Jeffrey Benzien, a police captain in South Africa, stood before a crowd of his fellow citizens and motioned with his hands.He was demonstrating a method of torture that would take victims to the brink of suffocation. Benzien admitted that he used this torture on people arrested for opposing the government. According to testimony reported last summer by the South African Press Association, Benzien said he tortured people "to protect the government."
Among the people who gathered to hear Benzien's confession last summer were several of his victims, including Tony Yengeni. It was Yengeni who had asked Benzien to demonstrate the torture method. "I wanted to see it with my own eyes--what he did to me," Yengeni said. "What kind of human being could do that?"
A History Of Injustice
Benzien's tale is just one of thousands of stories of violence and abuse told during the past two years in South Africa. Judges, ministers and lawyers listen to these stories and record
them as part of their work for the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Their goal: to learn the facts about South Africa's troubled past.
Europeans first settled in what is now South Africa in the 1600s. These colonists set up a government and lived apart from native Africans. Even after South Africa became a self-ruling country in 1910, white people remained firmly in control.
From 1948 to 1994, the nation was ruled under a system known as apartheid (uh-par-tide). Apartheid kept blacks and whites apart: separate schools, separate neighborhoods, separate rights. No black person had the right to vote or take part in the government. In a nation of 32 million black people and 6 million whites, no black person had a voice.
Black South Africans and others who tried to fight this system were silenced quickly and sometimes violently. Thousands were thrown in prison. Hundreds were tortured and murdered by the police. White South African leaders looked away, even though these acts were against the law. They wanted white people to stay in power.
An End To White Rule
Apartheid could not last forever. After a long struggle,South Africa held its first open election in 1994. Once black citizens had a voice, they used it. They elected Nelson Mandela the country's first black President. He had spent 27 years in prison for fighting for black equality.
As white rule came to an end, many whites feared that blacks would seek revenge for the cruelties of apartheid. So the white government and Mandela's new government made a deal. People who had committed crimes for or against apartheid could receive amnesty--or protection from punishment--if they did one thing: tell the truth about their crimes.
The Healing Power Of Truth
Mandela and others felt that for South Africa's newborn democracy to grow strong, its people needed to face their ugly past. "We as a nation must confront the truth and heal
ourselves," Mandela said.
And so the Truth and Reconciliation Commission began. People, white or black, who had committed crimes related to the struggle over apartheid were asked to come forward and admit to them. Others were ordered to appear before the commission. If a person confessed, he faced no punishment. Captain Benzien may have spoken up about his crimes because he knew he would not get in trouble.
Since the commission's first hearing in April 1996, more than 7,000 people have volunteered to tell the truth about past crimes. The commission members listen to testimony from white people who committed crimes to preserve apartheid and from black people who committed crimes while fighting apartheid. The commission meets in town halls and churches. Some hearings are even broadcast on television. By searching for the truth in such an open way, the commission hopes to help bring the people of South Africa together.
Not everyone supports the commission. Some victims' families want the people who hurt their loved ones to be punished. Others want to forget the past. One of them, P.W. Botha, was South Africa's President during some of the country's most violent times, from 1978 to 1989. He faces jail--not for any apartheid-era crimes he may have committed, but for refusing to appear before the commission. His trial is set for April.
For now, the Truth Commission's sad work continues. Some stories the commission hears are so awful that the people listening can do nothing but cry. Parents learn the truth about how their children were murdered. Victims relive brutal beatings. The Truth Commission's chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has set up a special "crying room" outside some hearings. There, in that room, the tears of the people begin to wash clean the cuts of South Africa's past. There, in that room, a hurt nation begins to heal.