Transcript: Desmond Tutu interview

The following is the full transcript of an interview by the BBC's Peter Biles with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who headed South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), set up 10 years ago.

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Tutu: The society we seem to be evolving is not what we hoped for

Peter Biles: What do you think was the measure of success and failure for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Desmond Tutu: We would not be sitting here as we are, had we not had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We lanced a boil which, had we not done, would have meant that our country would have gone down the tubes.

Almost everybody agrees that we certainly avoided the bloodbath that most people had been predicting.

But one of the major failures has been that we were not able to engage the white community as enthusiastically as we should have, for the thing to have been even-handed.

PB: One of the shortcomings of the TRC must surely be that senior political figures, such as former President PW Botha, wanted no part in the process?

DT: Absolutely, yes, people usually speak about how we got only the foot soldiers, and the big fish tended to slip away, or were very scathing.

I went to see Mr Botha because we didn't want him to think that we wanted to humiliate him.

We could have just subpoenaed him, and if he ignored the subpoena, it would have been a criminal offence.

But we didn't really want that. We didn't want to be abrasive. We were supposed to be helping the country to heal. And yes, he remained the intransigent, very difficult old man.

PB: And so now the phrase being used is "unfinished business" - a reluctance to prosecute many people and a reluctance to pay reparations?

DT: Well, yes, the logic of the arrangement meant there was going to be unfinished business. The Commission made recommendations. And then you would expect there would be a follow-up.

The logic was that you offered people the opportunity of making a clean breast of things and then qualifying for amnesty which was the carrot.

The stick was that if people didn't do this, and they were responsible for gross human rights violations, then the stick was that they were going to be prosecuted. 

We have been singularly remiss in appearing as if we were not going to follow up this logical consequence of the process. And I must say I am disappointed with the quantum of reparations that we have offered to people.

PB: Does it worry you that many people were frustrated because nothing like the whole truth ever came out about what happened during the apartheid era?

DT: We've had to be realistic. You couldn't expect a commission that was initially expected to do its work within a year or 18 months to uncover all the truth.

And remember, we were given just a segment of South African history - the period 1960-1994.

We did get enough truth to be able to say that no South African could claim they did not know, for instance, that there were death squads, that the apartheid system used torture as a matter of course, but yes, unfortunately, some people and some of those who came to the Commission did not get all of the truth.

PB: The National Prosecuting Authority has indicated that it may now prosecute certain individuals, but is there a danger that this could be too selective?

DT: Well, I suppose prosecutions are always selective. But what you probably mean is that they might also not go for the big fish. We don't know.

What people have been worried about is that it seems as if they may hold some of the hearings "in camera" which would be unfortunate.

It appears also that you could perhaps perpetuate the TRC by the back door, in that they are saying that the authorities would have the discretion of determining whether - because someone has made a clean breast of things - that they will not then be prosecuted. They could be indemnified, and that is also worrying.

PB: Will some see this as a re-opening of old wounds?

DT: Well the point about the Commission was that it was a re-opening of old wounds.

Our justification at the time was that these wounds were actually festering and that re-opening was crucial in so much as it meant that you would be able to cleanse the wounds and pour a balm on them. There's no way you can deal with the past, without opening wounds.

Using a biblical concept, we have left the Egypt of oppression - a few, a very few, have crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land Archbishop Tutu

My own worry is that so long a period has elapsed since the alleged offences took place that we are likely to be frustrated by not being able to get hard evidence, and in a court you are going to require to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that someone was guilty.

And these guys were very cunning in hiding incriminating evidence. Now we may find it very frustrating, and it will be traumatic for the victims if you have a case that runs for a long period of time, with no conviction. 

PB: In your introduction to the TRC report, you said: "Let us shut the door on the past, not in order to forget it, but in order not to allow it to imprison us". Do you think South Africa has moved on?

DT: We've moved on sufficiently, but I think that it is probably something you can't legislate for. It has to do with attitude. It has to do with attitude, with how people feel about themselves, how they feel about their compatriots.

By and large, the white community does not seem to have shown an appreciation for the incredible magnanimity of those who were the major victims of a system from which they [the whites] benefited so much.

PB: You've been heavily criticised for saying that.

[Laughs] Yes, it's almost like the bad old days when I used to get clobbered, because - quite surprisingly - I've become something of a blue-eyed boy [laughs].

But I've also said that the kind of society we seem to be evolving is not what I think we had hoped for. And that doesn't target whites particularly.

It is targeting US, that many of us are now embracing ideals and values that I myself find difficult.

PB: Well, one of your concerns in this country is poverty. Did you imagine, 12 years ago, when Nelson Mandela came to power, that by 2006 we would see the levels of poverty that are being experienced here?

DT: No, I have seen some instances of poverty that are demeaning in our country. And I have warned, and I am not the only one who has, that we are sitting on a powder keg. It is the obligation of all of us to be trying to do something about it.

I suggested long ago that we who were reasonably well off could begin making some difference by adopting families that were not so well off, and it would be a great privilege to donate 100 or 200 Rand [$15-30] to that particular family. We can't leave it to the government.

One of the suggestions we made was that there should be a temporary wealth tax which would have gone a long way to fund the reparations. It could have been used for providing income-generating projects for people.

What you see is - using a biblical concept - is that we have left the Egypt of oppression. We have crossed the Red Sea. After 40 years of wilderness and wandering, many of our people are still traversing that. A few, a very very few, have crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land.

PB: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, thank you very much.