The Era of Transitional Justice: The Aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and Beyond

279 Pages·2010·2.38 MB·English

by  Paul Gready

The Era of Transitional Justice
The Era of Transitional Justice: The Aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa and Beyond explores a broad set of issues raised by political
transition and transitional justice through the prism of the South African TRC.
South Africa constitutes a powerful case study ofthe enduring structural legacies
ofatroubledpast,andofboththepotentialandlimitationsoftransitionaljustice
and human rights as agents of transformation in the contemporary era. South
Africa’s story has wider relevance because it helped to launch constitutional
human rights and transitional justice as global discourses; as such, its own legacy
istosomeextentwritlargeinpost-authoritarianandpost-conflictcontextsacross
the world. Based on a decade of research, and in an analysis that is both com-
parative and interdisciplinary, Paul Gready maintains that transitional justice
needs to do more to address structural violence – and in particular poverty,
inequality and social and criminal violence – as these have emerged as stubborn
legacies from an oppressive or war-torn past in many parts of the world.
Organised around four central themes – new keyword conceptualisation
(truth, justice, reconciliation); re-imagining human rights; engaging with the past
and present; remaking the public sphere – it is an argument that will be of con-

siderable relevance to those interested in the law and politics of transitional
societies.
PaulGreadyisProfessorofAppliedHumanRightsandDirectoroftheCentre
for Applied Human Rights at the University of York (UK).
Transitional Justice
Series Editor: Kieran McEvoy
Queen’s University Belfast
The study of justice in transition has emerged as one of the most diverse and
intellectually exciting developments in the social sciences. From its origins in
human rights activism and comparative political science, the field is increasingly
characterised by its geographic and disciplinary breadth. This series aims to
publish the most innovative scholarship from a range of disciplines working
on transitional justice related topics, including law, sociology, criminology, psy-
chology, anthropology, political science, development studies and international
relations.
Titles in this series:
Transitional Justice, Judicial Accountability and the
Rule of Law
Hakeem O. Yusuf (2010)
The Era of Transitional Justice: The Aftermath of the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa

and beyond
Paul Gready (2010)
The Era of Transitional Justice
The Aftermath of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission in
South Africa and beyond
Paul Gready
Firstpublished2011
byRoutledge
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SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
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AGlassHousebook
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©2011PaulGready
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData

AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Gready,Paul.
Theeraoftransitionaljustice:theaftermathofthetruthandreconciliation
commissioninSouthAfricaandbeyond/PaulGready.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferences.
1.SouthAfrica.TruthandReconciliationCommission.
2.Truthcommissions–SouthAfrica–Evaluation.3.
Apartheid–SouthAfrica.4.Humanrights–SouthAfrica.
5. South Africa–Politics and government. I. Title.
DT1974.2.G742011
968.06–dc22 2010013550
ISBN 0-203-84193-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-0-415-58116-5 (hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-84193-8(ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1 Truth as genre 20
2 From social truth to rights-based participation 61
3 Justice past 93
4 Justice present 117
5 Speaking truth to reconciliation 156
6 Reconciliation, relationships and the everyday 195

Conclusion 231
Interviewees 240
Bibliography 242
Index 266
Acknowledgements
This book has been a long time coming. The first interviews for it, or more
accurately for a rather different book, were conducted in 1998. As usual, over
time I have incurred four kinds of debt, from respectively: those who gave me
money, those whotalkedtome,thosewhoreadanddiscussedwhat Iwrote, and
those who kept me sane.
In the first category, a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2004–5 allowed
me to dedicate the best part of a year to researching and writing the book.
Earlier awards from the Nuffield Foundation’s Social Science Small Grant
Scheme (for an initial set of interviews about the TRC) and Economic and
Social Research Council (for work on magistrates) were also invaluable. Two
grants from the University of London’s Central Research Fund helped me to
keep going back to South Africa.
In the second category I have incurred many debts and made many friends.
Rather than single out individuals, I will simply refer you to the list of
interviewees that appears at the end of the book (with the caveat that the list
does not feature all those interviewed; in all I conducted well over 70 interviews
during the decade in which I researched the book). My thanks also go to the

various organisations with which I have worked and come into contact over
the years.
Third, I owe a debt of gratitude to those who read and commented on parts
or all of the book. My biggest debts in this regard are to Ron Dudai and Brian
Phillips, fellow transitional justice addicts, who read the whole manuscript
and commented with great critical insight and care. They made the book better
than it would otherwise have been. I would like to thank staff and students
at my current workplace, the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the
University of York (UK), and my previous home, the Centre for International
Human Rights at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of
London,forshapingmyideasandargumentsovertheyears.Aparticularvoteof
thanks is due to my colleague at both institutions, Lars Waldorf, another transi-
tional justice specialist, with whom I have shared many valuable discussions.
I am also grateful to Lucy Harding for her meticulous work on the manuscript
proofs.
Acknowledgements vii
Finally, those who kept me sane. Anashri Pillay read and commented on
chapters, but also accompanied me on much of the journey. I would not have
had it any other way.
Versions or sections of several chapters have previously appeared in journals
or edited books, and reappear here with the requisite permissions:
‘Telling Truth? The Methodological Challenges of Truth Commissions’, in
F. Coomans, F. Günfeld and M. Kamminga (eds) Methods of Human Rights
Research, Maastricht Series in Human Rights, Intersentia: Antwerp, 2009,
159–85 (Chapter 1).
‘NovelTruths:LiteratureandTruthCommissions’,ComparativeLiteratureStudies
46 (1), 2009: 156–76 (Chapters 2 and 5).
‘The Public Life of Narratives: Ethics, Politics, Methods’, in M. Andrews,
C.Squire andM. Tamboukou(eds) Doing Narrative Research, Sage: London, 2008,
137–50 (Chapter 2).
‘Culture, Testimony and the Toolbox of Transitional Justice’, Peace Review
20 (1), 2008: 41–48 (Chapters 2 and 5).
My nephews – Joshua, Simeon and Reuben – have been lobbying me for
years to dedicate a book to them. The deal was that I would do so when
they expressed a bursting desire to actually read the book. I would be lying if
I claimed they were spending sleepless nights waiting for this book, but I have
capitulated. This book is for them. It is also for my mother who, with my father,
taught me about human rights without ever using the term.

Introduction
South Africa isat a crossroads. Its post-apartheid achievementshave been extra-
ordinary(democracy,peace),butonthedarksideoftransitionliesamoreproble-
matic reality, partly informedby the legacy ofapartheid:povertyandinequality,
socialandcriminalviolence,anHIV/AIDSpandemic,andxenophobia.Assuch,
SouthAfricaconstitutesapowerfulcasestudyoftheenduringstructurallegaciesof
atroubledpast,andofboththepotentialandlimitationsoftransitionaljusticeand
humanrightsasagentsoftransformationinthecontemporaryera.SouthAfrica’s
story has broader relevance because it helped to launch constitutional human
rightsandtransitionaljusticeasglobaldiscourses;itsownlegacyistosomeextent
writ large in post-authoritarian and post-conflict contexts across the world.
Transitionaljustice,asetoftoolsdesignedtoaddressthelegaciesofatroubled
past, is a creature of compromise; as such, truth commissions are its emblematic
intervention.Theidealmakeswayforthepossible,althoughitneverstopsasking
the possible for more. In South Africa the compromises were of a kind familiar
to peace processes in many parts of the world, as it became the exemplar of a
new global compactthat both facilitatesandplaces constraintsuponthechanges
associated with political transition. A negotiated settlement paved the way for

majoritarian democracy and elections; a truth commission and an amnesty pro-
vision eased the passage; past gross violations of human rights received attention
whileenduringstructuralviolence(povertyandinequality,violentcrime)became
the most enduring legacy of the past; and neo-liberalism trumped more redis-
tributive economic policies. These compromises can be defended as necessary
and midwives to the birth of something verging on the miraculous, or as mid-
wives to a still-birth, as majority hopes for a better future were betrayed and the
extraordinary all too swiftly became ordinary. Compromises have to be made,
but which compromises, who is compromised, and what is the role of transitional
justice and human rights in facilitating or contesting compromise?
Beginnings
This book started out as an inquiry into the keywords of the South African
transition (truth, justice, reconciliation) as the main body of the Truth and