plain justice. All these requests are referred to the Committee on Rehabilitation and Reparation, whose task it is to decide who qualifies for relief and how that relief should be provided. | Full Transcript | | 15:03 | We are looking for measures which will restore people’s dignity which has been lost. We felt, we are looking for measures which will somehow assist people to more or less be able to live a life they would have lived was it not for the violation. | Full Transcript | | 15:26 | I’d like to emphasise that we’ll always listen and try as much as possible to meet the needs of the people. But what we are going to do is to translate those needs in a way that’s going to be viable for the government and in a way that’s going to help the national healing of the communities. Also, translate it in such a way that they have a lasting impact to the individual and the communities. To give an example, the easiest way, if the government had all the money on earth would have been to dish hand outs to all the people. But when the hand outs are finished people could be back to the same situation. You would not have helped to empower the people and also to create a level of independence. | Full Transcript | | 16:21 | What we are really looking at is to make sure that we plant a seed. We know what is the goal of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It’s basically to establish partly a culture of human rights, to promote national healing and reconciliation. So obviously if you give people handouts, irrespective of whether they can be productive or assisted to survive or enter the market in society, we are looking at possibilities of putting in place those measures which we know will benefit not only those individuals or this generation but other generations to come. Like, if you put money into a scholarship in the name of a person who was killed. | Full Transcript | | 17:18 | An often repeated request is that memorials should be created to commemorate those who died. South Africa is already littered with monuments, so how might the Commission approach the design of a memorial to those who suffered during the apartheid years? | Full Transcript | | 17:36 | I think monuments can be live monuments, they can be dead monuments. And a dead monument is something that’s got no vitality and meaning in itself, it’s just a big pile of stones. And I think of all the ceremonies you find in Europe and other countries where there had been many dead, they’re commemorated. They have no meaning really for the people, they just block the streets. They’re quite useful as traffic signs – if you want to know where to go you turn left at that memorial and so on. The other kinds of monuments that have a living, breathing, very human quality, in their very nature, it can be a building itself - Robben Island and the prison on Robben Island is such a powerful monument; you don’t have to do anything, you just have to preserve it. Once when I was in Bloemfontein, it hadn’t been very long back, I had about two hours to spare and my host said ‘well what would you like to do?’ And just like an intuition welled up and I said ‘please take me to ...more | Full Transcript | | 20:47 | But beyond remembering the challenge now facing the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee will be to meet the expectations of the thousands who have come to them asking for help. | Full Transcript |
|
|
>
