Truth and Reconciliation vs. Prosecution and Penal Sanctions

I see many folks here have differing views on what surely will be Mandela's lasting legacy of using a Truth and Reconciliation Commission instead of criminal or even quasi-criminal Prosecution to reveal the past wrongdoings of the Apartheid government and resolving the conflicts left over by that past government's actions.

I personally believed that the method employed by Mandela was the most effective in terms of getting the new South Africa moving forward peacefully. 

I'm intrigued though by others who think he should have prosecuted the Whites for their past wrongdoings.  Would this have caused deeper racial divisions, civil unrest, and economic catastrophe for the country?  Or would it just have the effect of ensuring penal justice and a short measure of revenge?

Whats the precedent on War Criminals till today ? 

Bottom line is after the dust settles :

SA is one huge ghetto with Whites being the victims of reverse discrimination:

black people taking over Land and running white people out IF not killed ...

and Indians tekking over like cockroach !

dem already manage to have a couple of stars in the cricket eleven ..

Idi Amin expelled the Indians from Uganda :

watch some Idi dadda-like do likewise in j'burg ...

stay tuned ...

snoops:  as a lawyer what about the law?

Crimes were committed, conscious, calculated, deliberate crime for specific purposes often of a genocidal nature.  cases were proved, ready to go.  why allow the criminals to walk?

if the apartheid criminals were allowed to walk why was Pinochet prosecuted for instance?

and there are others:  there is a case looking for a warrant for Tony Blair, warrants for George Bush, one I believe building for for Bill Clinton.  People like Rumsfeldt, Kissinger etc must be circumspect where they walk.  there are arrest warrants out for them

what in the hell was/is so special about RSA genocidal criminals?

what was special  is the betrayal of the complicit Mandella and the absolutely disreputable desmond 2-shiite tutu..along with the entire ANC leadership, Cosatu, Communist party etc.  all of them were making deals with corporations to set themselves up fat and nice and gave all of the peoples interest up.

Truth and Reconciliation was bullshiite, smokescreen to cover all the betrayals.  there was nothing honest about it  that is the only example in the hisroy of the human species that crap like that took place...truth and reconciliation.

what reconciliation has there been...black people still  suck salt.  and now the black government kills them in droves for activity aimed at helping themselves like trade union activity.  the police shoot black people by the ton all the time now in RSA.

WHAT ABOUT ARRESTING THE POLICE WHO MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD THE DOZENS RECENTLY WHO WERE DEMONSTRATING FOR BETTER WAGES?

errr!  am!  ah...isnt that quite a bit of inaccurate nonsense ketchim ::confused::

I don't know about the Indo part although I sense you are right on that

this too!

When they lionize men like Mandela , Gandhi , Jackie Robinson  M L K as iconic.  in the struggle for freedom , the question  must be asked ... who took away their freedom  ? When you praise these great men you must in the same breadth condemn the white people  for whom  had they had struggle against..

The white man does not belong in Africa and that is why my hero is Robert Mugabe .
Here is a man that liberated his country from the evil white people and was even  supported by Europeans through investments  but the moment he expropriated the farmlands to give to the rightful indigenous  black owners ,  sanctions were imposed on that country and he was accused of being a dictator .

I am privy to personal lifestyle of a large family of Dutch Afrikaans in the Farming community !

in Johannesburg !

I hearing things first hand and as it happens !

It is reminiscent of Afro behavior during the riots in Guyana back in 63 .