Muddled Talk of Amnesties Won’t Heal Kosovo’s Wounds

On the bench opposite them would be the perpetrator who had committed the actual crime, and he would tell the story of how he and a certain colleague had stopped two boys on the side of the street, checked them, drove them somewhere in the dark and finished them off. He would reveal to the mother in detail how her son was actually murdered and where they buried his body.

The mother would be given the opportunity to at least find the remains and give the son a proper burial - a place where he could rest in peace and where the family could honour and commemorate the victim. Often, in a state of despair, the mother would forgive the perpetrator for the crime in the name of ubuntu, the South African notion of compassion and humanity.

It is said that the only way for certain perpetrators to sit on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission bench was if they were already guaranteed amnesty for the crimes they had committed. It is also said that the process was more about revealing the truth than about justice. In other words, it was more about the white regime acknowledging the crimes it had committed.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, therefore, had its gaps. But it was also hugely successful, mainly because it was initiated with a genuine intention to establish equality in the deeply fractured society, and due to the extraordinary reputation of Mandela, and the high profile of Archbishop Tutu as well.

In Kosovo, the current political troubles are thought to derive from a suspicion that a secret deal has been between the presidents of Kosovo and Serbia; the word 'amnesty' also reached the surface in the past year, suggesting that (again) the two presidents were brewing plans for an exchange of amnesties for war crimes...