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Somehow, Linda Biehl was able to forgive her daughter’s killers and start a foundation that helps community projects in the townships where she worked. For that, she received one of South Africa’s highest honors: she was named to the Order of Companions of O R Tambo by President Thabo Mbeki at a ceremony today in Pretoria.
“I have come to believe passionately in restorative justice … It’s what South Africans call ‘ubuntu’: to choose to forgive rather than demand retribution, a belief that my humanity is inextricably caught up in yours,” Ms Biehl told BuaNews. [AllAfrica]
Amy Biehl’s death shocked South Africa and the world as it happened in 1993, just a year before the country’s all-race election. According to Reuters, Biehl had just dropped off three black friends in Gugulethu, when she was attacked by a crowd returning from a Pan African Congress rally.
Members of the mob chased Biehl and stoned and stabbed her to death as she begged for mercy in the dust.
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The four black youths convicted of the crime were released from prison in 1998 after they were granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up in 1995 to investigate rights abuses during apartheid.
The Biehls did not oppose the amnesty, and they later hired two of the murderers to work in a foundation they set up in their daughter’s name. [Reuters]
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