The collection includes minutes, reports, conference papers and audio recordings, photographs and other organisational material. Of particular interest are documents on the organisation of white activists in the Democratic Movement.

The collection is made up of documents relating to the Sub-council of Foreign Affairs of the Transitional Executive Council. Includes rich documentation of the efforts of the Transitional Executive Council to secure cooperation from international governments and bodies as well as former Homelands in the transition to Democracy in 1994.

Materials comprising the John Harris collection consist of Harris's police docket, trial records, prison and media files donated by his son David Wolfe; his Security Legislation Directorate (SLD) file obtained through a Promotion to Access of Information Act (PAIA) request, and a collection of letters donated by Jane Harris. Materials in each series have been described on item level.

The materials contained in the police docket kept on John Harris (series A), the John Harris trial records (series B), his court exhibit file (series C), prison files (series D and D1) and media file (series E) form the bulk of the collection. Copies of the police investigation file and the court transcripts were obtained from the SAPS Museum in Pretoria. The prison files and court exhibit file were obtained from the Department of Correctional Services Archive at Pretoria Central Prison. Most of the documents are photocopies of the original documentation. Materials in the court exhibit file and the two prison files have been digitised by Specialised Archival Solution in 2009 and are only available in digital format.

Materials obtained from the SAPS Museum and the archive of the Department of Correctional Services were secured by SAHA on behalf of John Harris's family, and donated to SAHA by his son, David Wolfe in 2009.

A copy of John Harris's Security Legislation Directorate (SLD) file was released to SAHA by the National Archives in respect of PAIA request number 0064/NAR/2008, and is archived in the Freedom of Information Programme (FOIP) collection as AL2878_B1.3.6.9, and cross-referenced and described in series F of the John Harris collection.

Letters written by John Harris to his sister Jane whilst in prison (1964-1965) were donated by Jane Harris to SAHA. In 2014 Jane Harris requested the return of the original letters to the family. To replace the original letters she donated ring-bound photocopies of the letters. The photocopied letters are contained in series G.

The records in this collection were collected during Klaaren's participation in ODAF and the Open Democracy Working Group. Klaaren has donated these records with a view to opening some of the history of the processes underlying the drafting of the Promotion of Access to Information Act.

The records cover three periods of the drafting process of freedom of information legislation in South Africa: the period of constitutional drafting in which the idea of the Bill was introduced (1992-1994); the periods of presidential drafting and ODAF (1994-1998); and the period of the legislative drafting of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (1998-2000).

The collection is made up of records that provided material for 'The Sanctions Handbook' as well as records from studies that were commissioned by the Commonwealth, on how best to handle the sanctions saga. The collection also comprises records from the Southern Africa Development Coordination Council (SADCC) region as whole dating as far back as its creation. The collection includes correspondence, speeches, press releases, reports, communiques, memoranda, policy documents, articles, books, newspapers, newspaper cuttings and miscellaneous records.

Some access conditions may apply to portions of the collection.

Materials collected from TRC Archival Audit.

The TRC Archival Audit

Between 2003 and 2006, SAHA and Historical Papers, University of Witwatersrand embarked on a project to locate, retrieve and make available records relating to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC). The project entailed conducting an archival audit of all existing TRC records in order to identify and locate documentation in danger of being lost.

In the process of conducting the archival audit, SAHA and HP located many collections from individuals and organizations that participated in the TRC process, including this collection. Selections from these materials as well as TRC related material found in the freedom of Information Collection and other pre-existing SAHA and HP collections, were digitized and can be accessed online at http://truth.wwl.wits.ac.za/

A guide to archival resources relating to South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission can also be found at http://www.saha.org.za/pdf/trc_directory.pdf

I have first arranged all the transcripts (A - P). In many instances these are transcripts of the audio-cassettes under T. Where possible I have tried to indicate that an audio-cassette of the interview exists, I have added 'T' after the description to indicate this. Please refer to Section T to find the audio-cassette number.

The audio-cassettes have been numerically numbered in the order that they were kept at PHT. This was done to accommodate the fact that in some instances, one cassette would have more than one interview. I have added a prefix T to the number to denote that it is a tape and the figure in brackets denotes the length of the tape in minutes. However, under T in this inventory I have arranged the list of interviewees alphabetically by surname and have attempted to group the other interviews.

Section S contains 140 edited interviews of those found under section A. These are also arranged alphabetically by surname.

Furthermore, the individual interviews under A, N and T have not been included in the index. The alphabetical arrangement is sufficient in finding the relevant interviewee

See Acknowledgments in South Africa: A Different Kind of War and Author's Notes in The Unbreakable Thread for more information concerning this collection.

Section S: The Notebook Collection is missing from the entire collection

Materials donated by Julie Frederikse in the course of SAHA's Non-racialism Project during 2015 have been processed as series U and V of this collection.

This collection includes interviews by Tony Karon with Issy and Ann Heymann (1988), Bill and Miriam Hepner (1988) and Harry Gwala (1989). Interviews by Gavin Evans with Zach de Beer (1989) and General Charles Lloyd of the State Security Council (1989).

The records in this group include the KCP Constitution, code of conduct, manifesto and background information.

The collection is divided into two parts: A. Kempton Park Negotiations and B. Transitional Executive Council. This reflects the two capacities in which the records were generated or assembled by Khalik Mayet, and the fact that they were donated to SAHA by him in 1993 and 1994 as two distant records accumulations (acquisitions 93-006,94-004).