heavyweights, it is Zimbabwe that can oversee that this process and make sure that the recommendations are implemented, unbiased in any way. And finally, we once had a meeting where we asked the then Finance Minister Trevor Manuel to come and speak on reparations and this was in 2004 or so. Then at that point the Minister said, “My responsibility is not to the 22 000 victims of the TRC, my responsibility is to the 22 million victims of apartheid.” That was Trevor Manuel’s line. To him apartheid was primarily a structural violence process and not a personal violence process. So this emphasis on personal crimes detracts from the bigger picture which is the structural violence, the disenfranchisement of land and so on. And he has a point but fails to recognise that there was a deal made by the people that arguably suffered most. They suffered both structural injustice and personal violence. And those people were identified by the TRC and they qualified for reparations. And government had made that deal with the victims and seemed to be going back on their deal in favour of the broad development approach. And that’s what governments the world over do. And I just want to say reparation is different from development because it comes with acknowledgement, saying sorry. And even if the apartheid government did this and it’s the ANC government now in power, it is the state of South Africa that should say sorry. And therefore our mandate of the TRC talks of restoration of the dignity of the person and civic dignity of the victims. Restore their dignity as citizens and this should be an act of generosity by the incumbent government. If we don’t have that view we also miss crucial aspects of addressing the past legacies of violence. For example in SA, imagine if we had extensive trauma counselling, would our violent crimes be that violent? Would our rape statistics compare to war zones if we had made more effort with trauma counseling in this country? So, I think it’s very important to keep separate the whole idea of reparations from the idea of development and understand that there is additional symbolic acknowledgement needed for those who suffered most, that is, those who suffered both structural and personal violence as opposed to ‘only’ structural violence. Truth Commissions: the Best Practices 69