Its Truth and Reconciliation Commission wraps up, but many of South Africa's wounds are unhealed

By PETER HAWTHORNE /CAPE TOWN

t began two and a half years ago in a flood of tears and emotion so overwhelming that the chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, broke down himself and later set aside a "crying room" for grieving witnesses at the East London city hall, in the Eastern Cape. Last week, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission wrapped up its hearings on human rights violations during the apartheid era. Already, the questions were being asked: Was it worth 27 months and $25 million? How much of the truth did it reveal? Will it lead to racial reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa?

The answers will be debated long after the T.R.C. delivers its final report to President Nelson Mandela in October. One thing is clear, however--the commission cast a spotlight on some of the darkest and most atrocious deeds of the apartheid war. They included the government's chilling chemical warfare program against blacks; the covert "hit squads" which were responsible for abductions, assaults and murders of hundreds of people listed as enemies of the state; the murder of Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko in prison; and the assassination of the South African Communist Party secretary-general and A.N.C. executive Chris Hani by two white rightists.

The testimony at the commission's hearings ranged from macabre to cold-blooded to poignant: former security police interrogators demonstrating their torture methods; ex-hit squad officers drinking beer at a barbecue while the remains of a victim smolders on a nearby fire; a young man's body fed to crocodiles after having been tortured to death by the police; witnesses giving evidence from wheelchairs. The litany of abuse caused such emotional stress among T.R.C. staff members that psychological therapy was provided. "It is probably impossible for most of the staff to process the information emotionally," says Trudy de Ridder, a Cape Town clinical psychologist who counseled witnesses and staff members. "There is too much of it in absolute terms that defies normal human explanation."

The T.R.C. brought victims and perpetrators face to face in painful confrontations. Some produced the expressions of apology, forgiveness and reconciliaton which, chairman Tutu believes, are the cathartic goals of the commission. Neville Clarence, blinded by an A.N.C. bomb blast in Pretoria, shook hands with the man who was responsible for the bombing. Michael Lapsley, an Anglican priest who lost both hands to a letter bomb sent by security agents, not only publicly forgave his assailants but began "Healing the Memory" workshops for other survivors of human rights violations. "It's a journey from being a victim, being a survivor, to being a victor," says Lapsley.

Although the T.R.C.'s human rights violations committee has ended its work, a separate team of commissioners will continue to consider some 2,000 pending applications--out of a total of just over 7,000--for amnesty for human rights abuses, many of which have already resulted in criminal convictions. Some 4,600 have been refused, mostly without public hearing. A reparations committee will also rule on cash compensation for some victims. Fewer than 150 amnesties have so far been granted. Last month amnesty was approved for the black gunmen who shot up a church service in Cape Town, killing 11 people, and for four young blacks who murdered Amy Biehl, a California student, during anti-government riots in 1993, the T.R.C. ruling that the crimes were committed with a political objective.

Despite the fact that the first amnesty was granted to Brian Mitchell, a white police officer sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment for the 1988 massacre of 11 villagers in rural KwaZulu-Natal, many white right-wingers, especially Afrikaners, have criticized the T.R.C. as a biased A.N.C. witch hunt against the servants of the old apartheid regime. They insist that the T.R.C.'s seemingly generous amnesty provisions should be applied to the policemen implicated in the death of Biko, the two white men who killed Hani, and officers of the infamous hit squads--some of whom have been convicted of murder and other crimes--who were acting on orders which had a "political objective."

Others argue that the T.R.C. was flawed because it only touched on selective truths; that, on one hand, it ignored many black-on-black crimes, and on the other it let the political managers of the war for--and against--apartheid off the hook. "The T.R.C. has been divisive in concept and conduct," said the conservative Citizen newspaper. A survey among an urban group of 13.7 million people of all races last month found that most believed the revelations from the T.R.C. had worsened rather than improved race relations. "What did we expect?" was Tutu's answer last week. "It would have been odd in the extreme if people hadn't been incensed at the atrocities that had been revealed." What is more important, says Tutu, is that the survey also showed that most blacks were prepared to work toward reconciliation. Out of the torment of the T.R.C., that may be the most encouraging truth of all.