The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has agreed to minor changes to its final report which were proposed by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) after the party went to court last year to stop the document from being released.
Lawyers representing the IFP and the TRC went to court on Wednesday to have the agreement, which was reached between the two parties, made an order of court.
The agreement was disclosed to a full bench of the Cape High Court by senior counsel Leslie Rose-Innes, who represented the IFP.
Rose-Innes said the controversy had been resolved and that there were two important aspects to the agreement.
Firstly, the TRC had agreed to certain changes, which were described as minor, in its final report. It had also agreed to include an appendix to the agreement in which the IFP and its leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi express their views about the corrections to the report.
The full bench comprised judges Roger Cleaver, Belinda van Heerden and Jerome Ngwenya.
Cleaver said that whoever had taken the initiative to reach the settlement deserved to be commended. He said the settlement was of great importance because of the great sensitivity of the matter and the urgency with which the TRC now had to complete its report and for reparations to be paid out.
The IFP instituted legal action after the TRC presented its report to former president Nelson Mandela on October 29, 1998. The report described the IFP, under the leadership of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, as the ”primary non-state perpetrator… responsible for approximately 33 percent of all the violations reported to the commission”.
The IFP contended that the commission did not have evidence to support this conclusion.
Last year Buthelezi said: ”My only desire is that of restoring the truth. I have never ordered, authorised, condoned or ratified any gross human rights violation.
”The findings in the TRC report relating to the black-on-black conflict cannot stand as the record of our national history.”
He said the findings were flawed and an insult to the millions of people who suffered because of the black-on-black conflicts.
Government representative Joel Netshitenzhe said last month that decisions would be taken on the TRC’s recommendations after the court had dealt with the matter.
He said the government had paid reparations of R50-million to 18 000 South Africans so far for harm they suffered under apartheid.
This was an interim measure and in line with recommendations by the TRC, which put forward some cases requiring urgent reparation.
Charles Villa-Vicencio, executive director for the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, welcomed Wednesday’s settlement.
”This removes a major obstacle to paying final reparations to survivors of gross human rights violations who have unduly endured hardship.
”We trust that there will now be no further delay and expect the Minister of Finance, Mr Trevor Manuel, to provide the long-delayed relief to thousands of survivors when he delivers his budget speech next month,” Villa-Vicencio said. – Sapa