Would Mandela Be Killed In Sri Lanka?
Dinesh Dodamgoda
“We may never forget, but we must forgive”
The above words came from former President of South Africa Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, when he was encouraging Miriam Makeba, a South African singer nicknamed Mama Africa, to return to South Africa from exile.[1]
When rebuilding South Africa, ‘forgiveness’ was the ethos of Nelson Mandela. In Long Walk to Freedom, he wrote, “To make peace with an enemy, one must work with that enemy and that enemy becomes your partner”.[2]
The principle of forgiveness became the foundation of the South African reconciliation process. In order to initiate the reconciliation process, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was establish as a part of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act passed in 1995. The Act was passed after debated the bill in the parliament for 200 hours.
The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act was based on the principle that ‘reconciliation depends on forgiveness and that forgiveness can only take place if gross violations of human rights are fully disclosed’, offered amnesty to the perpetrators of ‘acts associated with a ‘political objective’.[3] Therefore, the TRC which helped in healing the wounded South African society had no power of prosecution, or any judicial function. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, later appointed to Chair the TRC, hoped that the TRC would open wounds in order to clean them. As Professor Andre du Toid, an Emeritus Professor in Politics at the University of Cape Town, observed, ‘The South African Commission will be unlike the Nuremburg trials in that it will be concerned with truth not justice.’[4] Read More