15 April 2003

President Thabo Mbeki has shut the door on any hopes of a blanket amnesty towards perpetrators of gross human rights during the apartheid era, saying it was important for government to continue to establish the truth about networks that operated against its people.

Mbeki was addressing Parliament during a debate on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report in Cape Town on Tuesday.

"Let us start off by reiterating that there shall be no general amnesty", Mbeki said.

"Any such approach, whether applied to specific categories of people or regions of the country, would fly in the face of the TRC process and subtract from the principle of accountability, which is vital not only in dealing with the past, but also in the creation of a new ethos within our society."

Mbeki noted that some individuals did not participate in the TRC process, set up eight years ago to investigate human rights violations and atrocities committed during apartheid.

"Among these are individuals who were misled by their leadership to treat the process with disdain. Others themselves calculated that they would not be found out, either due to poor TRC investigations or what they believed and still believe is too complex a web of concealment for anyone to unravel.

"Yet other operatives expected the political leadership of the state institutions to which they belonged to provide the overall context against which they could present their cases: and this was not to be. This reality cannot be avoided", the President said.

He added that government was of the firm conviction that it could not resolve the matter by setting up yet another amnesty process, which in effect would mean suspending the constitutional rights of those who were at the receiving end of gross human rights violations.

The matter now rests with the National Directorate of Public Prosecution (NDPP), which will work with the country's intelligence agencies in following up on matters that warrant prosecution.

"The NDPP will leave its doors open for those who are prepared to divulge information at their disposal and to cooperate in unearthing the truth, for them to enter into arrangements that are standard in the normal execution of justice, and which are accommodated in the country’s legislation", Mbeki said.

"In each instance where any legal arrangements are entered into between the NDPP and particular perpetrators as proposed above, the involvement of the victims will be crucial in determining the appropriate course of action", Mbeki added.

Source: BuaNews

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Poet Antjie Krog headed the SABC team covering the TRC hearings. The multiple award-winning Country of My Skull is more the work of a poet than a reporter: a riveting mixture of transcript, storytelling, poetry and commentary. A documentary on the TRC hearings, Long Night's Journey Into Day won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary in 2000. Directed by Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffman, the film was shot over two-and-a-half years and features interviews with the surviving families in four notorious cases - the Amy Biehl story, the Cradock Four, the Magoo's Bar bombing and the Guguletu Seven. The Apartheid Museum Johannesburg's Apartheid Museum, assembled by a multi-disciplinary team of architects, curators, film-makers, historians and designers, takes the visitor on a powerful emotional journey into South Africa's past, bringing to life the story of a state-sanctioned system based solely on racial discrimination.