Reckoning with former leaders who were involved in apartheid crimes should be dealt with politically and not by the National Prosecuting Authority, former transport minister Mac Maharaj said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a Cape Town Press Club luncheon, he said such matters could not be ”shunted off to a bureaucracy to handle”.
Maharaj was responding to a question on what he thought of the decision to prosecute apartheid-era minister of law and order Adriaan Vlok, and calls to prosecute other leaders from that period.
”The TRC [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] process … was designed to let South Africa know the truth, so that it could live with that past.
”Part of that process required that if people didn’t tell the truth, or if they misled it [the TRC], or if they didn’t approach it, some other consequences would have to follow.
”My concern with what is happening … is that what is a political problem is being shunted off to a bureaucracy to handle.
”The bureaucracy, no matter how much it is a legitimate state organ, is given the power to resolve matters behind closed doors, and even to the point where you and I will not know the truth.
”I don’t accept that,” he said.
Political problems had to be dealt with politically and transparently, so that future generations could understand and judge.
”I disagree with pushing it into a bureaucracy and giving the power to the prosecuting authorities to do plea bargains, or to just let off a person without you or I knowing.
”Therefore this matter should be handled politically, as a matter to be judged and taken on transparently, so that we carry our people forward, so that we understand where we come from, and to heal us as a people.”
Asked how he saw the process being handled politically, Maharaj repeated that he thought it needed to be done transparently.
”I would not pass it off to some bureaucrat … sitting in some office.”
Asked if what he meant was President Thabo Mbeki should intervene, he replied: ”I would agree to the political heads all having a say, including the head of the African National Congress … but I am not saying this is a matter just for one party.
”This is a problem of an injured society, a brutalised society, and it needs processes that are political to carry it forward. How you do it? I’m in retirement, I don’t know how to do it.” — Sapa