Author Description

Coming to Terms: South Africa's Search for Truth traces the history of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the country's quest for self-determination in its transition from authoritarian rule to participatory democracy. - Carnegie Corporation of New York. Drawing on decades of experience in the country and on his extensive coverage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Martin Meredith tells a vividly South African story. But the issues involved are also utterly universal. In Meredith's view, for all the truth commission's dramatic achievements (and they were many), it left South Africa ultimately unsatisfied. The political parties condemned its report; whites largely ignored its work; and many victims felt that it robbed them of traditional justice. All that is true, and yet, viewed in global context, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a huge achievement, and its impact may seem even greater as time goes on. For all the limitations of South Africa's truth commission, it seems to have been more successful than anything else yet tried, in part because its designers could learn from the mistakes of nations that had come before. - Foreword.