South Africa: Reparations:

NATIONAL STRATEGY WORKSHOP ON REPARATIONS

PRESS RELEASE:

Reparations: Three years on and victims are still waiting

October 29 2001 marks the third anniversary since the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) handed its final report to then State
President, Nelson Mandela. In Volume Five of this report, the TRC
identified persons who were victims of apartheid's gross violations of
human rights and proposed a reparations and rehabilitation policy that
encompassed both individual and community forms. The TRC specifically
recommended that urgent interim reparations grants, as well as final
individual reparations be given to the victims. Since 1999 however,
victims have been waiting for government to decide on and implement its
policy for reparations.

Prominent political figures have repeatedly indicated that government
will not make reparations payments to individuals, but will instead
implement symbolic reparations in favor of communities and the nation as
a whole. This has been motivated on the basis that “one cannot
attach monetary value to the suffering." In a similar vein, statements
like "the struggle was not for money" have done much to convince victims
and civil society alike that government is not committed to recognizing
or acknowledging the survivors' individual pain and distress.

As a result, in June 2000 the TRC warned that:

"The suffering of victims should not become a political football. The
casualties are those human beings who need their dignity acknowledged and
restored by government and the South African nation."

However, politicians have continued to engage in endless debate about the
plight of victims and whether or not they should be entitled to
individual reparation. Government’s failure to take decisive action
on the issue of reparations is even more worrying considering the fact
that South Africa’s Constitutional Court had made it very clear
that amnesty for perpetrators could only be defended if the State stepped
in to provide some form of reparation for those victims who’s
rights to justice had thus been extinguished.

The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) has done
extensive research and intervention work around the TRC and its
recommendations, as well as working closely with survivor support groups
on the issue of reparations. We are very concerned that victims of
apartheid's gross violations of human rights continue to be denied any
meaningful form of reparation. Today, the TRC’s work on human
rights violations and on amnesty has largely been completed. Many
perpetrators have received amnesty for their role in apartheid's
violation of fundamental human rights. However the victims they tortured,
injured and maimed or those who lost breadwinners, relatives and loved
ones, are left clinging to the forlorn hope that government will at last
recognize their suffering and make good its promise to restore their
dignity through reparation.

Reparation is a hotly contested issue and a political hot potato. This
is even more the case because of the visible imbalance between the
amnesty offered to perpetrators - not to mention the hefty pensions
awarded to former apartheid state bureaucrats - and the lack of
compensation for their victims. These concerns have raised serious
questions regarding government's commitment to a sustainable process of
reconciliation in this country. We are convinced that in order to rectify
the injustices of the past and in order to assist the country in its
healing process, the pain of victims must not only be acknowledged, but
reparations must also be effectively made.

To coincide with the third anniversary of the Truth Commission's final
report, CSVR will host a national strategy workshop with the objective of
engaging government and civil society on the reparations questions in
South Africa. The workshop aims include:

* Establishing the status, nature and time-frames set by government for
implementation of final reparations,
* Investigating how the rights of victims should be balanced with the
amnesties enjoyed by perpetrators, and,
* Providing a forum for information sharing and planning by civil
society on a victim empowerment strategy.

Participants for the workshop have been drawn from a wide range of
sectors including victims and suvivor support groups, government,
diplomatic missions, human rights NGOs, activists and academics. The
justice minister Dr. Penuell Maduna and former TRC commissioner Yasmin
Sooka will be among the key personalities presenting their views and
arguments at this forum and the workshop will be opened by the CSVR
Executive Director, Mr Graeme Simpson.

[End]

Workshop details

Date: Wednesday, 31 October 2001

Time: 8:30 for 9:00 to 4:00pm

Venue: Parktonian Hotel, 120 De Korte St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg

For more information please call Simon Kimani at CSVR 011 403-5650 or 083
733 2675 or email [email protected]

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