Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Encyclopedia
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice
Restorative justice
Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims, offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender...

 body assembled in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 after the abolition of apartheid. Witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and some were selected for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

 from both civil and criminal prosecution.

The TRC, the first of the nineteen held internationally to stage public hearings, was seen by many as a crucial component of the transition
Transitional justice
Transitional justice generally refers to a range of approaches that states may use to address past human rights violations and includes both judicial and non-judicial approaches. They include series of actions or policies and their resulting institutions, which may be enacted at a point of...

 to full and free democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 in South Africa. Despite some flaws, it is generally (although not universally) thought to have been successful.

Creation and mandate

The TRC was set up in terms of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 of 1995, and was based in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

. The mandate of the commission was to bear witness to, record and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as reparation and rehabilitation. The TRC had a number of high profile members: Archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...

 Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...

 (chairman), Dr. Alex Boraine
Alex Boraine
Dr. Alex Boraine is a South African politician. He was born in Cape Town.Having been ordained as a Methodist minister in 1956, he studied at Rhodes University in South Africa, Oxford University in England, and Drew University in the USA....

 (Deputy Chairman), Mary Burton, Advocate
Advocate
An advocate is a term for a professional lawyer used in several different legal systems. These include Scotland, South Africa, India, Scandinavian jurisdictions, Israel, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...

 Chris de Jager, Bongani Finca, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is a South African psychologist who served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She received her undergraduate education from Fort Hare University and graduate education at Rhodes University and the University of Cape Town, with a fellowship at Harvard University....

, Sisi Khampepe, Richard Lyster, Wynand Malan
Wynand Malan
Wynand Malan is a liberal Afrikaner South African politician.A lawyer, Malan entered politics in the 1977 South African election when he was elected to the South Africa's all white parliament as the National Party MP for Randburg....

, Reverend Khoza Mgojo, Hlengiwe Mkhize, Dumisa Ntsebeza (head of the Investigative Unit), Dr. Wendy Orr, Advocate Denzil Potgieter, Mapule Ramashala, Dr. Fazel Randera, Yasmin Sooka and Glenda Wildschut.

Committees

The work of the TRC was accomplished through three committees:
  • The Human Rights Violations Committee investigated human rights abuses that occurred between 1960 and 1994.
  • The Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee was charged with restoring victims' dignity and formulating proposals to assist with rehabilitation.
  • The Amnesty Committee considered applications from individuals who applied for amnesty in accordance with the provisions of the Act.


Public hearings of the Human Rights Violations Committee and the Amnesty Committee were held at many venues around South Africa, including Cape Town (at the University of the Western Cape), Johannesburg (at the Central Methodist Mission), and Randburg (at the Rhema Bible Church).

The commission was empowered to grant amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

 to those who committed abuses during the apartheid era, as long as the crimes were politically motivated, proportionate, and there was full disclosure by the person seeking amnesty.

To avoid victor's justice
Victor's justice
The label "victor's justice" is a situation in which an entity partakes in carrying out "justice" on its own basis of applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the enemy. Advocates generally charge that the difference in rules amounts to...

, no side was exempt from appearing before the commission. The commission heard reports of human rights violations and considered amnesty applications from all sides, from the apartheid state to the liberation forces, including the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...

.

A total of 5,392 amnesty applications were refused, granting only 849 out of the 7,112 (which includes the number of additional categories, such as withdrawn).

Impact

The TRC's emphasis on reconciliation is in sharp contrast to the approach taken by the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

 after World War II and other de-Nazification measures. Because of the perceived success of the reconciliatory approach in dealing with human-rights violations after political change either from internal or external factors, other countries have instituted similar commissions, though not always with the same scope or the allowance for charging those currently in power. The success of the "TRC method" versus the "Nuremberg method" of prosecution is open for debate.

In a survey study by Jay and Erika Vora, the effectiveness of the TRC Commission was measured on a variety of levels, namely its usefulness in terms of bringing out the truth of what had happened during the apartheid regime, the feelings of reconciliation that could be linked to the Commission, and the positive effects both domestically and internationally that the Commission brought about in a variety of ways from the political environment of South Africa to the economic one. The opinions of three ethnic groups were measured in this study: the English
Anglo-African
Anglo-Africans are primarily White African people of largely British descent who live or come from Sub-Saharan Africa and are Anglophone. A large majority live in South Africa...

, the Afrikaners, and the Xhosa.

The effectiveness of the Commission in bringing out truth can be viewed in the following statement from an article by Jay and Erika Vora:


All participants perceived the TRC to be effective in bringing out the truth, however, in varying degrees. The Afrikaners perceived the TRC to be less effective in bringing out the truth than the English participants and much less effective than did the Xhosa...


The differences in opinions about the effectiveness can be attributed to how each group viewed the proceedings. Some viewed them as not entirely accurate as many people would lie in order to keep themselves out of trouble while receiving amnesty for their crimes, given that the Commission would grant amnesty to some with consideration given to the weight of the crimes committed.

The TRC was viewed as much less effective in bringing about reconciliation by each group, with the two white groups about par and the Xhosa viewing the TRC as less effective than the other two ethnic groups. Some said that the proceedings only helped to remind them of the horrors that had taken place in the past when they had been working to forget such things. Thus, the TRC's effectiveness in terms of achieving those very things within its title is still debatable.

Media coverage

The hearings were initially set to be heard in camera
In camera
In camera is a legal term meaning "in private". It is also sometimes termed in chambers or in curia.In camera describes court cases that the public and press are not admitted to...

, but the intervention of 23 non-governmental organisations eventually succeeded in gaining media access to the hearings. On 15 April 1996 the South African National Broadcaster televised the first two hours of the first human rights violation committee hearing live. With funding from the Norwegian government, radio continued to broadcast live throughout. Additional high-profile hearings, such as Winnie Mandela's testimony, were also televised live. The rest of the hearings were presented on television each Sunday from April 1996 to June 1998 in hour-long episodes of the "Truth Commission Special Report" by progressive Afrikaner journalist Max du Preez
Max du Preez
Max du Preez is a South African author, columnist and documentary filmmaker and was the founding editor of Vrye Weekblad.-Vrye Weekblad:Du Preez founded Vrye Weekblad, an Afrikaans-language weekly newspaper, in November 1988...

, former editor of the Vrye Weekblad
Vrye Weekblad
Vrye Weekblad was a groundbreaking progressive, anti-apartheid Afrikaans national weekly newspaper that was launched in November 1988 and forced to close in February 1994. The paper was driven into bankruptcy by the legal costs of defending its charge that South African police general Lothar...

. The producers of the program included Anneliese Burgess, Jann Turner, Benedict Motau, Gael Reagon, Rene Schiebe and Bronwyn Nicholson, a production assistant.

Various films have been made about the commission:
  • Confronting the Truth
    Confronting the Truth
    Confronting the Truth is a documentary film by Steve York about truth and reconciliation commissions and how they work. The film focuses on the past commissions in South Africa, Peru, East Timor, and Morocco...

    by Steve York
    Steve York
    Steven H. York is a documentary filmmaker who has worked in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America on subjects ranging from religious fundamentalism to American history to nonviolent conflict.- Life and career :...

    . 2006, documentary, produced in association with the United States Institute of Peace
    United States Institute of Peace
    The United States Institute of Peace was created by Congress as a non-partisan, federal institution that works to prevent or end violent conflict around the world...

    .
  • Facing the Truth (1999) by Bill Moyers
    Bill Moyers
    Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...

    . 2-part PBS series.
  • Forgiveness (2004) directed by Ian Gabriel. A South African feature film starring South African–born actor Arnold Vosloo
    Arnold Vosloo
    Arnold Vosloo is a South African American actor, best-known for playing Imhotep in The Mummy and its 2001 sequel The Mummy Returns, as well as the role of the superhero Darkman in the sequel Darkman II: The Return of Durant and its 1996 sequel, Darkman III: Die Darkman Die...

     as a disgraced ex-cop seeking forgiveness from the family of the activist he killed under the Apartheid regime. With Quanita Adams and Zane Meas.
  • In My Country
    In My Country
    In My Country is a 2004 English-language film directed by John Boorman, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche. The screenplay, written by Ann Peacock, was based on Antjie Krog's memoir Country of My Skull....

    (2004), very loosely based on Country of My Skull
    Country of My Skull
    Country of My Skull is a 1998 nonfiction book by Antjie Krog primarily about the findings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission...

    , an autobiographical text by Antjie Krog
    Antjie Krog
    Antjie Krog, born October 23, 1952 in Kroonstad, Orange Free State, South Africa, is a prominent South African poet, academic and writer. In 2004 she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape.- Early life :...

     which dealt with her coverage of the hearings, starring Samuel L. Jackson
    Samuel L. Jackson
    Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. After becoming involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then films. He had several small roles such as in the film Goodfellas before meeting his mentor,...

     and Juliette Binoche
    Juliette Binoche
    Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...

  • Long Night's Journey into Day
    Long Night's Journey into Day
    Long Night's Journey Into Day is a 2000 American documentary film about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-Apartheid South Africa. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-External links:...

    (2000) by Frances Reid
    Frances Reid
    Frances Reid was an American dramatic actress. Although she starred in many productions, she is best known for her portrayal of Alice Horton on the NBC daytime soap opera Days of our Lives from its debut in November 1965 until her death on February 3, 2010.-Biography:Born in Wichita Falls, Texas,...

    . Documentary.
  • Red Dust
    Red Dust (2004 film)
    Red Dust is a 2004 British drama film starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It was directed by Tom Hooper. The story, written by Troy Kennedy-Martin, is based on the novel Red Dust by Gillian Slovo...

    (2004), based on the novel of the same title by Gillian Slovo, starring Hilary Swank
    Hilary Swank
    Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress. Swank's film career began with a small part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then a major part in The Next Karate Kid , as Julie Pierce, the first female protégé of sensei Mr. Miyagi...

    , Jamie Bartlett and Chiwetel Ejiofor
    Chiwetel Ejiofor
    Chiwetelu Umeadi "Chiwetel" Ejiofor, OBE is an English actor of stage and screen. He has received numerous acting awards and award nominations, including the 2006 BAFTA Awards Rising Star, three Golden Globe Awards' nominations, and the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his...

  • Zulu Love Letter (2004) directed by Ramadan Suleman and starring Pamela Nomvete.


Several plays have been produced about the TRC:
  • "Truth in Translation
    Truth in Translation
    Truth in Translation is a stage play conceived and directed by Michael Lessac, with music by Hugh Masekela. It tells the story of the interpreters at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission....

    " (2006), by Paavo Tom Tammi, in collaboration with American director, Michael Lessac
    Michael Lessac
    Michael Lessac is a theatre, television, and film director and screenwriter. Lessac is also the Artistic Director of Colonnades Theatre Lab, Inc and of Colonnades Theatre Lab, South Africa. He is the Project Creator & Director of the international theatre piece, Truth in Translation.-Career:Lessac...

     and the company of Colonnades Theatre Lab, South Africa.
  • Ubu and the Truth Commission
    Ubu and the Truth Commission
    Ubu and the Truth Commission is a South African play by Jane Taylor first performed under the directorship of William Kentridge at The Laboratory in Johannesburg's Market Theatre on May 26, 1997....

    (1997), by Jane Taylor and William Kentridge
    William Kentridge
    William Kentridge is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two...

    .
  • Nothing but the Truth (2002), by John Kani
    John Kani
    Bonsile John Kani is a South African actor, director and playwright.He was born in New Brighton, South Africa.Kani joined The Serpent Players in Port Elizabeth in 1965 and helped to create many plays that went unpublished but were performed to a resounding reception.These...

  • The Story I Am About to Tell
    The Story I Am About to Tell
    The Story I Am About to Tell was a successful South African play by Duma Kumalo. Produced by a support group for survivors giving testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and starring three of them, it ran for five years both at home and abroad.- Concept :The play was designed for...

    , created in collaboration with the Khulumani support group
  • The Dead Wait
    The Dead Wait
    The Dead Wait is a play by Paul Herzberg which tells the tale of a young South African athlete, conscripted as a soldier in the Angolan Civil War, who tries to own up to a crime on arriving back home. Partly autobiographical, it draws on Herzberg's similar experiences prior to his leaving South...

    , by Paul Herzberg
    Paul Herzberg
    Paul Herzberg is a South African-born actor and playwright.Born in Cape Town, he studied acting at the University of Cape Town and scriptwriting at the University of Pretoria. He moved to the UK in 1976, after having served as a conscripted soldier on the Namibian border, during the period of the ...



Some of Ingrid de Kok's poetry in Terrestrial Things (2002) deals with the TRC (e.g. The Archbishop Chairs the First Session, The Transcriber Speaks, The Sound Engineer).

Criticisms

A 1998 study by South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation & the Khulumani Support Group, which surveyed several hundred victims of human-rights abuse during the Apartheid era, found that most felt that the TRC had failed to achieve reconciliation between the black and white communities. Most believed that justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it, and that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators of abuse.

Another dilemma facing the TRC was how to do justice to the testimonials of those witnesses for whom translation was necessary. It was believed that, with the great discrepancy between the emotions of the witnesses and those translating them, much of the impact was lost in interlingual rendition. A briefly tried solution was to have the translators mimic the witnesses' emotions, but this proved disastrous and was quickly scrapped.

While former president F.W. de Klerk appeared before the commission and reiterated his apology for the suffering caused by apartheid, many black South Africans were angered at amnesty being granted for human rights abuses committed by the apartheid government. The BBC described such criticisms as stemming from a "basic misunderstanding" about the TRC's mandate, which was to uncover the truth about past abuse, using amnesty as a mechanism, rather than to punish past crimes.

Among the highest-profile of these objections were the criticisms levelled by the family of prominent anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...

, who was killed by the security police, and whose story was later featured in the film Cry Freedom
Cry Freedom
Cry Freedom is a 1987 British drama film directed by Richard Attenborough, set in the late 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. It was written from a screenplay by John Briley based on a pair of books by journalist Donald Woods...

. Biko's family described the TRC as a "vehicle for political expediency", which "robbed" them of their right to justice. The family opposed amnesty for his killers on these grounds and brought a legal action in South Africa's highest court, arguing that the TRC was unconstitutional.

On the other side of the spectrum, former apartheid State President
State President of South Africa
State President, or Staatspresident in Afrikaans, was the title of South Africa's head of state from 1961 to 1994. The office was established when the country became a republic in 1961, and Queen Elizabeth II ceased to be head of state...

 P.W. Botha defied a subpoena to appear before the commission, calling it a "circus". His defiance resulted in a fine and suspended sentence, but these were overturned on appeal.

Playwright Jane Taylor, responsible for the acclaimed Ubu and the Truth Commission
Ubu and the Truth Commission
Ubu and the Truth Commission is a South African play by Jane Taylor first performed under the directorship of William Kentridge at The Laboratory in Johannesburg's Market Theatre on May 26, 1997....

, found fault with the Commission's lopsided influence:

The TRC is unquestionably a monumental process, the consequences of which will take years to unravel. For all its pervasive weight, however, it infiltrates our culture asymmetrically, unevenly across multiple sectors. Its place in small rural communities, for example, when it establishes itself in a local church hall, and absorbs substantial numbers of the population, is very different from its situation in large urban centres, where its presence is marginalised by other social and economic activities.


John Pilger
John Pilger
John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US....

, an internationally significant journalist, castigates the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for allowing the easy transition from white exclusive capitalism to multiracial capitalism, and for failing to cause the trial of criminals, particularly murderers.

See also

  • Peace Commission
  • The Civil Cooperation Bureau
    Civil Cooperation Bureau
    The South African Civil Cooperation Bureau was a government-sponsored hit squad during the apartheid era that operated under the authority of Defence Minister General Magnus Malan...

    , an apartheid hit squad much discussed in the final TRC report.
  • Truth commission
    Truth commission
    A truth commission or truth and reconciliation commission is a commission tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government , in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past...


Non-Fiction

  • Bell,Terry, Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza, and Dumisa Buhle Ntzebeza. 2003. "Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth."
  • Boraine, Alex. 2001. "A Country Unmasked: Inside South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission."
  • Cole, Catherine. 2010. "Performing South Africa's Truth Commission: Stages of Transition."
  • Doxtader, Erik and Philippe-Joseph Salazar
    Philippe-Joseph Salazar
    Philippe-Joseph Salazar is a French rhetorician and philosopher born 1955, Casablanca, Morocco. Educated at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Alumnus of École Normale Supérieure, Paris and past director at Collège international de philosophie, Paris, founded by Jacques Derrida. Currently...

    , Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa. The Fundamental Documents, Cape Town, New Africa Books/David Philip, 2008.
  • Edelstein, Jillian. 2002. "Truth and Lies: Stories from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa."
  • Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla. 2006. "A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness."
  • Hayner, Priscilla. 2010. "Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions"
  • Hendricks, Fred. 2003. "Fault-Lines in South African Democracy: Continuing Crisis of Inequality and Injustice."
  • Kentridge, William
    William Kentridge
    William Kentridge is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two...

    . "Director's Note". In Ubu and the Truth Commission, by Jane Taylor, viii-xv. Cape Town
    Cape Town
    Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

    : University of Cape Town Press, 2007
    2007 in literature
    The year 2007 in literature involves some significant new books.-Events:*November 19 - First Kindle e-book reader released.*December 11 - Terry Pratchett informs fans on-line that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.-Literature:...

    .
  • Khoisan, Zenzile. 2001. Jakaranda Time: An Investigator's View of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
  • Krog, Antjie
    Antjie Krog
    Antjie Krog, born October 23, 1952 in Kroonstad, Orange Free State, South Africa, is a prominent South African poet, academic and writer. In 2004 she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape.- Early life :...

    . 2000. "Country of My Skull
    Country of My Skull
    Country of My Skull is a 1998 nonfiction book by Antjie Krog primarily about the findings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission...

    : Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa."
  • Martin, Arnaud. 2009. La mémoire et le pardon. Les commissions de la vérité et de la réconciliation en Amérique latine. Paris: L'Harmattan.
  • Moon, Claire. 2008. "Narrating Political Reconciliation: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission."
  • Ross, Fiona. 2002. "Bearing Witness: Women and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa."
  • Tutu, Desmond. 2000. "No Future Without Forgiveness."
  • Villa-Vicencio, Charles and Wilhelm Verwoerd. 2005. "Looking Back, Reaching Forward: Reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa."
  • Wilson, Richard A. 2001. "The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa."

Fiction

  • Taylor, Jane. Ubu and the Truth Commission
    Ubu and the Truth Commission
    Ubu and the Truth Commission is a South African play by Jane Taylor first performed under the directorship of William Kentridge at The Laboratory in Johannesburg's Market Theatre on May 26, 1997....

    . Cape Town
    Cape Town
    Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

    : University of Cape Town Press, 2007
    2007 in literature
    The year 2007 in literature involves some significant new books.-Events:*November 19 - First Kindle e-book reader released.*December 11 - Terry Pratchett informs fans on-line that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.-Literature:...

    .
  • Wicomb, Zoe. 2006. Playing in the Light

External links

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