Special Hearings — Faith Community Hearings — 1997-11-17

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Professors and we are grateful for some of   the analysis that you have provided. We will take aboard what you have given   us and your comments are apt and I think that we need to take account of it   just in case we come over euphoric, because of what has in fact taken place   here. Thank you very much, you may step down.
Just before we close, I want again to express our deep appreciation to all   of those who made submissions to the TRC and those of you who have taken the   trouble to come and responded to our invitation to appear at this hearing.
We are grateful for the audiences that we have had over these three days. We   thank pastor Chris Venter and the people, let me repeat that, we are enormously   grateful to them for having provided us with a venue for the service on Sunday   and made available this venue for our meeting.
Thank you to the translators sitting behind the booth there, they have been   wonderful. We are enormously grateful to you for your own particular ministry.   Maybe we should give you a small hand I think. And thank you to the technicians,   you have acquired a substantial presence inside here and we wouldn't be able   to manage without you. Maybe we will give you a hand too.
Thank you to the people who have been the caterers, they have done a wonderful   job of work, we thank them. Maybe clap them too.
Thanks to my colleagues of the TRC, the regional convenor of this region and   those who have been working with him, the Committee members here and a very   special thank you to the staff, TRC staff in this region. You have been marvellous.   We are enormously grateful to you. If you don't clap for them, then I will -   I wanted also to say thank you to the media who have helped to communicate what   has been taking place here. 
I want to come back to that just in a little while but I want to remind people   that December, the 14th is the date when we stop receiving statements from people   who believe they have suffered violations, gross violations of their human rights.   It is important and if you will please communicate this message to people that   access to reparation can happen only because you have filled our protocol form,   the TRC protocol form. 
If you have not done so, you have still got some time, nearly a month but as   it happens, I think December the 14th, is a Sunday, so in fact you have only   up to December the 12th, Friday.
If you will please spread this as widely as you can because we want, we don't   want anyone who might have a legitimate cause to be eligible for reparation,   to miss out on that reparation because they did not fill or provide us with   a statement on our protocol form.
I just wanted to say again that the media have been usually very splendid in   helping to communicate the work of the TRC, but especially we would hope that   they will have honed their skills in order to communicate what has taken place   here over these three days because it has been something quite extraordinary.
I am quite certain that if people out there were aware of the movement of God's   spirit here, the attitude of the different faith communities and the different   denominations, if they were aware of just how people have humbled themselves   before the Lord, and received an influx of the Spirit, the things that we are   talking about of people being hostile towards the Commission, opposing the Commission,   those people might perhaps have a change in their attitude and in their mindset.
But those of you who have been here, might also be apostles. Go out and tell   what the Lord has done here because it is ultimately really as people hear that   this thing. It has never been a witch hunt, especially not a witch hunt against   the Afrikaner, but it has never been a witch hunt against anybody.
It is an organisation, a body that has sought to discover the truth not in   order to prosecute anybody. To discover the truth so that we might make a contribution   towards the healing of our land, to discover the truth so that we might be able   to say this we commit ourselves, is something we will never allow to happen   again.
So, thank you very much all of you and we thank God. Let us pray.
COMMISSION ENDS WITH PRAYERS.

KHOZA MGOJO: We thank you for Your Word, Lord, that sustains us. We have seen   Your greatness, Your holiness. You have done great, mighty things for us as   weak as we are, bowing down to the flesh full of sin, but you oh Lord, never   lets us down.
Lord, I pray that the miracles that we have seen on the mountain of East London,   we may take them with us. Almighty God, you are the power. What a mighty God   we have in you. Bless us now Lord as we go to preach this good gospel to our   different communities as a witness of a journey to a new South Africa.
These things we ask in the great name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ who is the   only sovereign God, amen.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 
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