At some point conflict has to end. In marriage one learns that no matter how offensive the other partner was, at some point you just have to let it go and move on.

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa solved years of conflict and economic decline by just letting things go.

During war or siege, people are compelled to do things that they don't necessarily believe in. The public is often brainwashed and they don't know of the evils that their government is performing in their name. Most South African Whites had no idea how evil the SA government was. They had no idea just how human the none European SA were. They were brainwashed.

The young men were ordered to go into the military. Being in the military in the 70's meant you had to "deal the natives". They were taught that Mandela and the rest of the activists were communists and wanted to destroy the nation and kill all Whites.

The best soldiers "fought" the hardest. In many cases that meant shooting more Blacks or torturing the most students (if you were a police man).

They did some really horrible things. Unthinkable things. They murdered many people and tortured many more.

However is South Africa was going to move on, EVERYTHING had to stop. All of the violence had to stop.

The people weren't going to be satisfied without an extensive apology along with highly detailed account of what they did wrong.

Humiliation is one of the most avoided experiences for all human beings. The detailed, public confessions involved public humiliation. There is something that resounded with the nation with that. It is worse than death to a great extent. People commit suicide because they feel humiliated or are avoiding humiliation. I think that THAT humiliation spoke to the essence of every person as sufficient at least enough to allow the nation to move on...

Sorry for the length response. I was thinking it through as I was writing.

No need to apologize. It was a good response.

Here's what got me thinking: In one Latin America country, Brazil or Argenina, they are doing a 180. Before they were going to give amnesty but now they are having second thoughts.

And then what? Sorry, I know you thought you shared so you can get amnesty. changed our mind.our bad.

How messed up is that?

Scott

Those people in power are ill. They don't have the interest of the nation at heart.

I suppose that has to be the starting point. The leaders have to have a long term strategy for the nation. They have to be purposeful in their engagement when dealing with such matters.

An emotional, radical approach will never serve the people well. It will only play to the tit for tat which perpetuates war.

How do you go back years later to seek vengeance or an overthrow of a government that pardoned you completely for the crimes that you deffinetly committed. TRCs if done earnestly are a great investment in the country's future.

What you highlight about what is taking place in these countries is a bastardization of a good tool and a further entrenching of distrust and chaos into their society. Its like a priest molesting kids. The reprocussions of his actions are a domino affect that has no end.

Scott, the situation in Argentina is a bit different. The oppressors there were not, as in South Africa, an entire brainwashed segment of the population, but a military junta and its armed enforcers. They are criminals, plain and simple, and the Argentine government is merely bowing to public opinion which insists that the men need to answer for their crimes.

Dr Dreadful

Every diabolical person or group suffers from a distortion of reality. Those juntas believed in their mission even though it was perverse, not unlike the SA police. Those police were cruel. They were like the gestapo. They made an art of being particularly menacing and torturous, for absolutely no reason. Surely those individuals knew that that was wrong. The bigger issue is do you want to heal the land?

It is important for the leadership of Argentina to sell the population on a TRC. There should be massive media campaigns to promote a new day in Argentina. South African Blacks, and Indians wanted to retaliate but the leadership was phenomenal. The hotheads were silenced by the parties and the moderate, thinkers were placed in the forefront.

Again the TRC is an investment in the future of the nation, not an immediate emotional fix. We are still morning our dead and tortured in SA. Caving in to the population is not smart. That will only continue the cycle of violence, take overs and coup, time and time again. Its got to stop at some point. Just as your argument with your wife has to stop at some point even if you are still upset and feel unheard.

I was in Argentina a few months ago. It is now, and has been for some time, a stable democracy. Travelling around, you would never know that 20 years ago the country was under the jackboot of a vicious dictatorship. There is no mass seething resentment and thirst for retribution. Clearly, this is one country that has managed to escape (at least for the foreseeable future) from the debilitating cycle of coup/dictatorship/revolution etc.

Until a year or so ago, a group called the Mothers of the Disappeared would demonstrate every Sunday outside the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires. They stopped because they were promised that the government would pursue justice for their murdered sons and husbands. So the decision to grant amnesty to the two army officers was to them a betrayal. Public opinion got behind them and the government reversed itself. So this isn't a wide-ranging witchhunt, just a recognition on the part of the government that in this instance, they made a political error and moved to fix it.

Dr Dreadful

It is good news that Argentina has maintained stability for 20yrs. However a government has to be reliable. As you know 20yrs is a short time in a country's life span. Their wavering and pandering is detrimental to the future of the nation.

South American regimes are discounted because of a lack if integrity. They are considered to be either sophomoric and emotional or greedy and uncaring. The maturity of this administration would send this country in another direction. Argentina has a history of playing up to the masses. It hasn't worked. For a grander and more stabilizing statement, the men should be absolved as PROMISED. Anything else would be a sign of the corruption and a sign of the lack of follow through that plagues all banana republics.

In the future the tool of the TRC will not be useful in this region of Argentina reneges. THAT is dangerous.

The best gift that can be given the people who are morning is another 100yrs of stability, not the heads of these monsters who you can believe will be martyred by some.

Zedd

I'll reiterate what I said earlier in that every situation like this is a bit different. South Africa's story has been little short of a miracle. 25 years ago most outside observers were convinced that a bloodbath would ensue once the apartheid regime (inevitably) collapsed. But it had the extreme good fortune to have leaders like Mandela and Tutu who were able to steer the country away from the violent path, and doubtless the TRCs have played a key role in reinforcing this.
Both South Africa and Argentina were lucky to have experienced peaceful transitions of power, which broke the vicious circle of coup/counter-coup and no doubt contributed to the relative political stability these countries possess today. But apartheid South Africa - just like the segregationist South in the US - was founded on a basic philosophy (warped, but a philosophy nonetheless) about the inferior nature of certain humans. The Argentine junta was about a cynical thirst for power.
No-one seriously thought of going after the old leaders in the southern states for the same reason - because of the endemic nature of the oppression. The generals in Argentina, on the other hand, knew they were committing crimes, even if they thought they were justified. That's why there is more of a case for holding them to account.
(BTW, I checked back on my facts with regard to this and it was the Argentine courts, not the government, which overturned the pardons for the two military officers, on the grounds that they were unconstitutional. I stand corrected... although I'm not sure if this makes much of a difference to the argument, especially if the judges are as susceptible to political influence as they are in the US!)

Dr

It is more palatable for the courts to overturn the decision. However it is also detrimental to the resolution of a chaotic situation involving the next set of crooks in South America. The TRC will be disregarded and that is shameful.

It may be impossible to utilize the TRC in a country with an established legal system. In a new system, it can be highly affective.

We have heard good things about Argentina in the press and we wish them the best.

We have heard good things about Argentina in the press and we wish them the best.

I do too. Go there soon if you haven't already. It's a beautiful country.