Apartheid victims shun honour

2003-12-01 09:28

Cape Town - Still waiting for long-promised reparations payments, members of an apartheid victims support group disrupted a symbolic healing ceremony held in their honour on Sunday by lawmakers and religious leaders.

About 300 members of the Khulumani group, led by veteran anti-apartheid activist Shirley Gunn, forced their way into the VIP tent after organisers told them to be seated at the back of the venue in Cape Town's Company Gardens.

"We are sick and tired of being told what to do and continually being treated like third-class citizens," Gunn said. "The government is insulting the people who suffered under apartheid and who are owed reparations by having this swooping extravaganza that is absolutely farcical."

After about 20 minutes, the group agreed to take their seats outside in the scorching heat.

Nearly a decade after apartheid's end, the government on November 17 began issuing one-off R30 000 payments to 22 000 victims of gross human rights abuses who testified before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The payments, totalling R660m, fall far short of the R3bn recommended by the commission headed by Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Victims who did not testify are not eligible for compensation. Instead, the government is holding a series of ceremonies across the country in their honour.

It is also building a memorial to those killed under the racist regime outside the capital, Pretoria. Called Freedom Park, it will include a museum, memorial gardens and monuments.

"The symbolic gesture is our greatest reminder to people not to repeat the atrocities of the past," Ebrahim Rasool, provincial leader of the ruling African National Congress, said at Sunday's ceremony. "We cannot put a price on suffering, but the victims need to understand that the government is dealing with this as best they can."

Reparation payments, which are being made by electronic bank transfer, have been slow to arrive.

Maureen Mazibuko, 51, said she still hasn't received any money from the government.

Twenty-seven years ago, Mazibuko saw her husband, Lucky, shot twice in the heart at close range by white policeman in front of their Cape Town home. The incident plunged her into depression. Incapable of looking after her then three-year-old son, Steven, the child was sent to live with his grandmother in Johannesburg. Mazibuko hasn't seen him since.

"Money means nothing to me," said Mazibuko, who went to the truth commission for answers about why her husband was killed. She walked away empty-handed.

"I know people in our Khulumani group who lost everything they owned, but because they did not testify, they will get nothing," she said, sitting in the shade of a crooked tree, away from the ceremony. "I don't understand that."

- AP