The truth commission’s hearings into human rights abuses end next week. But the emotional effects on the commission’s staff could last for many years. Angella Johnson reports
Frank Mohapi was interviewing three surviving members of a family that had virtually been wiped out in a sectarian attack eight years ago when he noticed he was sitting on a chair riddled with bullet holes.
“I looked around and saw other holes in the walls and various bits of furniture,” said the Truth and Reconciliation Commission statement-taker. “I realised that these people were living in the same poor environment after this time, while I was going back to my hotel room with clean sheets and a hot meal. And there was nothing I could do to help them.”
Angry and confused about his role in the healing process, he went back to his hotel and spent the evening getting drunk at the bar.
There was no way of predicting the effect on commission employees of the tales of human rights abuses that have been recounted before the commission over the past 20 months as South Africans have struggled to deal with apartheid’s past.
Their responses have ranged from short tempers and aggression in the family home to drinking problems, nightmares and a decrease in sexual appetite among those involved in the massive process of shifting through the human debris of mindless violence.
Commissioners, interpreters, computer inputters, statement-takers and journalists have had to deal with emotional challenges on a scale to rival some of the worst human rights atrocities committed this century.
“Many of the adverse responses creep up on them over a period of time,” explains Thulani Grenville-Grey, the counselling psychologist responsible for helping commission staff cope with the trauma.
He says they were like sponges absorbing the grief, pain and aggression of others. “They responded with classic post-traumatic stress symptoms, which is why we have encouraged them to go for weekly debriefing sessions to talk things through.”
These 90-minute group sessions are like emotional cleansing, offering an outlet for the anger and frustration which build up day by day. Although many of the commission staff are reluctant to admit to having needed counselling, Grenville-Grey says the groups were well attended by many of the 400 people who worked for the commission at its peak.
The translators especially, who were talking in the first person, were more susceptible to taking on the emotions of witnesses. “It has had a hell of an effect on everyone,” says their co-ordinator, Dr Theo du Plessis, of the department of linguistics at the University of the Free State. “Not necessarily when you are working, but afterwards when you try to relax.”
He recalls being particularly affected by stories relating to the killing of children. “I’m a father and once or twice I’ve broken down and cried after hearing parents talk about what happened to their children.”
Along with the translators, journalists have had the most severe exposure from covering the series of hearings across the country. Many have had to take time off to relieve the tension. Others are now desperate to get away from the daily dosage of man’s inhumanity to man.
People like Ross Colvin (26), who writes for the South African Press Association, said: “I’ve had enough of listening to stories about death, torture, poisoning and burnt bodies,” he says. “It has been the most disturbing job imaginable.”
His internal battle has been to try to retain a sense of attachment to the events. “It’s quite easy to sit through a session of the most terrible testimony and emerge unaffected, but sometimes when I think I can no longer be touched, someone comes along with a moving account of some incident which gets to me.”
The toll has been both physical and mental. He has suffered from migraines and low blood pressure since the hearings began. “Emotionally I’m now much harder after being exposed to so much brutality every day. Frankly, I’ve don’t want to sit through any more.”
Journalist Thapelo Mokushane (25) describes as “disturbing” the dispassionate way that former security branch officers talked about burning corpses next to where they were having a braai. “It’s been very sickening to realise some of them never thought of what they were doing but just followed orders.”
There was no respite from the images which would replay in his mind at odd moments, leaving him depressed and angry. “I have to fight down my emotions in order to do my job.”
Numerous people have cracked under the strain and are now propped up by drinks and drugs. For some the emotions are dormant, like a sleeping volcano waiting to erupt. According to Grenville-Grey, it could take anything to trigger a violent reaction.
“It is usually when these people have stopped working, like at the Christmas break, that they are more susceptible to an emotional collapse.” For others it could be years before the effects are felt.