The inquest into the killing of five children in Mthatha by security forces in 1993 is the latest in the National Prosecuting Authority’s commitment to address atrocities that occurred before 1994 (The Mercury, September 9). Besides achieving closure on this tragic event, the pursuit of the case raises other concerns.
The first is that the commitment of the NPA would have greater merit if its mandate were pursued evenly within the context of the Marxist-inspired ‘people’s war’. Atrocities occurred on both sides. Yet one does not read about requests by family members for inquests into the fate of their relatives held in camps run by the SACP/ANC.
Rightly or wrongly, death sentences to which SACP/ANC members were subjected by the judiciary before 1994 are disputed or reviled. But no such scrutiny is given to the execution of 18 alleged mutineers by an ANC tribunal in 1992, an event acknowledged by Chris Hani and reported in Newsweek on January 25, 1993 or to many others executed by ANC firing squads.
Reams of atrocities are detailed by Stephen Ellis in his books Comrades against Apartheid and External Mission – the ANC in Exile. In the 1990s, Ellis was Director of the Centre for African Studies in the University of Leiden. Mbokodo, the name of the ANC’s security section, certainly lived up to the meaning of its name – the boulder that crushes. Amnesty International recorded instances of those held by the SACP/ANC in prison camps (gulags) who were starved, beaten, tied naked to trees after having molten plastic poured over them and left for days.
Aspiring to social justice is commendable, but not when it appears to have a political agenda. As the ANC’s political fortunes decline, is the NPA’s commitment to addressing apartheid atrocities not part of a strategy to remind voters of its liberation role and thereby deflect attention from the dysfunctional state to which it has reduced South Africa?
Add Comment