Publication: The Natal Witness Issued: Date: 2005-11-01 Reporter: Christopher Merrett Reporter:

Dealing with Unfinished Business

 

Publication 

The Natal Witness
Date 2005-11-01

Reporter

Christopher Merrett

Web Link

www.witness.co.za

 

The last few months have seen the deaths of two of the most notorious members of the security forces of the apartheid era: Lothar Neethling, head of the forensic unit of the South African Police and an expert in poisoning; and Gideon Nieuwoudt, a security policeman renowned for the abuse of political activists and detainees. Neethling persistently lied, denying any wrongdoing, and brought down the Vrye Weekblad in the process; Nieuwoudt sought some sort of redemption towards the end of his life. The deaths of both men bring to mind the unfinished business that is South Africa's recent history.

The aim of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was to find a way to move the country forward within a framework of restorative justice. The admirable purpose of the exchange of amnesty for full and frank admission of the truth was to create a memorial to the past that permitted closure without amnesia. Nelson Mandela called it the RDP of the soul, a fitting conclusion to a negotiated settlement.

In this regard South Africa is seen as being at the cutting edge of international best practice. Amnesties in other countries have been far too kind to the perpetrators of past abuse. In September, for example, Algeria voted overwhelmingly for immunity in exchange for guns, and exoneration of its security forces for 6 000 disappearances during a decade-long, vicious civil war. This appears a recipe for disaster, especially since there are possibly 1 000 insurgents still at large.

It is, however, not widely remembered that of 7 116 amnesty applications to our TRC, three-quarters were rejected. Most high-level apartheid decision makers would have nothing to do with the TRC and those who did appear before it were mainly footsoldiers. There have been only a few prosecutions and most of these cases have fallen apart as we have been reminded recently by Wouter Basson.

In contrast to the leaders of Nazi Germany, National Party bigwigs consistently distanced themselves from the sheer criminality and immorality that sustained their ideology. While it is probably fortunate that South Africa rejected the Nuremberg route, the ease with which politicians and securocrats who fully subscribed to apartheid ideology have escaped judgment and justice raises justifiable fears about the standing of the rule of law. President Thabo Mbeki's pardon of 33 anti-apartheid activists convicted of violence created similar worries. The trajectory of events over the past 10 years suggests that the slate has been wiped clean in a way that was not envisaged at the dawn of South African democracy.

At the time, much was made of what was said to be a miracle: avoidance of racial conflict and a bloodbath. This opinion ignored a number of crucial features of recent South African history that now benefit from a retrospective view. First, the two main protagonists in the conflict had more in common than met the eye and the politics of the last 10 years have reinforced this point. Second, the struggle against apartheid was more broadly based than many, for a range of reasons, would like to admit. Third, the nature of South Africa's society and its economy gave even the marginalised sufficient reason to have some hope for the future. The settlement of the mid-1990s was no miracle. It was a triumph of common sense based on a modicum of faith; in other words the everyday behaviour we hope to see around us as a matter of course in a civilised society.

The defeat of apartheid and the relative success of the TRC were a victory for the ordinary people of South Africa *1. Yet their achievement is by no means entirely secure and it remains vulnerable to the unfinished business of the last decade. The political flotsam and jetsam of this period poses continued threats to a fragile democracy, and it comes in an amazing range of shapes and sizes.

Bizarre though it may seem, remnants of the white right wing still bask in fantasies about uprisings and separateness. Their chances of success are nil, but they have the capacity to do local, temporary damage. Their counterparts are the Stalinists lurking in the ANC, the secret admirers of Mugabe, whose commitment to democracy and a populist message will last as long as it takes to acquire power.

Then there is the post-apartheid elite enjoying its new-found wealth and influence, but still employing the rhetoric of struggle and liberation - and indulging in the tired cliches of victimhood. And to complete the deck of cards, there are the common-or-garden opportunists cynically exploiting political correctness in pursuit of personal agendas, trampling under foot the work of the principled, hard-working and committed of all communities.

These people constitute small minorities, but are no less dangerous for all that. The fact that they need to be recognised as a threat is testimony to the fact that something has gone wrong with post-apartheid South Africa. The problem lies with the vacuum created by a dearth of institutional and civic morality and the political will to deal with the incompetent and corrupt.

To his eternal credit *2 President Mbeki has shown how to reverse this trend, sacking Jacob Zuma for a lack of judgment over this very matter of probity. The day Zuma was relieved of his duties South Africa accepted the possibility of becoming a mature, modern democracy and completing the process of liberation. That is, as yet, unfinished business.

•    is Director of Administration, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg. He writes in his personal capacity.

With acknowledgements to Christopher Merrett and The Natal Witness.


*1  A let's not spoil it now, Jacob Zuma and supporters.

*2  Watch out Mr Merrett, the incumbent has only three years to go; then, if the seeds of the wind are left to sprout, the whirlwind will have to be reaped.