history from an apartheid perspective into a liberation mode perspective and the project of TRC to say two things. “We acknowledge a just war against apartheid, but we also acknowledge that bad things happened in that just war and that just war does not justify rights abuses. Everybody has to account for their actions.” Now to that Tutu was basing his thoughts on a particular line of thinking in the ANC that goes back to three commissions of inquiry that the ANC instituted on themselves. Before democracy the ANC investigated its own camps for human rights abuses. So the ANC had already started its own abuses. Similarly the apartheid government had instituted the Goldstone Commission. On the basis of what was revealed, the about the Third Force three generals were fired by De Klerk as a result before the transition. But there was another stream in both parties, the politicians, saying we need amnesty. And, apparently, it seems now that the apartheid generals blackmailed the ANC into amnesty. But it’s not like that. It’s because earlier on they had agreed on the need for amnesty. In fact Thabo Mbeki seems to have already said this in 1987 in London. So the politicians agreed on amnesty though there were these introspective accountability streams in the parties, and these streams of amnesty and accountability in the TRC. But Mbeki was leading the process now saying we cannot now think of SA in terms of apartheid any more. We have got to create a narrative of the past. And he did not agree with what the TRC said and he clashed publicly with Tutu on this. And this was then rolled over on our schools where the TRC was not taught for some five or so years until my organisation stepped in and they began producing resources for the schools in SA. Be prepared ‘the morning after’, for major ideological clashes. The report will make everybody cross. If it does its job well it is going to irritate across the political spectrum as it did with De Klerk - he is still cross with it. The TRC did its work well and the political will to say “well we will implement something that irritated us” is crucial. Secondly I will just say I think that subsequent to the commission, a major problem is that governments tend to veer towards unaccountability. That’s why we need independent institutions. That’s why I said the accountability line and the amnesty line came together afterwards. The accountability line faulted when we gave it back to government and the amnesty line continued. So be prepared that you are going to have an independent monitoring agency with great credibility and if there is any country that has capacity to have a civic body of 68 The Second International Conference on Transitional Justice in Zimbabwe