Nadine Gordimer:
"The gales of war blew a 13-year-old Greek boy to our shores. He was to become a South African civil rights lawyer of international standing, a devastating cross-examiner of apartheid’s authorised torturers and killers. Long before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was visualised, George Bizos pursued the truth of what was being done to those who suffered under and had the courage to oppose a racist regime turned brutal tyrant. When George Bizos won a case, it was not just a professional victory – it was an imperative of a man whose deep humanity directs his life. The intimate accounts of major trials in this extraordinary book are part of our national story we cannot deny: in human responsibility there never can be nobody to blame."
Arthur Chaskalson, President of the Constitutional Court:
"No One to Blame? explores the implications of torture, deaths in detention, murders by death squads and the failure to find anyone culpable. Throughout his career George Bizos has confronted these concerns with courage and dedication. No South African lawyer did more to challenge the abuse of power by the security forces under apartheid. No one is better qualified to write about this."
Cape Times, 1 April 1999, Beverly Rycroft:
…George Bizos’ cogent, disturbing and often moving account of the inquests he attended during the apartheid years produces a harrowing but convincing case for the imperative of the TRC …He traces the development and rapid adaptation, after each trial, of newer and less traceable methods of the security police. Although Bizos never officially won any of these cases, the publicity engendered by each case was damaging enough to force the police to become more circumspect … Bizos’ clearly laid–out account of events leading to the murder of these activists also makes citizens of a new South Africa painfully aware of the quality leadership of which they have been robbed … By fleshing out the lives and the people behind the newspaper headlines, Bizos answers that too–glib notion that the TRC has created bitterness by raking up what is past. The inescapable evidence he provides of unspeakable cruelties forces us into realising that a monumental bitterness must already exist, and that it must be addressed. And while he allows for imperfections in the TRC, his testimony insists on its necessity. …Bizos’ book provides a salutary reminder that it might well be hypocritical to complain that violence has increased since the demise of apartheid. He reminds us of the oppressive years when we suspected evil doings, but were prevented from knowing exactly how they occurred, and who was involved in them … No one to blame? The irony in the title is directed at all of us. It is an appeal to listen to the story of others, not to permit their deaths to be in vain. It is a book which makes shameful reading, yet it would be more shameful not to read it.
Business Day, 18 December 1998, Alan Fine:
…The book is not only an indictment of the security forces, bu a reminder that the courts in pre–1994 SA still have a lot to answer for … No one to Blame? Is evidence that it is possible for a lawyer to produce a gripping piece of social and legal history.
Sunday Independent, 7 February, 1999Karel Tip
"…The known circumstanced surrounding these deaths are presented without exaggeration, but with gripping detail … No one to Blame? Is an important record of important events. It is readable and absorbing. It does not set out to be academic or analytical. And it doesn’t demand familiarity with legal processes. Although there is a unifying theme, each chapter is self–contained, allowing the reader to engage with the book with ease."