Group to meet Lamola over apartheid reparations

Against the background of government’s failure to provide reparations to survivors of apartheid-era atrocities, human rights organisation Khulumani Support Group is tomorrow meeting Justice Minister Ronald Lamola about the plight of thousands of victims.

Several years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommended compensation for families of those who died, and survivors whose rights were violated by abduction, severe ill-treatment and torture, government has provided reparations to merely 16 800.

Khulumani national director Dr Marjorie Jobson said the engagement with Lamola was to discuss government’s failure to honour its agreement.

“These are reparations for TRC-recognised atrocities in return for amnesty granted to perpetrators.

“The generous amnesty provisions for perpetrators were honoured, but reparation has been provided for only 16 800 victims of apartheid atrocities.

“The reason is government’s failure to recognise the limitations of the TRC. “Now 25 years later – after the first TRC human rights hearing in April 1996 – evidence of government’s failings to make good on its undertakings to those who carried the cost and sacrifices of the struggle is becoming an emergency.”

Jobson said President Cyril Ramaphosa had correctly asserted in two public statements that this can no longer be postponed.

“The intergenerational impact of the failure to repair are daily evident in the violence in our communities. Our communities need to be assisted to begin thejourney of recovery from the extraordinary damage they suffered. This is the purpose of reparations and this work must begin without further delay.”

Khulumani, which is in the forefront of the compensation campaign, is preparing a submission to the UN Special Africa Committee on Truth Justice and Reparations, through the Pretoria-based UN High Commission for Human Rights.

“The international community has been putting pressure on government to deliver what it promised.”

One Uitenhage activist hunted by the apartheid special branch was Mncedisi Sitoto.

Now a pensioner, he spoke of the destitute families of those who died and the hardship faced by the survivors.

“Since our struggle for liberation, the people of Uitenhage, particularly those affected by the 1985 [Langa] massacre, do not have any reason to celebrate freedom from bondage,” he said.

brians@citizen.co.za

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