President Thabo Mbeki on Friday warned those ”peddling false stories” about various members of the African National Congress having been apartheid spies that they would face the wrath of the masses.
Writing in his weekly newsletter, published on the ANC’s website, he said such ”mischief-makers” would not be given the opportunity to wilfully label whomsoever they wished as secret agents of the apartheid system.
He further warned that ”those who feel free to charge others in our ranks with having been agents of apartheid” would have to answer for the charges they made.
”The masses of our people will not forgive them for what they are trying to do,” Mbeki said.
The president has recently appointed a commission of inquiry into allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka acted as an apartheid informer.
In Parliament last week, the Democratic Alliance raised concerns that other senior ANC members had also, at one time, worked for the apartheid regime.
Mbeki said a determined effort was being made to force the ANC and the government to release names of members who allegedly served as apartheid agents.
However, during pre-1994 negotiations, it had been agreed ”that all of us had the responsibility to let bygones be bygones”.
”Among other things, we agreed to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that would consider all gross human-rights violations that had taken place during the more or less 35-year period preceding our liberation.”
Following the submission of the TRC’s final report, its recommendations had been adopted and implemented ”as the finalisation of a particular chapter in the history of our country”.
”Despite all this, now, there are some who are trying to undo what our movement sought to achieve when it proposed and supported the establishment of the TRC, and fully cooperated with it.”
Effectively, these were arguing that some list of members of the ANC, who were allegedly recruited by the apartheid intelligence services, should be published.
”Quite why this should apply only to members of the ANC is not explained.
”The fact is that there are many people active in various walks of life in our country, including some who argue for the ‘outing’ of suspected former agents of the apartheid system within our ranks, who worked to sustain the apartheid system, event as agents of its secret services,” Mbeki said.
Back at the time it was decided to establish the TRC, ”we decided to forgive all those who might have caused unjustified harm to anyone in our country and elsewhere”.
”And yet, today, there are some in our country who are acting in a manner that seeks to destroy this effort at national reconciliation.
”They are fishing in muddy waters to allege, with no effort to prove their allegations, that various members of the ANC and the government worked as members of the apartheid intelligence services.
”They do not seem to understand that members of the ANC and our government are equally capable of asserting that various South Africans and foreigners, including journalists, intellectuals, other professionals, politicians, business people and others, served as agents of the intelligence services of the apartheid regime, and naming these.
”We have avoided this route because it would undermine and subvert the objective of national reconciliation and stability,” Mbeki said.
The possibility existed everyday to denounce all those, at home and abroad, who, in one way or another, and at one time or another, had stood against the movement of national liberation from apartheid.
”This includes those who, at one time or another, attacked Nelson Mandela and the rest of our movement as terrorists.
”Despite the available information, we have not done this because we have been and are determined to ensure that the past should not define our future.”
Mbeki said that despite claims, an authentic list of ANC members who served as agents of the apartheid intelligence services did not exist.
”Those who claim that such a list exists are telling an outright lie. They make this claim for the sole purpose of defeating our efforts aimed at the reconstruction and development of our country.
”In time, all those who feel free to charge others in our ranks with having been agents of apartheid, will have to answer for the charges they have made.
”Those who are peddling false stories about enemy agents in our ranks will be defeated,” he said. — Sapa