by nongovernmental
organizations.
Most of them
were chosen because of their roles in opposing apartheid. Nine were men,
eight were women. Ethnically, it was a diverse group of two Afrikaners,
four English-speaking Whites, two Indians, two Coloureds, and seven
Africans. Mandela persuaded Archbishop Desmond Tutu to accept the
chairmanship. Recipient of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, Tutu was a man
of the utmost integrity, but his appointment and that of three other clergy,
including the vice chairperson, gave the TRC an overridingly emotional
and religious tone rather than a legal one, even though six of the commis-
sioners were lawyers.P
The TRC was divided into three committees: one dealt with gross hu-
man rights violations, another with amnesty, and the third with repara-
tions for victims. Provided with a large budget, much of it from foreign
donors (including $1.4 million from USAID), the commission set up an
elaborate organization, with four regional offices and a large number of
employees who took more than twenty thousand statements from victims
of political violence. Starting in December 1995, the commission worked
for more than two years and held more than fifty public hearings around
the country. More than seven thousand individuals applied for amnesty,