Apartheid victims have lost hope following alleged injustices and false promises from President Cyril Ramaphosa that they would be compensated.
This as more than 20 years after establishing the President’s Fund, victims, survivors and their families remain poor and hopeless, saying the ANC-run government is uncaring.
Khulumani Support Group national organiser Nomarussia Bonase said some members of the group had been having a sleep-in outside the Constitutional Court precinct since October 18.
She said it was not their first sleep-in; they had another one in April. They did not leave until Justice Minister Ronald Lamola addressed them.
For the current sleep-in, Bonase said no one had yet seen them. She said the people were suffering and desperate to get help.
In 2021 the group also camped at the Constitutional Court, and this is despite some of their members being part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) process.
She said they had raised the issue of reparations more than two decades ago and had asked for at least R120 000 in 1998. Now they want a minimum of R1 million.
“Government does not care about apartheid victims. One of our demands is that we want the re-opening of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address and help all apartheid (victims),” Bonase said.
Lamola confirmed that more than 20 years after establishing the President’s Fund to benefit victims of apartheid and rehabilitate communities identified by the TRC, the state had yet to implement a single community project.
In a reply to a parliamentary question by GOOD Party MP Brett Herron, Lamola denied that government had de-prioritised the process of reconciliation and nation-building.
He said the state remained committed to making President’s Fund disbursements as intended.
The fund was created as a vehicle to effect redress for the depredations of the apartheid security state, and bring some balance to the interests of victims, and perpetrators of human rights violations.
Herron said the granting of amnesty to perpetrators of state-sponsored violence was among the trickiest issues those sitting down to negotiate South Africa’s transition from apartheid had to confront.
“The National Party government wanted blanket amnesty to ensure its leaders and other Rottweilers weren’t all going to end up in the pound, while the liberation movements insisted there should be accountability in some form,” Herron said.
When the President’s Fund was established a number of states and individuals donated handsomely.
“But, as with most of the TRC’s recommendations such as prosecuting offenders who did not receive amnesty, government’s follow-through has been lacklustre at best,” said Herron.
He added that by failing to follow through on the TRC’s recommendations on both prosecutions and redress, the state had abandoned the values that underpinned Dullah Omar’s vision that “we could not forgive perpetrators unless we also attempt to restore the honour and dignity of the victims … ”
When it comes to individual reparations, Lamola said regulations providing for the payment of the once-off final reparation grant of R30 000 to TRC-identified victims of gross human rights violations were published in the Government Gazette on November 12, 2003.
“Payments in terms of these regulations commenced on November 21, 2003. Per person, R30 000 was paid out to 17 416 beneficiaries that applied out of the 21 676,” Lamola said.
“The department views this process as finalised except for cases where TRC-identified victims who did not apply for final reparations wish to now submit their applications for payment of the once-off R30 000 individual reparations. In this regard, the department will receive their applications and process them accordingly.”