OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 5.00pm
DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki wants the Truth Commission to change its rules on amnesty to allow groups like his African National Congress to be granted blanket amnesty.
Mbeki said in an interview with the Sunday Times that the rules should be changed so that members of political parties and soldiers of the apartheid-era defence forces will get amnesty without having to apply as individuals — the current TRC requirement.
Mbeki is one of 37 ANC leaders whose joint amnesty application was turned down by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission last year, because it did not detail violations committed by individuals.
He said that although the deadline for amnesty applications has passed, he has asked Justice Minister Dullah Omar to consider allowing “organisations and bodies” to be granted amnesty.
“Though the Act [setting up the TRC] recognises that amnesty can be and needs to be granted to institutions, to bodies, it doesn’t make provision for bodies themselves to apply for [it. It’s a matter that needs to be addressed,” th paper quotes Mbeki as saying.
Those involved in violence in South Africa’s strife-torn KwaZulu-Natal province could also get amnesty in this way, said Mbeki, who is President Nelson Mandela’s likely successor when the 80-year-old leader steps down in June.
Mbeki’s spokesman Smuts Ngonyama said a group of apartheid army generals have informed Mbeki that they will hand over full details of all abuses sanctioned by the military, if they can be assured of a group amnesty. — AFP