Cape Town - The year 2022 brought new hope to families of victims of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cases, with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) appearing determined to tie up some of the loose ends of South Africa’s dark, painful apartheid past.
In a speech on the issue, GOOD party MP Brett Herron said: “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.”
The year closed with National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi reassuring victims, and South Africans in general, that her office was looking afresh into the TRC cases.
These cases involved incidents of gross human rights violations, including murder, torture, enforced disappearance, kidnapping and unlawful detention, in which no or only partial amnesty was granted by the Amnesty Committee of the TRC.
The NPA told Parliament that 129 cases were under investigation and 64 of these had been reopened.
Acting NPA deputy director Rodney de Kock said the NPA would employ the services of an independent senior counsel to advise on the matters and the the TRC cases were a “top priority”.
These cases include the Cradock Four matter in which the deaths of Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkhonto are being investigated.
The new year, 2023 will begin with the closing statements of the lawyers for the state and the family at the the reopened inquest into the death in police custody of anti-apartheid struggle activist Imam Abdullah Haron.
Western Cape High Court judge Daniel Thulare adjourned the inquest proceedings sine die in mid-November and said the matter would resume in January on a date to be agreed upon by him and the lawyers.
Meanwhile, in November the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) said they were exploring their options with regard to tackling an investigation into the 1988 assassination in France of Athlone-born ANC political activist Dulcie September.
At the same time the NPA’s Missing Person Task Team has recorded several successes in addition to recovering the remains of 179 missing people.
These successes include the location of the remains of an Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) member shot dead in 1980, with an excavation planned and the identification of a burial site where four MK members were ambushed in the Caprivi Strip in 1970.