In a landmark moment for South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate decades-long allegations that successive post-apartheid governments obstructed the prosecution of apartheid-era crimes. This move, prompted by a civil suit filed by survivors and relatives of apartheid victims, marks an inflection point in the country’s democratic journey. It is not merely an administrative process but a moral reckoning with the nation’s past and a test of its future commitment to justice and accountability.
Understanding Apartheid and its Atrocities
To understand the significance of this inquiry, one must revisit the nature and brutality of apartheid itself. Apartheid, meaning “apartness” or “separateness” in Afrikaans, was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that governed South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. Under this regime, the white minority government legally enforced a racial hierarchy under the guise of ‘separate development’, privileging white South Africans while systematically disenfranchising and oppressing the black majority, coloureds, and Indians. Laws controlled where people could live, work, go to school, and whom they could marry. Black South Africans were stripped of their citizenship and forcibly relocated to underdeveloped “homelands.” But beyond the visible architecture of segregation, apartheid was brutally violent. The state deployed the military, police, and intelligence services to crush dissent. Protesters were gunned down, activists abducted, tortured, and murdered. High-profile incidents, such as the Sharpeville Massacre (1960), the Soweto Uprising (1976), and the assassination of activists like Steve Biko, showcased the extent of state violence. One particularly haunting case is that of the Cradock Four—anti-apartheid activists abducted and murdered by security forces in 1985. When apartheid fell, South Africa’s transition to democracy was marked by the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a world-first attempt at transitional and restorative justice. While the TRC was groundbreaking in providing a platform for victims to tell their stories and perpetrators to confess in exchange for amnesty, it was also designed with a key caveat: if there was no full disclosure, prosecutions were supposed to follow. Those prosecutions, by and large, never materialised.
The Legacy of Inaction and Suppressed Justice
According to reports by BBC News and The Guardian, families of victims have long accused the post-apartheid governments, particularly as members of the African National Congress (ANC) movement, of deliberately avoiding these prosecutions to preserve political stability or protect influential figures. The lawsuit that precipitated the current inquiry involves 25 individuals, including families of the Cradock Four. Despite confessions by six former police officers to the TRC, no prosecutions followed before their deaths. The question that looms over this inquiry is damning: did democratic governments, themselves once victims of apartheid’s cruelty, become complicit in shielding perpetrators from accountability? If so, South Africa’s democratic institutions have failed a generation of victims and undermined the very justice promised at the dawn of democracy. This erosion of justice has profound consequences. As Reuters notes, the inquiry will examine whether institutions like the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) were compromised or directed to ignore apartheid-era crimes. This includes assessing whether obstruction was administrative incompetence or a deliberate act of political suppression.
Why the Inquiry Matters
This inquiry is not about revisiting the past for its own sake. Rather, it is about healing a wound that has festered for decades. First and foremost, it is an attempt to honour the TRC’s foundational promise: that truth would be followed by justice. Victims and their families were asked to forgive, to relive their trauma publicly in the hopes of national unity. That unity cannot be built on broken promises. Second, the inquiry is crucial for restoring faith in the rule of law. South Africa’s constitutional democracy is premised on the idea that no one is above the law. When state actors are perceived to escape accountability, particularly for crimes against humanity, it diminishes public trust and fuels cynicism. Al Jazeera’s reporting underscores how victims see this inquiry as a last resort for recognition and dignity. Third, the inquiry sends a powerful message about the nature of democracy itself. Justice is not merely the absence of oppression; it is the active pursuit of redress for wrongs committed. As scholars have argued in journals like the Journal of International Criminal Justice and through platforms like SciELO, failure to prosecute apartheid crimes undermines international legal norms and emboldens future human rights violators. Moreover, continued inaction deepens racial and socio-economic divisions. Without holding perpetrators accountable, these injustices become normalised, and efforts at transformation are undercut.
Detrimental Consequences of Hampering Prosecutions
Hampering prosecutions of apartheid-era crimes isn’t just a legal failure, it is a betrayal of the moral foundation of post-apartheid South Africa. Justice delayed, as the old adage goes, is justice denied. For the families who have waited decades, many of whom are ageing or already deceased, delayed justice equates to a lifetime of unresolved pain. If this inquiry uncovers proof of wilful obstruction, it would mean that democratic institutions knowingly chose impunity. This could have serious implications for South Africa’s international standing. It risks undermining South Africa’s credibility as a champion of human rights and transitional justice, especially given its global legacy as the birthplace of the TRC model. Furthermore, the failure to prosecute sends a dangerous signal domestically. It suggests that political expediency trumps justice and that state officials can commit grave crimes without fear of consequence. This undermines efforts to combat current forms of corruption and abuse of power, entrenching a culture of impunity.
Conclusion: A Defining Test for South Africa
South Africa’s apartheid-era crimes inquiry is not merely a retrospective examination; it is a defining test of the nation’s moral compass. In confronting the uncomfortable question of why justice was denied for so long, the country has a chance to renew its commitment to truth, equality, and dignity for all its citizens. For the victims and their descendants, this inquiry may offer a long-awaited recognition of their suffering. For the nation, it provides a chance to finally align its democratic ideals with its actions. And for the world, it reaffirms that justice, though delayed, remains essential to peace, democracy, and human dignity. South Africa cannot afford to let this moment slip into bureaucratic inertia. What is at stake is not just the memory of apartheid’s victims, but the future integrity of the nation itself.
