Volume 44, Number 12 · July 17, 1997
True Confessions
By Timothy Garton Ash
The first shock comes in the first hour. Arriving in Cape Town on a bright Monday morning, I drive straight to the offices of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the center of the city, finding the inconspicuous entrance between Kottler's Famous Gift Shop and a bistro. In a packed room on the tenth floor of a modern block, senior representatives of the African National Congress are testifying to a panel chaired by Archbishop Tutu, brilliant in archepiscopal purple. Formerly resistance leaders, in exile or underground, now government ministers in smart suits and ties, they are here to answer questions about the ANC's share in past human rights violations. These include executions in their front-line camps and bombings in which innocent civilians died. They are also asked about their attitude to the 'necklacings' (burning someone with a rubber tire round their neck) that Winnie Mandela once famously endorsed. They give lengthy and usually helpful explanations, but the shock is in the political language they speak.
Feature, 6906 words
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