The Truth Commission: Memory and Change

Abstract

The third wave of democratisation described by Samuel Huntington between the 1970s and the late 1980s has been accompanied by a new set of institutions in many of the regimes making that democratic leap. These institutions are particularly aimed at an inquiry into the recent past, a history that is more often than not filled with misdeeds, atrocities and gross human rights violations. These institutions have mainly taken the shape of truth commissions but have also taken other forms of inquiry into the dark past. Recognition, acknowledgement and perhaps closure on the problematic events of the past are necessary in some cases for the new dispensations to legitimate themselves politically. They are thus faced with a paradox: how is this legitimacy established? Should they take a hard line, attempting to prosecute through their criminal justice system the perpetrators of misdeeds or should they offer unconditional amnesty to the former, a willed amnesia to simply forget the past, let bygones be bygones and plan for the future. This situation is even much more complicated during a transitional phase in a country’s history, particularly when that country has been divided in the way South Africa has: