The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has reiterated its rejection of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report. IFP national chairman Lionel Mtshali said on Friday: ”The report is a flawed product of a flawed process conducted with flawed motives.”
TRC commissioners are expected to present the report to President Thabo Mbeki as part of the Human Rights Day celebrations in Pretoria on Friday.
Mtshali said his party opposed from the start the appointment of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the TRC because of ”his inherent bias”.
”He (Tutu) was the official patron of the UDF (the United Democratic Front), one of the major participants in the conflicts of the past on which the TRC had to shed light,” said Mtshali.
”From the very beginning, the TRC process has been biased and nugatory of its intended purposes.”
The IFP leader said the final report was a major setback on the path of reconciliation — the commission’s mandatory task after it was formed in 1996.
”The TRC has abysmally failed in achieving this goal and promoting reconciliation and, in fact, its final report is a major setback on the path of reconciliation,” Mtshali said.
The report’s final hand over was set for last year but was delayed by a court case instituted by the IFP after the commission found the party to have been the primary non-state violator of human rights during the apartheid era.
The case was dropped in January after the IFP and TRC reached an out-of-court settlement allowing the party to add a four-page appendix to the final version stating their case. – Sapa