The South African Communist Party (SACP) on Monday condemned the wide speculation that the killers of Chris Hani might get a presidential pardon.
The speculation follows President Thabo Mbeki’s decision last week to pardon 33 prisoners.
”The call for a general pardon is being used as a serious attempt to ensure that the killers of Hani and other apartheid-era violators of human rights are released into society where they have the potential to undermine our democratic South Africa,” SACP representative Mazibuko Jara said.
The SACP regarded the call for a pardon for Hani’s killers, Clive Derby-Lewis and Janus Walusz, as a deliberate abuse and misrepresentation of Mbeki’s decision to pardon 33 prisoners released last week.
Rightwingers Walusz and Derby-Lewis are currently serving lengthy jail terms for the murder of Hani, the SACP’s general-secretary and a hero of the country’s struggle to overthrow apartheid.
Jara said the majority of these 33 were convicted by apartheid courts for various acts they undertook in the cause of the freedom struggle. Mbeki was correct to pardon them.
”In fact, this call seeks to justify apartheid and to equate our struggle for freedom with the actions of the apartheid regime and its supporters.”
Jara maintained that all the apartheid-era violators of human rights were arrested and convicted in courts of law.
”It is unacceptable that the media is even comparing them to those cadres of our organisations who were fighting a just cause. Apartheid was declared a crime against humanity. Our struggle for freedom was just and legitimate.”
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set the broad parameters to deal with human rights violations under apartheid, Jara said.
”A general amnesty needs sober discussion without undermining the TRC process and specifically its option not to support a general amnesty.”
Such sober discussion should not lead to a pardon for apartheid-era violators of human rights who failed to tell the truth, and who undermined and misused the TRC process. – Sapa