Special Report Transcript Episode 87, Section 4, Time 54:25

Let’s go to the other side of the Commission, the reconciliation side. What will you do in your final report which was due to come out at the end of July, how could in your view the final report contribute to that leg of the TRC? // It is crucial for people to understand what reconciliation is. See, many people came to think of it as being chummy-chummy, as not being confrontational. Not saying this is the truth, this is a lie; that you have to make a choice. I mean to seek to have reconciliation on the basis of a lie is to look for a cheap, a spurious reconciliation. And therefore people mustn’t think that the report is going to be one that is soft peddling on lies, on awfulnesses. But we are going to try and understand why people took particular positions. Just as an example, not all of us would accept that every option was exhausted before people decided that the only way out was the armed struggle. And those would be points of view that are canvassed in the report. And equally, we will be able to say that whilst most of the world would oppose the actions of the previous government with regard to the liberation movement. We’ve got to put forward the view that many who supported that government did so believing earnestly and genuinely that they were actually opposing a communist onslaught. That they were Christians and here was an atheistic group coming across. And we will say what people may not think. We will criticize different bodies when they require to be criticized. But then we will be saying to the nation, this is for this period what we hope will be a common understanding of what happened. And it is important if you are seeking to become one that you begin to have a common history, a common perspective on what took place.

Notes: Max du Preez; Archbishop Tutu

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