Dumisa Ntsebeza, who will deliver the commencement address on Friday morning at The Ohio State University, will meet with interested members of the news media from 3 to 4 p.m. on Thursday (6/10) in the Office of Student Affairs, 33 W. 11th Ave. He’ll open with some general remarks and then conduct one-on-one interviews. No reservations are necessary, but it would be helpful if everyone were ready to start at 3 p.m.

   Ntsebeza (pronounced Doo ME suh Ent see BAY suh) is a noted human rights lawyer in South Africa, well known for his defense of the politically persecuted. He was a high-ranking member of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and headed its investigative unit. He has also been an acting judge, school teacher and university lecturer.

   The TRC was established in 1995 to investigate apartheid-era human rights abuses committed by all sides between 1960 and 1994. The commission issued a 3,500-page report in October 1998 that held the former apartheid state responsible for the major part of the gross human rights violations committed against the South African people. The commission’s objectives were to promote national unity and reconciliation by establishing as complete a picture as possible of the causes, nature and extent of the human rights violations through investigations and hearings; facilitating the granting of amnesty to those who disclosed facts relating to acts associated with a political objective; and establishing and making known victims’ fates and restoring their human and civil dignity by giving them an opportunity to relate their own accounts of the violations, and recommending reparations.

Contact: Ruth Gerstner, University Communications, 292-8424