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In view of widespread publicity given to what many have reported as the closure of the TRC, we felt we should use this opportunity to give you a briefing on the most significant activities of the Commission over the next few months.

The Commission's Report

Commissioners from around the country moved to Cape Town from July 1st to work on the report which has to be handed to the President by October 31 this year. The date established with the President's office is October 29. The report is likely to run to five or six volumes, including one or two volumes which reflect the finding in every one of the cases where we make a formal declaration that a person is a victim as defined by the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act.

We have available a copy of the TRC's publication aimed at NGOs and those who have made statements to us -- it is entitled Truth Talk -- and you will see a list of chapter headings for the Report on the back page.

After October 31, the Commission will be suspended, and the Amnesty Committee will continue its work until it has dealt with every single amnesty application received. Once that has happened, the Commission will be reconvened to consider the report arising out the Amnesty Committee's work. At that stage we will be able to decide whether we want to add to or qualify our main Report.

The Amnesty Committee

The Committee aims to finish its work by the middle of next year, but in view of the nature of amnesty hearings -- where postponements sometimes have to be given in order for people's legal rights to be respected -- it is not possible to fix a firm and final end-date.

The Committee has dealt with two-thirds of the 7,060 applications it has received. Of the total number of applications, 77 percent were from prisons. The law has required us to give preference to prisoners' applications, and as a result those from prisons make up 90 percent of the applications we have finalised.

Most of the work now facing the Committee arises from applications requiring public hearings. Our estimate is that 1,400 of the 7,060 applications concerned gross violations of human rights -- involving killing, torture, abduction or severe ill-treatment -- and therefore needed public hearings. We have disposed of 136 applications, and about 139 have been heard, with the judgement pending, meaning we still need to hear about 1,200.

So we still have a great deal of work to do. However, one has to bear in mind that for much of the life of the Committee, we were working with five members, who had to sit on one panel. After the latest amendments to that section of the Act, there is now provision for up to 19 members, sitting in up to six panels.

Major applications still to be heard concern the bombings of ANC offices in London and assassinations outside South Africa, applications from former SADF officers, applications arising out of the CBW programme, those from alleged members of the Mandela United Football Club, those arising from an ANC landmine campaign, applications in respect of violations committed by ANC members in exile, including at Quatro, and the full application of Eugene de Kock. In his case, the matters for he was convicted total less than 15 percent of the number of gross violations of human rights for which he is applying. (Details of these applications -- including the identities of the applicants -- are by law confidential until there is a public hearing, but announcements will be made in due course, shortly ahead of hearings.)

In the case of the "ANC 37", as previously reported we have established another 37 applications where the applicants have applied for amnesty on the basis of a statement by the National Executive Committee of the ANC in which the leadership takes responsibility for the actions of their cadres. We have asked the ANC whether they want to supplement their applications and are due to meet them to explain what sort of further particulars we envisage them providing.

Once we have a response from the ANC, there are two possible scenarios for handling the applications. In this regard, may be worth repeating the two scenarios which the Archbishop outlined in a statement issued at a TRC news conference recently:

"-- Should an amnesty applicant give details in an amnesty application, or in further particulars to an application, of a specific act, omission or offence in respect of which he/she applies for amnesty which constitutes a "gross violation of human rights" as defined in the Act (i.e. killing, torture, abduction or severe ill-treatment), then the Committee is bound to hold a public hearing to consider the application;

"Alternatively;

"-- Should an applicant give details of a specific act, omission or offence which does NOT constitute a gross violation of human rights as defined in the Act, then the Committee has a discretion to hold a public hearing but is not required to. Of course, should an applicant not declare a gross violation and receive amnesty for activity not constituting a gross violation, he or she would be liable to prosecution or civil actions later should his/her participation in "killing, torture, abduction or severe ill-treatment" be proved.

The situation of victims

The final area we want to deal with today concerns the most important people in the TRC process -- the victims of gross violations of human rights.

We have received statements from more than 21,000 people giving us accounts of what they or their families have suffered. We have made findings on all but about 2,000 of these statements, and plan to complete the findings soon. Each finding has involved the statement being corroborated, and we expect to identify well over 21,000 victims from the statements. (Often a statement identifies more than one victim.)

One of the most difficult areas is where we are unable to make a finding because we have not been able to corroborate a statement. (Material in Truth Talk explains the difficulties we have, as well as the provision that is made for appeals to review our findings.)

Another difficult area that we are grappling with is how to report back to victims what we have found in our investigations. We will obviously not be able to give 21,000 people personal briefings of what we have found; on the other hand, victims are clamouring for report-backs (Joe Seremane, whose plea was published recently in the Mail and Guardian, is only one of hundreds who are asking us to tell them what we have found.)

Yet another problem area will be explaining to some victims why we have not been able to take investigations as far as we would have liked. (When you have 60 investigators with a caseload of 21,000, you can appreciate the problems.)

We have sent notices to about 3,000 victims so far, informing them that they have been officially declared victims and enclosing a reparations applications form. As previously reported to the press, this form will be used both in the short term for interim reparations and for final reparations once the Government and Parliament have decided on those. We have received a few hundred reparations application forms back from victims and have processes them and sent them on to the President's Fund in the Department of Justice for payment of interim reparations.

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