History for the Future

To commemorate 30 years since Andrew Mlangeni's release as a political prisoner, Life Podcasts presents History for the Future: Lessons from a Rivonia Trialist. In episode four of this captivating six-part podcast series, Andrew Mlangeni recounts his memories of his time in prison until his release in October 1989. 

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Life Podcasts presents History for the Future: Lessons from a Rivonia Trialist. In this captivating podcast, Pippa Green sits down with one of the last remaining Rivonia trialists, Andrew Mlangeni. He reflects on his life, his role in the liberation struggle and, the quarter century of democracy he has witnessed. Produced by Jeanne Michel.

The birth of the African National Congress’ armed wing, uMkhonto weSizwe ("Spear of the Nation") was a contested one. With large numbers of freedom fighters and, very little arms – Nelson Mandela’s comrades believed that the liberation movement, which sought to free South Africans from the damning grip of the Apartheid government, was a suicide mission. Only after much persuading, on the 16th December 1961, Nelson Mandela and his comrades formed “MK” and made the decision to take up arms in the fight for the dejected people of the country – a turning point in South African history.

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Life Podcasts presents History for the Future: Lessons from a Rivonia Trialist. In this captivating podcast, Pippa Green sits down with one of the last remaining Rivonia trialists, Andrew Mlangeni. He reflects on his life, his role in the liberation struggle and, the quarter century of democracy he has witnessed. Produced by Jeanne Michel.

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc

It is 20 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation held its first hearing into the gross violation of human rights under apartheid. The TRC was brought into being by an Act of Parliament in 1995, and was an essential component in the transition to democracy. It positioned itself between two extremes: the prosecutorial path of retributive justice evidenced in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders on the one hand; and the blanket amnesties handed out in the wake of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet on the other. There, victims of gross human rights violations testified in secret. In South Africa, on the other hand, all the hearings, both for victims of apartheid and of perpetrators, were in public. The names of victims of apartheid are recorded in one volume of the TRC report. It is a list that goes on for 50 pages in small print. More than 21,000 people gave statements to the TRC. Nearly 7,000 applied for amnesty but few met the strict conditions laid down by the law: full disclosure, proportionality, and proof that the offence was politically motivated among them. In the end, fewer than 900 were granted amnesty. For the first time, some of the grim stories of the suffering under apartheid were not only told but widely publicized. For this series Journalist Pippa Green spoke to 13 of the former commissioners to find out how far we are as a country along the road of reconciliation today 20 years after the first hearing. Jeanne Michel edited and produced this series. Find the entire series of interviews online at http://www.702.co.za/features/139/trc