KHULUMANI launches its “STILL EXPECTING” CAMPAIGN for JUSTICE for VICTIMS and SURVIVORS of APARTHEID ATROCITIES: OCTOBER 29, 2010 at 10:30 in the 1st Floor Chapel of KHOTSO HOUSE, 62 Marshall Street, Johannesburg.
Today, Khulumani Support Group, the national membership organisation of victims and survivors of apartheid atrocities, will mark the twelfth anniversary of the handing over to President Mandela of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report in 1998, by launching its STILL EXPECTING Campaign that will run through until National Day of Reconciliation on December 16, 2010.
The Campaign will bring into focus the failures of the country and in particular the failures of its post-apartheid government, to ensure that justice is provided for victims and survivors of the gross human rights abuses that characterized the daily experience of thousands of South Africans under apartheid.
When victims engaged with the TRC by publicly sharing their anguish and trauma with the nation, they helped to put a face and a voice to apartheid and what it had done to thousands of its victims. Victims anticipated that this would lay a foundation on which a new society would be built – a society that held out the promise of social justice and a transformation of the circumstances of those most harmed by apartheid. But these expectations have been cruelly dashed in the intervening twelve years as government has continued year after year to make excuses for its failures to engage with victims on making reparation and providing for their rehabilitation.
Perpetrators on the other hand, were major beneficiaries of the TRC processes. The bias towards perpetrators was established in the National Unity and Reconciliation Act which spelt out clear criteria to provide amnesty to perpetrators and enshrined in law that perpetrators who qualified, would not have to wait for their amnesty. In contrast, no clear criteria were provided for reparations and the rehabilitation of victims. The bias in favour of perpetrators continued as new regulations were introduced, amongst them amended guidelines on prosecutions of perpetrators of the conflicts of the past and a special dispensation on pardons for offenders who claim political motives for their crimes.
The STILL EXPECTING October 29 Campaign of Khulumani and its allies will take action over the coming seven weeks to highlight these injustices and to claim back the ground for redress for victims. You are invited to join Khulumani at the launch of its campaign today and follow its actions on its website khulumani.net
For more information, please call: Dr Marjorie Jobson 082 268 0223, Ms Nomarussia Bonase 082 751 9903 or Mr Mpho Masemola 076 805 0690.
