The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.13           April 5, 1999 
 
 
Debate Grows Over S. Africa Truth Commission  

BY T.J. FIGUEROA
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The amnesty committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on March 4 issued a ruling denying amnesty to 27 leaders of the African National Congress. The ANC leaders had applied for amnesty from prosecution on the basis of collective political responsibility for the struggle against South Africa's racist apartheid regime in the decades leading up to the first democratic, nonracial elections in 1994.

The 27 ANC leaders include the organization's current president and South African deputy president, Thabo Mbeki; Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo; Transport Minister Mac Maharaj; Foreign Affairs Director Jackie Selebi; Ambassador to Cuba John Nkadimeng; Defense Minister Joe Modise; and government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe.

This decision has added fuel to the debate on the Truth Commission, which was established by the ANC-led government in 1994 to uncover "gross human rights violations" committed under the racist regime. According to its guidelines, those who committed acts in defense of - or in opposition to - apartheid can apply for amnesty from prosecution. The commission is authorized to grant amnesty if these acts were politically motivated, and if applicants tell the whole story.

The TRC asserted that the act under which it functions did not include providing amnesty "for acts committed by their [the ANC leaders'] members on the basis of collective political and moral responsibility."

ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said the organization accepted the TRC's finding, but referred to a statement in Parliament last month by President Nelson Mandela that the original act had failed to provide for organizations to apply for amnesty, and that this should be amended.

Opposition parties ran with the TRC's ruling. Constand Viljoen, leader of the right-wing Freedom Front, said the decision meant the ANC leaders could be prosecuted for their actions. The former National Party, which oversaw apartheid for more than four decades and now calls itself the New National Party, took a similar stance. The Democratic Party implied the ANC leaders were hiding the truth from South Africans.

Much of the Truth Commission is composed of liberal clerics, lawyers, and judges. Its ruling was celebrated by the liberal "friends" of the South African people.

The decision found favor with New York-based Human Rights Watch. "The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has made the right decision," said Peter Takirambudde, director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division in a March 6 statement reported on the front page of the Sunday Independent newspaper here. "The ANC cannot put itself above the law and expect its members to get amnesty if they don't take individual responsibility for their actions."

In a letter to Mbeki, Takirambudde urged the ANC president to accept that ANC members had committed human rights abuses and that the justness of its cause was no justification for this.

"The African National Congress called for and pioneered the establishment of the TRC, in a serious effort to ensure that the political conflicts of the past do not become a major obstacle to our common efforts to create a non-racial and non- sexist democracy," Mbeki said in a February 25 Parliamentary debate on the TRC's main report issued last year.

He saluted the TRC for "the discovery and exposure of the truth with regard to many: instances of gross violations of human rights; the tracing of missing persons including their graves; the encouragement of reconciliation between perpetrators and victims of violations of human rights; the cultivation of a spirit of remorse among those who had done wrong; and the identification of some of the people who are entitled to receive reparation."

`Millions do not accept this conclusion'
But Mbeki attacked the commission's "erroneous determination of various actions of our liberation movement as gross violations of human rights, including the general implication that any and all military activity which results in the loss of civilian lives constitutes a gross violation of human rights.

"The net effect of these findings is to delegitimize or criminalize a significant part of the struggle of our people for liberation and to subtract from the commitment made in our Constitution to `honor those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land.'... We cannot accept such a conclusion, nor will the millions of people who joined in struggle to end the system of apartheid."

The TRC made a number of high-profile rulings in February, including the denial of amnesty to the four cops who murdered antiapartheid leader Steve Biko in 1977. Prosecution of these cops is under consideration.

Shortly thereafter, the commission granted amnesty to cop Jeffrey Benzien -one of the regime's most notorious torturers who is today a police captain - for the 1987 murder of ANC cadre Ashley Kriel in Cape Town. Benzien also received amnesty for torturing other ANC members.

His preferred method of torture, which he demonstrated in front of television cameras during his amnesty hearing, was to force his victim to lay on his or her belly with hands cuffed behind their back, place a wet canvas bag over the person's head and twist the bag around the neck, cutting off the air supply.

A ruling on the 1993 assassination of ANC and South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani is expected shortly.

 
 
 
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