This collection consists of documents relating to the Sub-council of Foreign Affairs of the Transitional Executive Council (TEC). It includes rich documentation of the efforts of the TEC to secure cooperation from international governments and bodies as well as former Homelands in the transition to Democracy in 1994.

The Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal is the constituted body of Muslim theologians. It was established in 1923 to serve the spiritual and socio-religious needs of Muslims in the region that make up present day Gauteng, the North West Province, Mpumalanga, the Limpopo Province and the Free State.

It comprises various departments such as Law and Decree in Islam (Fatwa), social welfare and education.

It is also responsible for monitoring observation of the Islamic Dietary Law. All these legal and socio-religious aspects of Islam in South Africa impacted on the political position of Muslims.

It is against the background of its specific mandate in the Muslim community that the Jamiatul Ulama drew up its submission on the role and status of the Muslim communities under Apartheid.

The Collection comprises a single item, namely a copy of the full text of the submission made by the Jamiatul Ulama to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) at the Special Hearing: Faith Communities.

Liberation Service Organisations: Service organisations such as the UWC Historical and Cultural Centre, is found in this collection. This centre documented the history of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa by creating a space for museum exhibitions, cultural activities and by archival processing. Another organisation which actively participated in varied ways are the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom Charter College of which mission information is also recorded in this collection.

About IDAF: A treason trial fund was set up in 1956, when Canon John Collins of St Paul's Cathedral in London agreed to guarantee the defense costs of Chief Albert Luthuli, later to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the other 155 political leaders on trial for treason after the historic Congress of the People in 1955 produced the Freedom Charter. The fund paid not only for the legal costs of the trial, which lasted for four years, but also assisted the dependents of the trialists. After the trial, which saw the dismissal of charges against all the accused, Defence and Aid was formed. In the days after Sharpeville and the bannings of the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, the organisation continued its work of supporting trialists and their families. The Defence and Aid Fund had offices in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. When Nelson Mandela and his co-accused appeared in the famous Rivonia Trial in 1963–64, Defence and Aid procured an outstanding legal team which defeated the prosecution's call for the death sentence. The South African government responded in 1966 by banning the Fund. As a result, Canon Collins and others took the organisation which was renamed The International and Aid Fund for Southern Africa underground in South Africa, and new offices were set up at Amen Court, in the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral. Later, IDAF national committees opened in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, the United States and Ireland, where the committees help to sensitize public opinion and put pressure on their governments to assist the struggle against racist South Africa. IDAF became the South African legal profession's most reliable employer, with more than 150 attorneys and 80 advocates on its books. Few of these legal eagles knew where the money was coming from.

The collection comprises one item, namely an interview with the apartheid Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok, the only member of the Apartheid Cabinet to apply for Amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Vlok applied for amnesty for the bombings of the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the Congress of South African Trade Union as well as commercial cinemas that showed the film “Cry Freedom”, a film that portrayed slain Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko.

In the interview Vlok explains the religious and theological motivation for his amnesty application. He also makes reference to the fact that in his amnesty application he had presented under oath evidence of unlawful activities by the apartheid state.

Bernard Spong, who conducted the Vlok interview, established the Interchurch Media Programme, a media training and alternative media organisation alongside the SACC. From 1991 to 1997 Spong was Head of Communications for the SACC. In 2000 Spong conducted interviews for a now published book “Religion and Reconciliation in South Africa”, which he co-edited. The Vlok interview was not included in the book and Spong made the transcript of the interview available for inclusion in the Directory of TRC Archival Resources.

Jonathan Shapiro, who goes by the pen name ZAPIRO, is an established political cartoonist from Cape Town whose work dates back to the politically turbulent 1980s. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established, Zapiro was working on retainer, producing political cartoons on a weekly basis for the national weekly newspaper the “Mail & Guardian”, on a daily basis for the “The Sowetan” and at a day’s remove, "The Sowetan" cartoon also appeared in the “Cape Argus”. His TRC cartoons can be contextualized within his perception of the central theme of the TRC, namely “to get to as much truth as possible and to attempt reconciliation.” In an interview conducted for purposes of entering information about the Zapiro TRC Cartoon Collection into the Directory of TRC Archival Resources, Zapiro asserted that he felt no compunction “to be a spokesperson on a mission for the TRC”, even though he agreed with the necessity for a TRC. He was therefore able to lampoon the inability of the TRC to bring the true Apartheid power elite to accept responsibility for their oppressive governance, or to satirise the overly “religious” face of the Commission. He was also capable of expressing very succinctly and irreverently his disillusionment with Government’s lack of commitment to providing reparation to victims as recommended by the TRC. For Zapiro “the unanswered and most difficult question” with which he and so many victimized South African had to deal with was “is it fair that there was no retributive justice?” The TRC was mandated to operate with the concept of “restorative justice”. Hence Zapiro lampoons in many cartoons the way “justice” was meted out during the course of the TRC as well as the fundamental inefficacy for the nature of the task of “truth-finding”.

The cartoons cover the period 1994, when the constitution of the TRC was being debated in public, to 2004 which saw the debate about reparations for victims of gross human rights violations still being waged.

ANC - African National Congress

APLA - Azanian People's Liberation Army

CCB - Civil Cooperation Bureau

FF - Freedom Front

GHRV - Gross Human Rights Violations

IFP - Inkatha Freedom Party

M&G - Mail & Guardian

NP - National Party

PAC - Pan Africanist Congress

SABC - South Africa Broadcasting Corporation

SADF - South African Defence Force

SAP - South African Police Service

TRC - Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The materials of this collection reflect in the main the IFP's dissatisfaction with the findings of the TRC that human rights violations had been perpetrated not only by the security operatives of the Kwazulu homeland, but also by members, supporters and office-bearers of the IFP.

The collection comprises the complete set of "Iphepha Ndaba", the official newsletter of the Khulumani Western Cape Support Group for Survivors of Violence and Torture, covering the period March 1999 to August 2003. The newsletters are minutes if meetings that had been called by the Trauma Centre for the Survivors of Violence and Torture for ex-political prisoners and survivors of apartheid-related human rights abuses. The Trauma Centre constituted these meetings to assist victims, some of whom had testifies at the Human Rights Violations (HRV) hearings of the TRC, to break through the isolation that resulted from their various experiences of trauma. The meetings also served to aid the victims to cope with the particular difficulty of their expectations regarding their victim status not being adequately or appropriately met by the post-apartheid government. It was decided that the meetings would take the form of healing story-telling sessions at which schooled counsellors would assist the victims and survivors. The languages employed by the victims and counsellors are IsiXhosa and English. The collection also documents the views of victims with regard to the stance of Government on the issue of reparations.

The Collection comprises a single item: a submission made to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) by a group of Cape Town-based NGOs whose focus during the anti-Apartheid struggle had been the promotion and protection of various human rights. A significant point of criticism by large sections of civil society was that the broad mandate of the TRC could not be satisfactorily achieved given the politically narrow definition of what constitutes gross human rights violations. Consequent to this submission the definition of “gross violation of human rights” was amended by Section 21 (a) of the Judicial Matters Amendment Act No. 104 of 1997.

IDASA is an independent public interest organisation that strives to promote sustainable democracy by building democratic structures and institutions, embarking on civic educational programmes and conducting advocacy work. 13 cassettes in this collection document the "Dealing with the Past" radio programme broadcast in 1994 and subsequently relating to various aspects of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). These programmes were produced by the IDASA Radio Unit and are in English, SeSotho, Setswana, isiXhosa and isiZulu. The 2 audio compact discs capture the joint Democracy radio programme with the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation broadcast in May 2003 titled "The TRC and Reparations.

As part of the Sunday Times 2006 centenary celebrations, the newspaper embarked on a heritage project, planning a series of public site-specific memorials to commemorate key figures and events of South Africa’s last 100 years. AAW Art Project Management were contracted to manage the selection of South African artists and oversee the creation and installation of the memorials around the country.

The Sunday Times partnered with the SA History Archive (SAHA) in uncovering artefacts relevant to the featured personalities and events. A selection of the audio-visual material collected by the SAHA research team is available on the STHP website (http://heritage.thetimes.co.za), as well as 360° views of the built memorials and artist profiles.

Early in 2007 the Sunday Times, SAHA and the Wits History Workshop embarked on an oral history and memorial project with eight schools located in four South African towns. During the six month project learners were introduced to heritage studies and assisted in conducting a series of interviews with members of their communities. From the stories they unearthed three were selected and translated into public memorials. Another outcome of this project was the publication of an oral history guide for teachers.

The heritage project further extended to the production and broadcast of a series of radio documentaries inspired by the street memorial series, the production of an interactive DVD based on what used to be John Vorster Square as well as the publication of a book, Great Lives: Pivotal Moments.