In South Africa at the moment there is a battle between the paper shredders and the photostat machines. For each police general who is shredding documents of his past, there are officers under him who are photocopying them to keep as insurance against future prosecutions.

What has a wide enough mouth to swallow whatever we want to hide? A crocodile’s mouth.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an enquiry established in 1995 following the settlement negotiated between the outgoing Nationalist Government and the incoming African National Congress (ANC) government of South Africa. The brief of the Commission is to examine human rights abuses that occurred in South Africa during the past thirty-five years. There were two parts to this process. Firstly, victims and survivors come to the Commission to recount their stories of what happened to them or members of their families (many of those involved did not survive, and it is left to mothers and brothers to give evidence).

The second part of the process is the amnesty hearings, in which perpetrators of these abuses may give evidence for what they have done. The incentive to do so? A full confession would bring amnesty and immunity from prosecution or civil procedures for the crimes committed. Therein lies the central irony of the Commission. As people give more and more evidence of the things they have done, they get closer and closer to amnesty, and it becomes more and more intolerable that these people should be given it.