Apartheid era victims want justice in South Africa

Clare Nullis

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Maureen Mazibuko still bears the physical scars of torture and the emotional scars of watching apartheid era security forces gun down her husband.

She has given up hopes of justice in the courts but longs for a mere apology. Until then, she can neither forgive nor forget.

South Africa marked the 10th anniversary of its Truth and Reconciliation Commission still questioning whether the experiment was the best way to heal a nation deeply wounded by apartheid. The commission, headed by Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, granted amnesty to some who confessed and showed repentance, but many who refused to confess have gone unpunished.

“I want to meet up with my perpetrators and hear them say sorry for what they have done,” Mazibuko, who was attacked with acid that left her permanently bald and in frequent pain, told a conference Thursday marking the 10th anniversary of the commission designed to promote justice as well as forgiveness.

The conference heard demands from human rights activists for tougher government action against the worst offenders and more compensation for victims, coupled with pleas from an aide to South Africa’s last white president for reconciliation rather than revenge.

“Today we live side by side with each other without fear of political violence or that our neighbors will attack us,” said Yasmin Sooka, a former commission member, who now heads the Foundation for Human Rights. “This is a reason to celebrate.”

But she said countless South Africans remained hungry for justice.

“For many victims’ families in South Africa, they do not live in peace, they live in a twilight zone never being allowed to forget their pain ... or put closure to their memories,” said Sooka.

More than 21,000 victims gave evidence to the commission during an emotional two-year journey into the slayings and torture of the apartheid era. The panel granted amnesty to about 1,000 South Africans who confessed and showed remorse.

It refused to pardon the worst offenders, such as Eugene de Kock, who headed a police unit notorious for assassinations and who was nicknamed “Prime Evil.” He was sentenced to multiple terms of life imprisonment.

But it had no power to act against those who refused to confess their crimes. Instead it passed on the names of about 300 suspects to the National Prosecuting Authority for further investigation.

The government announced guidelines late last year to proceed with prosecutions. But Torie Pretorius, a senior member of the unit, said lack of manpower was likely to slow progress.

“My kingdom for a good investigator ... we don’t have the investigators,” he said.

Pretorius, a state prosecutor for the past 30 years, said he still suffered from “post traumatic stress syndrome” for the government’s failure to convict Wouter Basson, the alleged apartheid-era head of germ warfare.

Basson was acquitted in 2002 of 36 charges, including murder. Witnesses testified that he tried to create deadly bacteria and anti-fertility drugs that would only affect blacks, as well as stockpiling cholera, HIV and anthrax. The intended victims allegedly included former President Nelson Mandela. Authorities decided last year not to re-open charges against the man dubbed as “Doctor Death.”

“I feel very hurt that Basson won’t be prosecuted because I was tortured with his acid,” said Mazibuko. “I feel very strongly that he should look into my eyes and ask for forgiveness,” said the 54-year-old.

Mazibuko was three months pregnant when her husband was killed by security officers in 1973. Later that decade, she can’t remember when exactly, she herself was detained and tortured with acid. She wears a scarf to conceal her baldness and has been repeatedly hospitalized for ailments blamed on her torture.

The political architect of some of apartheid’s worst repression remains unpunished, and unrepentant.

P.W. Botha, who ruled South Africa during its worst political violence and refused to give evidence to the reconciliation commission, recently celebrated his 90th birthday at his family farm, untouched by the law.

“It’s so sad that 19 years later, we still don’t have the sense of people taking responsibility for their actions during apartheid,” said Sooka, the former commission member. She commented that the recent arrest of former Liberian President Charles Taylor should serve as a warning.

But Dave Stewart, aide to F.W. De Klerk, South Africa’s last white president who negotiated the end of apartheid with Mandela, said that revenge — rather than reconciliation — would merely “open old wounds.”

“If we proceed with prosecutions on a one-sided and uneven basis, the consequences will be an even more deeply divided society and more bitterness,” he said.

(Associated Press)