The South African courts and the Truth and Reconciliation process largely failed to unravel the whole truth around apartheid atrocities, and this left people angry and disquieted, Cape High Court Judge Dennis Davis said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the National Arts Festival Winter School, Davis said the acquittal of apartheid-era chemical warfare expert Wouter Basson left people with the feeling that they had been ”denied the truth”.
”We are left with a TRC investigation that told part of the truth, the courts that failed to unravel more of the truth and a public, who — when they read cases like that of Wouter Basson — feel they have been denied the truth.”
Talking specifically about the Basson case, and the ”limitations” of the judicial process, Davis said too much of the burden had been placed on trials to ”get to the truth”.
He said judges were often put in a position where ”morally” they wanted to convict but the evidence was not sufficient to do so.
He said R20-million had been spent on prosecuting the Basson case. Over 150 witnesses were called. There was a 250 page indictment and a further 274 pages containing details of charges including murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder and drug dealing.
During the course of the trial details of ”sickening depravity” had been revealed and remained unresolved. No one had been held accountable for the ”horrors” exposed.
”We know that more than 200 (Swapo) people died brutally. We know people were hurled out of a plane over the Namibian coast. We know that there was a chemical warfare programme. We know attempts were made on the lives of people who are now in cabinet.”
He said too few people had ”stood up and accounted”.
”Our processes have failed us insofar as accountability is concerned. If there is a message in the Wouter Basson case it is that South Africa still demands to hear why and how and who.
”History waits to be told and until it is, we will continue to feel not just a sense of disquiet, but of anger.”
He said while neither Judge Willie Hartzenberg nor the Supreme Court of Appeal could be blamed or criticised for their decisions in the Basson case.
”Somehow justice has failed the victims of our country.” – Sapa