Episodes
-
This documentary transports the listener through raw sound to the unprecedented public hearings at which survivors - victims, perpetrators and others – testified about gross human rights abuses since 1960. It contains award-winning stories with lots of gripping and contextual sound. Well-known musicians, storytellers, poets, former political prisoners, exiles and most of the Truth Commissioners thread the story of South Africa's past with music, song, poetry and commentary. This oral record aims to preserve for posterity the rich gamut of viewpoints, memories and emotions of South Africa's history - apartheid and democracy.
Web page: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/index.htm
Butterflies in the pit - Desmond Tutu
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#butterflies
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music by Whitesand - Eternity - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5c83Uixoj8
-
The first week of Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in East London was an exceptional one in South Africa. Nothing like the miracle election of April 1994. Nothing like the Government of National Unity. And nothing like South Africa’s unifying sport victories. Mid-April 1996 was a week in which the country and its people came face to face with their past for the first time. Darren Taylor and Zola Ntutu reflect on the dominant themes that surfaced in the first four days of the Truth Commission’s probe into gross human rights abuses during the apartheid era.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#unlock
Gifts of justice, mercy and compassion
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#gifts
Wounded people
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#wounded
In session
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#session
Witness to great courage
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#witness
Dance unshackled - letters read by Desmond Tutu
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#dance
bones of memory - experiences and memories lay bare the pain and bravery of apartheid's victims
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music by Whitesand - Melody Of My Dreams - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si89RLFreaw
-
Missing episodes?
-
The next Truth Commission hearing into gross human rights abuses at Athlone in Cape Town was also filled with protracted pain. But it was a week flavoured and characterised by the undertones of the Western Cape, where tensions were still entrenched within communities. The victims of the 1993 St James Church massacre echoed the forgiveness of the Cradock Four widows in East London. But the Lubowskis, whose son and brother Anton was assassinated in Windhoek in September 1989, mirrored the lust for justice of Steve Biko’s family. Angie Kapelianis and Darren Taylor look back at that mind-blowing week.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#crystal
The bones of memory - Gcina Mhlophe
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#bones
bones of memory - experiences and memories lay bare the pain and bravery of apartheid's victims
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music - Heartbreaking by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100208 Artist: http://incompetech.com/
-
The Truth Commission’s symbolic hearings into gross human rights abuses moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg between April and May 1996. Again a number of themes were raised under the ceiling and the cross of the Central Methodist Church, where the hearing was held. For the first time an ordinary apartheid policeman came across as being sympathetic towards the comrades and opposed to the free rein of the notorious Security Branch. South Africans of Indian origin were finally recognised for their role in the liberation struggle. But some of these shifts in the Truth Commission script were lost on all but those paying the most undivided attention as the pain first experienced in East London resurfaced. Darren Taylor and Antjie Samuel return to the Johannesburg testimonies.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#hell
Hearing in Alex - Hugh Lewin
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#hearing
bones of memory - experiences and memories lay bare the pain and bravery of apartheid's victims
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
The Truth Commission wrapped up its symbolic round of public hearings into gross human rights abuses in Durban on the 10th of May 1996. Evidence heard at the Jewish Club provided some insight into the violence that was still ravaging KwaZulu-Natal long after South Africa’s first democratic elections had brought peace to most of the country. Many ANC members and supporters blamed the Inkatha Freedom Party in absentia for abuses they had suffered. A glaring gap was that the experiences of IFP members went untold in the same week that South Africa’s democratic Constitution was adopted. And in the same week that the National Party walked out of the Government of National Unity. Kenneth Makatees and Darren Taylor bring to mind what happened in Durban.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#glaring
The beast of our dark past - Desmond Tutu
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/bonesright.htm#beast
"Nkosi sikelel’ iafrika" and "Die stem"
bones of memory - experiences and memories lay bare the pain and bravery of apartheid's victims
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music by Whitesand - Melody Of My Dreams - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si89RLFr
-
"Last will and testament" - Ariel Dorfman
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#last
the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
The Truth Commission’s first-ever partial event hearing took place at the Regina Mundi Catholic Church in Soweto in mid-July 1996. The focus was the twentieth anniversary of the June 16 Soweto uprising – the day thousands of black children revolted against the apartheid system of Bantu Education and Afrikaans as the medium of instruction. All hell broke out when the police unleashed their dogs, tear gas and bullets on students armed with stones, knives and fire. The official cost a week later: more than a thousand injuries, 900 arrests and 140 corpses – the first being that of teenager Hector Peterson. He became the innocent symbol in the turning point of the liberation struggle for democracy.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#you
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
The Truth Commission went behind bars in July 1997 to investigate gross human rights abuses committed in the apartheid prisons and ANC camps in exile. One of the aims of the two-day hearing was to record the memories of so many political prisoners whose lives were wasted. Another was to recommend to government ways of creating a human rights culture in places of detention. The hearing was held at the old fort in Johannesburg, or "Number Four", as the prison was commonly known. One person who had eerie memories returning to the old fort was Truth Commission member Hugh Lewin. He spent seven years in jail for sabotage in the sixties. This is how Lewin captured the essence of imprisonment in his book, called Bandiet.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#butcher
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
The National Party in the form of its leader, FW de Klerk, appeared before the Truth Commission in Cape Town in August 1996 and May 1997. De Klerk accepted responsibility for the wrongs in South Africa while he was president from 1989 to 1994. He admitted to authorising certain operations against the liberation movements. But those operations, said De Klerk, never included official permission to torture and murder activists. He also conceded that many repressive measures had contributed to human rights abuses during the apartheid era. But the lasting image of De Klerk at the Truth Commission soured almost everyone’s respect for the man who so boldly unbanned South Africa in 1990 and publicly apologised for his country’s suffering. Darren Taylor, Antjie Samuel, Kenneth Makatees and Angie Kapelianis report.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#call
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music: B - Somber Ballads by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://incompetech.com/
-
She was proud to be a revolutionary. And proud to be an African woman. But she had no idea how she would be battered physically, mentally and emotionally for her beliefs. By the apartheid Security Police, the prison authorities and even her own sisters in the struggle. She was Greta Appelgren, the ANC’s woman in the 1986 Magoo’s Bar bombing in Durban. And the coloured Catholic who converted to Islam to become Zahrah Narkedien. Angie Kapelianis tells Narkedien’s story of suffering and strength both in jail and in the colour of her skin.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#stand
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
The ANC presented the longest and most complicated political submission to the Truth Commission when it was called to account for its past in 1996 and 1997. The former liberation movement acknowledged that some of its members committed gross human rights violations in exile, but called these abuses "excesses". It also admitted that its military tribunal in Angola executed 34 cadres. On behalf of the ANC, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki apologised for incidents in which civilians were killed, like the Amanzimtoti and Magoo’s Bar bombings in KwaZulu-Natal in the mid-eighties. But the main thrust of the ANC submission was that it fought a just war against an illegitimate government and unjust system. Kenneth Makatees, Angie Kapelianis, Darren Taylor and Antjie Samuel report.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#just
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
Five commissions of inquiry investigated torture in the ANC camps abroad during the liberation struggle against apartheid. They were the Stuart, Skweyiya, Sachs, Motsuenyane and Douglas commissions. Yet several victims jailed in the ANC’s notorious Quatro Camp in Angola were dissatisfied with their findings and turned to the Truth Commission for help. The most eloquent and damning testimony, though, came from one of the ANC government’s own senior officials, Chief Land Claims Commissioner Joe Seremane. Antjie Samuel reports.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#my
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
Who was ultimately responsible for gross human rights abuses committed in the name of apartheid and Christianity? And why did almost all apartheid foot soldiers interpret veiled orders like "eliminate" and "neutralise" to mean "kill"? These questions prompted the Truth Commission to hold a hearing into the once-powerful State Security Council in mid-October 1997. This advisory committee to Cabinet was born under the premiership of BJ Vorster in 1972. It became known as the "super inner-Cabinet" of hand-picked politicians, securocrats and intelligence agents when PW Botha came into power in 1978. The State Security Council apparently kept its finger on the pulse of political thinking and resistance by permeating all levels of society. Four apartheid ministers who served on this body were Pik Botha, Adriaan Vlok, Roelf Meyer and Leon Wessels. Angie Kapelianis asked Truth Commissioner Yasmin Sooka for her impressions of their testimony.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#in
"Asikhathali" - Moegamat Williams
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#asikhathali
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music: B - Somber Ballads by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://incompetech.com/
-
The apartheid legal system came under the Truth Commission’s gavel in October 1997. It wanted to know how did judges and lawyers co-operate or collude with the National Party government? Why did South Africa’s learned men uphold unjust laws? And why did they fail to protect the human rights of all South Africans? But the men who could have answered these questions decided to boycott the hearing. South Africa’s first black chief justice, Ismail Mahomed, said there was no need for the judges to account for their actions in person and in public. Angie Kapelianis compiled this collage of criticism levelled at the judges.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#above
"I saw your mother" - Jeremy Cronin
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#saw
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
-
Convicted former president PW Botha was the one crucial apartheid politician who could have shed more light on the official sanctioning of gross human rights violations. Botha chaired the State Security Council from 1978 to 1989. But instead of succumbing to the Truth Commission, Botha chose to face the court system for eight months and lost. George Magistrate Victor Lugaju found Botha guilty of contempt on the 21st of August 1998 for repeatedly ignoring subpoenas to testify in public. Lugaju said Botha’s failure to testify was unlawful, intentional and without sufficient cause. His sentence was a R10 000 fine or one year in jail. An additional 12-month prison sentence was suspended for five years. This is an extract from Botha’s media briefing at the start of his expensive trial in January 1998.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#salute
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music by Whitesand - Do You Feel What I Feel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM7qA8n9S88&list=RDkQSoW1VnkH4&index=47
-
The apartheid government’s top-secret Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme sealed the Truth Commission’s investigations into gross human rights abuses on the 31st of July 1998. South Africans and the world listened with disbelief and then shock to a group of doctors who perverted science to entrench white supremacy. Truth Commission Chairperson Desmond Tutu described the public testimony on the programme, code-named Project Coast, as "the worst evidence I’ve ever heard". Some of the apartheid scientists disclosed how they tried to produce a vaccine and a bacterium to sterilise and kill only black people. But the most disturbing allegation was that the apartheid government planned to poison jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela in the eighties. Darren Taylor compiled this report.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#doctor
"For don m - banned" - Mongane Wally Serote
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#for
slices of life - the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music by Whitesand - Do You Feel What I Feel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM7qA8n9S88&list=RDkQSoW1VnkH4&index=47
-
The Truth Commission's first public amnesty hearing was held in the relatively obscure village of Phokeng near Rustenburg in May 1996. The applicants were two convicts serving time for murdering Glad Mokgatle on the 29th of December 1990. They were 35-year-old Boy Diale and 53-year-old Christopher Makgale. Their amnesty hearing revealed a dramatic story layered with subtext. About a killing, a tribe, resources and, ultimately, power. But it also introduced a new scene in the Truth Commission play, with different actors and different lines. Antjie Samuel, Andries Sathekge and Angie Kapelianis report.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#tribe
worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music - Dark Walk by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100468 Artist: http://incompetech.com/
-
The Amnesty Committee's first public hearing of convicted white Afrikaans perpetrators was also its first rejection of amnesty. Forty-seven-year-old Hennie Gerber and 42-year-old Johan van Eyk appeared before the amnesty panel in Pretoria in July 1996. Gerber and Van Eyk were former policemen and ex-investigators with the cash-in-transit company Fidelity Guards. On the 21st of May 1991, they interrogated, tortured, shot dead and burnt their colleague Samuel Kganakga. They had suspected him of being involved in an armed robbery of about R4 million and the theft of R60 000. Angie Kapelianis and Darren Taylor report.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#bluegum
worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music: Blue Feather - Reunited by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200068 Artist: http://incompetech.com/
-
The first apartheid security force member to testify in public and be granted amnesty was police captain Brian Mitchell of New Hanover in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. Mitchell appeared before the Amnesty Committee in Pietermaritzburg in October 1996. His 30-year prison sentence was expunged within two months, on the eve of the initial deadline for amnesty applications. Mitchell wasted no time in revisiting the village that he and his special constables had destroyed in December 1988, when he ordered them to kill ANC supporters on behalf of the Inkatha Freedom Party. And when, instead, they killed 11 people, mainly women and children, at a night vigil in Trust Feed. Dumisani Shange, Angie Kapelianis and Darren Taylor report.
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#return
worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music: B - Somber Ballads by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://incompetech.com/
-
They became known as the Five Cops: Jack Cronje, Jacques Hechter, Paul van Vuuren, Wouter Mentz and Roelf Venter. Between them, they committed more than 60 gross violations of human rights while attached to Vlakplaas and the Northern Transvaal Security Branch in the late eighties. These included the murders of Dr Fabian and Florence Ribeiro in Mamelodi, Richard and Irene Motasi in Hammanskraal, as well as the killing of activists known as the KwaNdebele Nine and the Nietverdiend Ten. The public amnesty hearing of the Five Cops was one of the longest, stretching from October 1996 to March 1997. It was held in three cities and at six different venues, one of which was destroyed by fire. This hearing also presented the Amnesty Committee with a unique dilemma: Can amnesty be granted for amnesia and memory loss, such as in the abduction, interrogation, torture and killing of three men: Jackson Maake, Andrew Makupe and Harold Sefolo?
Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#bits
worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape
© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
Additional music by Whitesand - Do You Feel What I Feel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM7qA8n9S88&list=RDkQSoW1VnkH4&index=47
- Show more
