NPA Considers Charging De Klerk for Apartheid Killings

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Legalbrief | your legal news hub Monday 27 September 2021 NPA considers charging De Klerk for apartheid killings As the furore over FW de Klerk’s apartheid denialism continues to get play in the wider media, a Mail & Guardian report says the NPA is considering a request to charge the former President for his role in allegedly authorising the murder of anti-apartheid activists in 1985. De Klerk, who served as the apartheid regime’s last President, is among those who may be charged for complicity in the murder of Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli, known as the Cradock Four. In January 2018 the case was among 20 related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that the Hawks and the NPA had listed for re-opening for investigation, notes the M&G. It says the case is now with the NDPP for consideration. Former TRC commissioner Yasmin Sooka, who along with the victims’ families and NGOs, has been lobbying for the cases to be re-opened since 2003, said: ‘There is a discussion with the NDPP. We have been putting a lot of pressure … to try and ensure that there are no further delays as people (who were involved in the killings) are dying. One of the things we have suggested is that the NPA get the Calata matter and the Pebco Three matter on the roll. These cases go right to the top. Whether there is an inquest first, or whether the matter goes straight to a trial, is the discussion that is with the NPA.’ The NPA reportedly declined to comment. The Cradock Four were murdered by Security Branch operatives after being abducted at a roadblock, allegedly on the instruction of the State Security Council (SSC), which recommended that they be ‘permanently removed from society’. The Mail & Guardian report says a 1994 inquest found that the state had been behind their killing, which was carried out by Security Branch members and that the decision to act against the Eastern Cape activists had been taken by the SSC. De Klerk was, according to documentation presented to the TRC, at the SSC meeting at which the operation to remove the four men from society was discussed. The operation to assassinate the Pebco Three — Sipho Hashe, Champion Galela and Qaqawuli Godolozi – in 1985, was planned at the same level. Sooka reportedly told the M&G they believed that De Klerk had ‘command responsibility’ for the actions of troops and police members who carried out murders and other crimes against activists. In his two submissions to the TRC on behalf of the apartheid government and the National Party, and in responses to further questions from it, De Klerk accepted overall responsibility for what happened under his leadership, but denied authorising any killings. The FW de Klerk did not respond to calls and e-mails from the M&G. See AfricaAnalyses.

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Cradock Four
Saif Pardawala 12/7/2012 TRC Cradock Four Amnesty Hearings Abstract: The Amnesty Hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation show the connection between the South African Apartheid state and the mysterious disappearances of four Cradock political activists. The testimonies of members of the security police highlight the lengths the apartheid state was willing to go to suppress opposition. The fall of Apartheid and the numerous examples of state mandated human rights abuses against its opponents raised a number of critical questions for South Africans at the time. Among the many issues to be addressed, was the need to create an institution for the restoration of the justice that had been denied to the many victims of apartheid’s crimes. Much like the numerous truth commissions established in Eastern Europe and Latin America after the formation of democracy in those regions, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was founded with the aims of establishing a restorative, rather than punitive justice. The goal of the TRC was not to prosecute and impose punishment on the perpetrators of the state’s suppression of its opposition, but rather to bring closure to the many victims and their families in the form of full disclosure of the truth. The amnesty hearings undertaken by the TRC represent these aims, by offering full amnesty to those who came forward and confessed their crimes. In the case of Johan van Zyl, Eric Taylor, Gerhardus Lotz, Nicholas van Rensburg, Harold Snyman and Hermanus du Plessis; the amnesty hearings offer more than just a testimony of their crimes. The amnesty hearings of the murderers of a group of anti-apartheid activists known as the Cradock Four show the extent of violence the apartheid state was willing to use on its own citizens to quiet any opposition and maintain its authority.
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3. Cradock Four Issued Notice of Motion And
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