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What are the consequences for ourselves and others, when we choose to forgive, or not to forgive?
In societies where horrible wrongs have been committed on a massive scale, there are various tools and strategies that can be used to increase the possibility that forgiveness might take place. Providing victims with a safe environment to confront the people who harmed them, for example, can be a huge step towards healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. But ultimately, the choice whether to forgive another human being for wrongs he has committed against you or your loved one, is a personal one. In this reading, we witness the remarkable choices made by two human beings. |
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 Amy Biehl, who grew up in the United States, was enthralled by the history of Southern Africa and the courageous efforts of its freedom fighters. As a senior at Stanford University in 1989, she wrote her thesis on the negotiations for Namibian independence. After graduation, she won a scholarship to spend part of the summer in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. As a graduate student and Fulbright fellow, Amy focused her research on assessing the role of South African women in the negotiation process. Was gender equality possible within the context of a challenging negotiation process? Would race always overshadow gender in such a context?
1993 was an especially fragile and violent time in South Africa during the heart of the negotiation process leading up to the 1994 elections. After spending several months of challenging research in South Africa, Amy was stoned and stabbed to death in the black township of Gugulethu, when driving home some of her black colleagues and friends. While her friends tried to save her by yelling at the killers that Amy was a friend and someone who was helping their cause, what Amy’s killers saw was a white woman. The group of young men chanted the slogan of the Pan Africanist Students' Organization, "One settler, one bullet."
On August 25, 1993, Amy’s parents were called and given the news that their daughter had been murdered. Linda and Peter Biehl were very supportive of Amy’s decision to go to South Africa and admired her passion for her work and her love for South Africa. They decided to go to South Africa themselves, to be in the country their daughter so loved and to attend the trials of her murderers.
The young men who were charged with Amy’s murder, Mongezi Manqina, Mzikhona Nofemela, Vusumzi Ntamo and Ntobeko Peni, were members of the Pan African Congress’s student wing, the Pan Africanist Students’ Organization. The trial took place a few months after the killing, and the four youths were sentenced to 18 years in prison for Amy’s murder.
 On April 28, 1994, the day after South Africa’s first democratic election, Linda and Peter Biehl announced the creation of the Amy Biehl Foundation. The Foundation would focus on South Africa and would seek to support South Africans in their everyday lives. The Biehls decided that, like Amy, they would make a commitment to the country. South Africa became their second home.
In 1997, Manqina, Nofemela, Ntamo and Peni applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Following the initial hearings, the Biehls made a statement asking the commissioners to grant the four young men amnesty. In order to earn amnesty in the TRC, an applicant had to tell the complete truth and prove a political objective. At the hearings the young men explained what happened that day and their desire for forgiveness from the Biehls. The South African Press Association, present at the hearings, captured the exchange:
“I feel sorry and very down-hearted, especially today, realizing the contribution Amy Biehl played in the struggle,” Peni said.
“South Africa is free today because of the blood shed,” Manqina said.
Peni testified that Paso’s executive had ordered its members to make Guguletu ungovernable and to assist the PAC’s armed wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, in winning back black peoples’ land.
“I regarded this as an instruction to also harm, injure and kill white people.”
He said he believed that Biehl's death would help bring about a return of the land to blacks.1
Linda and Peter Biehl spoke at the hearing. They described their daughter as a “freedom fighter,
an energetic, competitive girl and a focused student.”2 They then told the committee that it was not up to them to decide amnesty, “but for South Africa to forgive their own.”3 Following the hearing, the Biehls spoke to the press. They said that they would “not oppose the granting of amnesty if it was based on merit.”4 At the press briefing, the Biehls were asked if they could ever forgive the killers. Linda Biehl responded, “In my own heart I’ve never really been bitter and angry about this... I felt horrible sadness...She said those who were really angry and bitter would find it more of an effort to forgive....I don't think I have anything to forgive, because I don't believe I ever felt hatred.”5
Peter Biehl also said that he had did not feel angry and “that there are many things in my life that I would like to be forgiven for....I believe in forgiveness, but to be honest my forgiveness is for me not for the public.”6
“The Biehls who have met the family of the applicants and the PAC leadership said they had shook hands with Amy’s killers when the four men stuck out their hands in the corridor to greet them.”7
In 1998, the TRC granted the four youths amnesty. Click here to read an excerpt from the decision.
The Biehls had come from America to attend the hearing. At the conclusion of the evidence, Mr Biehl addressed the Amnesty Committee.
We have the highest respect for your Truth and Reconciliation Commission and process. We recognize that if this process had not been a pre-negotiated condition your democratic free elections could not possibly have occurred. Therefore, and believing as Amy did in the absolute importance of those democratic election occurring we unabashedly support the process which we recognize to be unprecedented in contemporary human history.
At the same time we say to you it’s your process, not ours. We cannot, therefore, oppose amnesty if it is granted on the merits. In the truest sense it is for the community of South Africa to forgive its own and this has its basis in traditions of ubuntu and other principles of human dignity. Amnesty is not clearly for Linda and Peter Biehl to grant.
You face a challenging and extraordinarily difficult decision. How do you value a committed life? What value do you place on Amy and her legacy in South Africa? How do you exercise responsibility to the community in granting forgiveness in the granting of amnesty? How are we preparing prisoners, such as these young men before us, to re-enter the community as a benefit to the community, acknowledging that the vast majority of South Africa’s prisoners are under 30 years of age? Acknowledging as we do that there's massive unemployment in the marginalised community; acknowledging that the recidivism rate is roughly 95%. So how do we, as friends, link arms and do something? There are clear needs for prisoners' rehabilitation in our country as well as here. There are clear needs for literacy training and education, and there are clear needs for the development of targeted job skill training. We, as the Amy Biehl Foundation, are willing to do our part as catalysts for social progress. All anyone need do is ask.
Are you, the community of South Africa, prepared to do your part?8
Since the amnesty hearings, the Biehls have continued their work with the Foundation and they have continued the process of reconciling with the young men who killed Amy.
A year after receiving amnesty, Peni and Nofemela contacted the Biehls saying that they wanted to begin a youth group in Amy’s name. The Biehls brought family photographs to the project’s launch and shared them with the young men. Seeing that Linda Biehl was now a grandmother, Nofemela (known as Easy) called her Makulu. Now, Linda says, her grandson, Easy and Ntobeko all call her Makulu.
One of the projects that the Amy Biehl Foundation runs involves making bricks and doing construction work in Gugulethu. They also began a bakery. Ntobeko and Easy have worked at both. In an interview with the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Peter Biehl reflects on their work and the process of reconciliation:
These two guys are up between two or two thirty. They are on the bread truck by three in the morning. We see them coming in here to cash out as late as four and five o’clock in the evening…It is very gratifying to see Easy and Ntobeko really serving in our bakery business in important ways. They have pride in what they bring to the party and what they bring is very, very significant. It is great to see them be able to be aspiring, natural human beings. And yet we know that what they carry with them is more than any of us can know because none of us has been involved in the taking of life. That has got to be very, very difficult. They are still tormented about how they are perceived in the community. But somehow they seem to rise above all this.9
Peter Biehl died in the spring of 2002. Linda Biehl continues their work at the Foundation. In August 2003, she organized and hosted a tenth anniversary concert to commemorate Amy’s death and their commitment to South Africa.
Connections for the Classroom...
- Linda and Peter Biehl’s response to the murder of their daughter is extraordinary, and a touching tribute to Amy’s life and work. Linda Biehl said “In my own heart I’ve never really been bitter and angry about this... I felt horrible sadness....I don’t think I have anything to forgive, because I don't believe I ever felt hatred.” 10 In your journal, reflect on these words about forgiveness, hatred, and the Biehls’ reactions in general.
- Two of the men who murdered Biehl were granted amnesty through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and now actually work on projects sponsored by the Amy Biehl Foundation. Informed by this significant story, create working definitions for the words reconciliation and forgiveness. As you explore the readings and case studies in this website, return to these words and expand and revise those definitions.
- The award winning documentary, Long Night's Journey into Day is an excellent resource on South Africa and apartheid. Amy Biehl’s case is one of four profiled in the film. The video is available from the Facing History and Ourselves resource center.
- Learn more about the Amy Biehl Foundation by going to the website, www.amybiehl.org.
1 “Biehl’s Killers Ask Parents For Forgiveness.” South African Press Association (Cape Town), July 8, 1997.
2 “Amy Biehl’s Parents Believe Her Killers Are Genuinely Sorry.” South African Press Association (Cape Town), July 9, 1997.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 “Statement by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Amnesty Arising from Killin of Amy Biehl.” South African Government Information. Source.
9 IJR, pp. 30-31
10 South African Press Association.
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