The Epstein ‘Truth Commission’: America can learn from South Africa’s TRC

Some words just hit differently when you grow up with them

On 17 February 2026, New Mexico’s House of Representatives voted unanimously to create what legislators are calling a “Truth Commission” to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s 7,500-acre Zorro Ranch.

Two days later, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez reopened criminal investigations into the property, citing revelations in newly unsealed FBI files.

That same day, across the pond, British police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the royal formerly known as Prince Andrew, on suspicion of misconduct in public office connected to the Epstein files. The first arrest of a senior British royal in nearly 400 years.

For South Africans, the phrase “Truth Commission” is not a piece of legislative branding. It stands as the single most consequential experiment in post-conflict justice our country ever attempted.

And watching America borrow the language while ignoring the architecture tells you everything about why Zorro Ranch’s deepest secrets are likely to stay buried.

What the Epstein Truth Commission is missing

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), launched in 1996 under Archbishop Desmond Tutu, operated on a high-stakes, individual bargain: full disclosure in exchange for amnesty. No blanket pardon, perpetrators had to apply individually and prove they were providing the “whole truth” regarding politically motivated crimes.

More than 7,000 offenders applied. The process was agonising. Families of murdered activists watched their loved ones’ killers confess in detail, then leave the room without handcuffs. Steve Biko’s family called it a “vehicle for political expediency” that robbed them of justice.

But the truth came out. And it did so precisely because people had a reason to talk.

If the commission discovered a witness withholding names, dates, or the location of bodies, amnesty was denied, leaving them vulnerable to criminal trial. This credible threat of prosecution served as the “stick” that made the amnesty “carrot” effective. It stands in sharp contrast to the New Mexico probe, which lacks the leverage necessary to compel powerful figures to trade silence for the record.

New Mexico’s Epstein Truth Commission has subpoena power, a $2 million budget funded by a settlement with financial firms that failed to flag Epstein’s abuses, and a mandate to deliver reports by year’s end. It lacks a carrot.

Testimony before the commission may be used for future prosecutions. Which means anyone with genuine knowledge of what happened on that ranch, anyone who enabled, facilitated, or looked the other way, has motivation to stay silent and incentive to lawyer up.

It’s a “Truth Commission” designed to produce everything except… umm… truth.

The state investigating itself

The Epstein Truth Commission’s mandate runs headlong into a murky history. Unsealed FBI files reveal that New Mexico’s original 2019 investigation was shut down at the request of federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who asked state officials to stand aside to avoid “parallel investigations.” Former Attorney General Hector Balderas closed his probe within the year. Authorities never filed charges..

South Africans recognise this pattern. We spent a decade watching the National Prosecuting Authority hollowed out under state capture, investigations shelved or starved of resources whenever they crept too close to the connected. The question the TRC was designed to answer was not whether the state committed abuses. Everyone knew it did. The question was whether the state could investigate itself with enough honesty to build something different.

In a statement, the New Mexico Department of Justice said that it “will follow the facts wherever they lead, carefully evaluate jurisdictional considerations, and take appropriate investigative action, including the collection and preservation of any relevant evidence that remains available.”

Torrez is now requesting unredacted files from the same DOJ that told his predecessor to “stand aside.” Good luck with that.

South Africa’s own ghosts at Zorro Ranch

For SA People readers, this is not an abstract American story. South Africa runs through the Epstein files like a thread.

Juliette Bryant, a Cape Town woman who was studying psychology and philosophy at UCT while modelling part-time, has described being recruited into Epstein’s network in 2002 after being approached at a social event in the city.

She was told the man she would meet was “the King of America,” that Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey were with him. Within three weeks, she was on a plane to New York, then diverted to Epstein’s Caribbean island. She was 20 years old.

And it gets worse. Emails in the files show Epstein helped arrange a private dinner for then-President Jacob Zuma at London’s Ritz Hotel in 2010, during Zuma’s state visit to the UK. A Russian model was invited for “glamour.” The Jacob Zuma Foundation has rejected any suggestion of a relationship or wrongdoing.

Broader references in the files point to Cape Town’s modelling industry as part of Epstein’s international scouting networks. Anti-trafficking organisation, A21 Campaign has flagged the pattern: young South African women recruited through false promises of career advancement are pulled into exploitation networks that hide behind the veneer of legitimate industry.

Renaming the crime scene

The ranch has a new owner. Don Huffines, a Texas Republican running for state comptroller, bought the property from Epstein’s estate in 2023 and renamed it “San Rafael Ranch,” after a saint associated with healing. He plans to build a Christian retreat.

This attempt at whitewashing, trading the name of a predator for the name of a saint, stands in jarring contrast to grim questions that remain unanswered. Renaming may provide a veneer of closure, but without robust investigation, “San Rafael” feels a little like an elaborate bait-and-switch.

The commission has not yet investigated the property. A 2019 email in the files alleges that “two foreign girls were buried on orders of Jeffrey and Madam G” in the hills near the ranch. The claim remains unsubstantiated. New Mexico’s land commissioner has asked federal and state authorities to investigate.

What the record costs

South Africa’s TRC taught us that truth is not free. It costs the prosecution of known perpetrators. It costs families their right to retribution. And for all that, plenty will still refuse to come forward, choosing to gamble on never being caught over the certainty of public confession.

America claims it wants the truth about Zorro Ranch. What it wants is truth without cost. A commission with prosecutorial teeth but no amnesty mechanism creates the worst of both worlds: too threatening to encourage disclosure, too weak to compel it from people who will simply invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Thirty years after the TRC, South Africans still argue about whether that deal was worth it. But at least we got a record. New Mexico’s Epstein Truth Commission borrows our language, skips our painful lesson, and risks producing nothing but a well-funded silence.

The ghosts of Zorro Ranch deserve better. So do the women who were taken there.