LAUNCH OF THE TRACES OF TRUTH WEBSITE

Historical Papers (Library, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) and the South African History Archive (SAHA) have undertaken a joint digital archive initiative, sponsored by the Atlantic Philanthropies Foundation, to develop a non-commercial digital and electronic archive of material from assorted media relating to the work of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), available over the Internet. Our aim is to make available to scholars and researchers worldwide TRC material, which would otherwise be difficult to locate and access.

The Traces of Truth website was conceptualised to provide users with various options for browsing, searching and viewing documents on the site using open-source methods broadly accessible from most web browsers. The website provides descriptions of 306 documents and allows users to instantly view 232 of those documents. Users are requested to fill out forms requesting access to the remaining 74 documents. Documents are provided in two forms: plain text versions resulting from optical character recognition allow for the possibility of electronic searching; and image files of each page are provided, preserving the original look and feel of the document. The website allows the user to electronically search the plaintext content of the digitized materials or browse by keywords associated with each document.

Documents described on the website are associated with the collections from which they originated as well as categories related to the specific mandates set out in the TRC Act that relate to the document. Further categories were added to highlight the pre-history and negotiations that went into initiating the TRC as a process and the loose-ends that remain now that the main work of the TRC has been completed. The website also provides contextual commentary to the documents presented in the form of five essays on each category: the background and pre-history to the TRC, Human Rights Violations, Amnesty, Reparations, Aftermath and Unfinished Business.

We will be developing the site in the coming months and years, and this will include transcripts of interviews with over 70 former TRC staff members. Please contact us if you have any comments, queries or suggestions on how we might improve / develop the site.