Apartheid in South Africa began the second half of the Forties of last century with the National Party's election victory and it finished in the first half of the Nineties with the reforms started by President Frederik Willem de Klerk and completed by President Nelson Mandela.
In 1995, with Act 34-95 (Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation) the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is established. This is a special court with the aim of promoting national unity and reconciliation in a spirit of understanding which transcends the conflicts and divisions of the past.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission diversified its action through three committees:
- the Committee on Human Rights Violations, with the aim of taking into account the gross violations on human rights committed between 1960 and 1964;
- the Committee on Amnesty, with the aim of granting amnesty to perpetrators of abuses that could be considered politically motivated and proportionate and that they had confessed fully;
- the Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation, with the aim of proposing appropriate measures for reparation and rehabilitation for the victims.
The final report was made public in 1998, but since the Committee on Amnesty has still continued to operate for some years, the conclusive report was made public in 2003.
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