Despite having faced what former president Thabo Mbeki described as the jigsaw puzzle, South Africa’s advent of democracy compelled the ANC to deal with a difficult choice:creating an atmosphere of political stability, national unityand reconciliation.
In his much-awaited testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on Monday, Mbeki said while the ANC-National Party power-sharing arrangement was a piece of the jigsaw, this did not absolve the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) from its mandate to investigate and prosecute apartheid agents who killed scores of activistsbefore 1994.
Mbeki rejected claims by the late Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu who led the earlier TRC and the Helen Suzman Foundation, that general amnesty for perpetrators was shrouded in secrecy.
SHOWING LEADERSHIP: Former President Thabo Mbeki, Pictures: GCIS
He also denied any political interference in TRC prosecutions, saying the NPA had to take full responsibility for failure to prosecute many cases, which have for years remained unresolved.
The establishment of the judicial commission of inquiry last May - chaired by retired Constitutional Court Justice Sisi Khampepe, assisted by retired Northern Cape Judge President Frans Diale Kgomo and Advocate Andrea Gabriel SC - followed an application by families and victims of apartheid-era crimes, in the Gauteng Division of the High Court.
The families, who include the Cradock Four – slain Eastern Cape anti-apartheid activists Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli, Fort Calata and Sparrow Mkonto – seek declaratory orders and constitutional damages for the NPA failure to investigate or prosecute cases, identified by the Tutu-era TRC.
“I made it clear in my speech to Parliament on 15 April 2003, that we left it to the NDPP (National Director of Public Prosecutions), supported by our intelligence agencies, to address the first category of participants – in line with the law.
“Both the first and second category of participants do not include persons who unsuccessfully applied to the TRC for amnesty and whose cases were referred to the NPA for prosecution.
“That remained and still remains the business of the NPA to prosecute.
“For this reason, it is difficult to understand an allegation about the ‘seeds of political interference’ with the TRC cases referred to the NPA for prosecution, were laid in the deliberations that led to the strategies reflected in my speech to Parliament on 15 April 2003.
“I deny the allegations,” said Mbeki.
Mbeki also denied having held secret meetings with former president FW de Klerk, members of the SA Defence Forceand SA Police to discuss granting a blanket amnesty to officers implicated in apartheid atrocities.
He challenged assertions by Lukhanyo Calata, son of Fort Calata, that the government and successive ANC-led administrations – including Mbeki – failed TRC victims and families.
In an ANC Radio Freedom audio broadcast played before the TRC, Mbeki who addressed South Africa from exile in 1985 – on the eve of the mass political funeral of the Cradock four said: “Compatriots, tomorrow at Cradock in the Eastern Cape, we shall be burying our leaders.
“Today, their names stand at the head of the list of heroic martyrs whom the enemy has murdered in cold blood - as part of its continuing war of repression against the people.
“Today, their names are on our lips.
“Their memory is in our hearts and minds.
“With raised spears pointed at the heart of the enemy who took your lives, we salute you.
“We shall lay you to rest without weeping.
“You are warriors of the people's cause - you who, even in your death, continue the combat for the liberation of our country.
“We shall say a farewell of war, sound the drums that summon the living to arms and pin your glorious names on the banners of our combat detachments.
“We shall lay you to rest without weeping, so that we do not blind our eyes with tears.”
SAD REMEMBRANCE: Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane, wearing a T-shirt with the face of her sister Nokuthula who was kidnapped by apartheid agents.
Speaking during South Africa under the highest state repression during PW Botha’s state of emergency, Mbeki said the oppressed should “keep our eyes on the enemy”.
Said Mbeki: “We aim with a steady hand and pierce the murderer's heart in honour of your memory - in furtherance of the cause for which you have perished.
“We will not mourn, but our actions will mock the folly of our enemy, which thought that by taking you away, it would leave us demoralised with no will to fight.
“We will not mourn because for us you are not dead.
“You live on among us, urging and inspiring us to march without stopping and with no hesitation towards the goal of freedom for which you have sacrificed your lives.
“The enemy has launched a new kind of war against us.
“It is kidnapping - murdering our leaders and activists in secret.
“Its agents entice our best sons and daughters into dark corners, far away from the eyes of the people and there it murders and mutilates.”