2022-02-26
23 分钟In 1996, Archbishop Desmond Tutu formally opened South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
We are charged to unearth the truth about our dark past, to lay the ghosts of that past so that they will not return to haunt us and that we will thereby contribute to the healing of a traumatized and wounded people.
It was a huge and at times controversial process set up by the government in an attempt to help the country heal and come to terms with the devastation of apartheid.
Thank you.
I will then ask our first witness to take a stand.
Over the next year, more than 20,000 people will be involved, testifying and sharing their stories in public hearings.
It meant for the first time, victims and perpetrators of violence, racism and human rights abuses would come face to face.
I would like you to confess before the commission that what you say is the truth, but nothing else the truth.
And so help me God if you can raise your right hand.
But for some, it meant trying to find answers to the most painful moments in their lives.
My name is Janet Edelstein Goldblatt.
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1963.
I have a sister sitting on my right hand side, Shauna.
And the reason I'm here today is on the morning of 16th of June, 1976.
My father, Dr.
Melville Leonard Edelstein, drove Shauna and myself to school and never came back.
And I know that nothing here today that I say or do can bring him back to myself and my family.
But obviously our question has been, from the day that we heard this awful news, is why?
Dr.
Edelstein, I'm Harry Graham and you're with the BBC World Service.