Truth Omission

This chapter focuses on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to show how its understanding of truth and justice was highly circumspect and circumscribed. When specific attention is directed to a consideration of who, why, and how people were held responsible for the gross human rights abuses of apartheid by the TRC, it is shown that the answers took the form of as few to blame as possible, with nobody properly judged. To draw this out, the chapter engages with two high-profile cases, namely, the killing of the Cradock Four and the death of Steve Biko. Specifically, these two cases are critically re-interpreted to show how TRC-led investigations and hearings lacked both the capacity and the capability to properly probe and to bring to the fore the culpability of high-level state security command structures in authorizing both the commission of extrajudicial killings and torture under interrogation. Overall, the chapter argues that truth and justice cannot be well served when pursued within the legal and moral context of a systemically racist society.