GOOD Speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
08 November 2022
Note To Editor: This is the extended version of the speech that was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General and Member of Parliament, Brett Herron in Parliament today.
On Saturday I visited the Constitutional Court to meet a group of elderly people who have been sleeping outside in an effort to pressure the State to honour what they regard as their right to reparations for apartheid injustices.
Yesterday, the Western Cape High Court re-opened the inquest into the death in detention of Imam Haron, more than 50 years after nonsensical police claims that the cleric fell down a flight of stairs were accepted by the apartheid court. Imam Haron was interrogated and tortured for 122 days.
Last week, the NPA announced it had referred 129 unsolved apartheid-era cases to the police for further investigation.
These developments collectively create the impression of a country dynamically engaged in dealing with the injustices of its past. It’s a false impression.
The facts are:
- So many years have passed since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended the further investigation of approximately 300 apartheid-era cases that most perpetrators have died of old age (including those believed to be responsible for Imam Haron’s murder);
- The Imam was one of 90 activists who died in detention between 1963 and 1990 – there has yet to be a single successful prosecution in any of these cases;
- The President’s Fund, meant to pay reparations to apartheid victims, sits with Billions of Rands in the bank…
Why raise this now? Shouldn’t we just “get over it”, as the official opposition and its conservative friends say – particularly given the ruling party’s evident disinterest?
It’s important to the integrity of our political transition, the sustainability of which is threatened by radical inequality, poverty and State inertia…
It’s important to the victims of apartheid injustices, and their descendants, that they don’t disappear through the cracks of political expediency…
It’s important to the principles of accountability, justice and peace.
In a paper titled Selling Justice Short: Why Accountability Matters to Peace, Human Rights Watch argued: “All too often a peace that is conditioned on impunity for these most serious crimes is not sustainable. Even worse, it sets a precedent of impunity for atrocities that encourages future abuses.”
The TRC was a process of restorative justice designed to develop a sense of national unity from the ruins of apartheid. Justice served through prosecuting those to whom the commission did not grant amnesty, paying reparations to victims, and rehabilitating communities.
But justice has been elusive. The State “deprioritised” prosecutions for the past 20 years and families still await the closure they crave.
The President’s Fund paid limited reparations to victims identified by the TRC, but its Community Rehabilitation Project Team, established in May 2017, has yet to implement a single project.
Elderly victims of apartheid-era abuses shouldn’t have to sleep outside to get the attention of the Minister or President, and the rights of families of victims to justice shouldn’t be ignored any longer.
The President and the Minister of Justice must intervene.
The state is failing the families on whose backs, lives and limbs our democracy was won. And it is failing our nation’s chance at restorative justice, healing and nation building.
Media Enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Janke Tolmay, GOOD Media Manager
Cell: 0733671223
Email: janke@forgood.org.za