| Bombs and threats
will not divide us
Earlier this week, some criminal
elements in our society attacked a mosque and the railway infrastructure
in Soweto and also placed a bomb in a temple in Bronkhorstspruit that
did not explode.
We convey our sincere condolences to the family and
relatives of Claudina Mokone who was killed by shrapnel originating from
one of the railway line explosions in Soweto. We also wish her husband,
Simon Mukhathi, speedy recovery from his injuries.
At the time of writing this Letter, the perpetrators
of these dastardly acts had not yet been identified. However, as soon
as the reports about the explosions were received, the Police Service
and all other law enforcement agencies began the serious and urgent work
of finding those responsible. I am confident that they will succeed in
this regard and that the criminals will be brought to book.
Our country is a democracy. Both the constitution and
the law allow for the exercise of the various freedoms contained in the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Our country is also bound by other
African and international conventions that protect and promote a wide
variety of rights.
Further, our Constitution provides for regular elections
in all spheres of our system of governance. These elections are organised
and supervised by the Independent Electoral Commission, itself established
according to the Constitution and the law. All this provides the conditions
for the people of South Africa freely to decide who shall govern our country
from the local to the national level.
Sustained political effort over many years as well as
the work of our criminal justice system, have led to the virtual disappearance
of the use of political violence to determine the outcome of any election
in our country. No credible charge can be laid against a single government,
from the smallest municipality to the national government, that such a
government is illegitimate by virtue of not being representative of the
will of the people.
Like others throughout the world, our democratic system
allows for any South African citizen to form a political party of his
or her choice, naturally within the limits of the law. It further allows
for such parties freely to campaign for the acceptance of their ideas
and programmes by any South African, exercising his or her rights to freedom
of thought, association and so on.
For a long time, even before the formal negotiations
began in 1990, our movement spoke out in favour of an electoral system
based on proportional representation. We took this view because we were
convinced then, as we are now, that our country would be best served by
an inclusive political process. We sought to ensure that any significant
political voice in our country should have the possibility to be represented
in the elected legislative organs of our country.
To ensure that this happens, not only do our Constitution
and law provide for proportional representation, they also set a low threshold
in terms of the number of votes required for a party to be represented
in our legislatures. For this reason, many of the parties in our country
are represented in our legislatures by very small numbers of people. The
point, nevertheless, is that however unpopular the opinion advanced by
these parties, it has nevertheless been included within the law-making
bodies of our country.
To create even more space for everybody's voice to be
heard, both our executive and legislative organs regularly engage in extensive
consultative processes before many important decisions affecting the future
of our country are taken. We have also gone so far as to establish a statutory
body such as NEDLAC to encourage an inclusive decision-making process.
Our courts of law also exist as a protector of the rights
of all South Africans and are available to all those who may feel that
either the executive or the legislature have sought to deny them the exercise
of their rights.
Related protections may also be sought through other
institutions such as the Public Protector, the Human Rights and the Gender
Commissions.
Those who are only able to secure minimal electoral
support among the people need to understand the simple fact that their
views are not representative of the opinions of South Africans. The fact
that they may be firmly convinced of the correctness of their views, an
opinion we should all respect, does not mean that South African society
is obliged to implement their demands, simply because a small minority
is convinced that it is right and the overwhelming majority wrong.
Representation in democratically elected institutions
is based on the number of votes that parties garner in elections and not
the passion with which those who contest elections cling to their views.
This rule applies to everybody on an equal basis.
All this points to the imperative that all of us need
to understand and accept the functioning of our democratic system. Among
other things, this means that we must accept decisions arrived at in a
manner consistent with our Constitution and our laws.
One of the tasks of our democratic state is to defend
both this Constitution and the laws approved under its provisions. The
universal demand for respect for the rule of law applies to our country
as well. This includes both the state itself as well as individuals. It
is also binding on those who hold minority views, which the majority of
our people do not accept. Accordingly, the state will not allow that anybody
seeks to impose these minority views by resort to extra-legal and unconstitutional
means, such as the bombing incidents that occasioned this Letter.
In the period since the 1994 elections, some in our
country have occasionally made threats that if their demands are not met,
they will resort to force to dictate to the country to carry out their
wishes. This has included instances when it is said of those who have
failed to convince the country about the justice of their cause that their
"patience is running out" and are therefore getting closer to
resorting to illegal actions to impose their views.
The matter must however be made abundantly clear that
the democratic order will not submit to threats of this kind. It must
remain ever vigilant and ready to defend itself against those who do not
respect our Constitution, democracy and the rule of law. It must be ready
to use the law to bring to book all those who because they think their
cause places them above the law, believe they have a right to resort to
force.
With the concurrence of the Cabinet, the Ministers of
Agriculture and Land Affairs have published the Communal Land Rights Bill
for public comment and discussion, as happens with many new draft laws.
This comes after an earlier national and inclusive process of consultation
on the issue of communal land.
Even after the Bill is submitted to Parliament after
the current process of consultation, with the Cabinet having effected
such amendments to the Bill as may result from the consultation, Parliament
will allow the public to make further representations to improve the legislation.
Despite all this, and instead of making constructive
proposals as they may see fit, a recent meeting of some traditional leaders
once more resorted to the kind of threat that leads to the criminal actions
we have just witnessed in Soweto and Bronkhorstspruit.
In their resolution, while calling on the Minister to
"withdraw and scrap" the Bill, the traditional leaders say:
"The Communal Land Rights Bill is likely to be the cause of bloodshed
in rural areas as it is likely to promote faction fighting as people will
create or be trapped into conflict."
In this instance, this open threat against the lives
of innocent South Africans is made by people who belong among the constitutional
and legal structures of our system of governance. Those who occupy positions
in these structures are, like others in other public institutions, maintained
through the public purse. They, too, like everybody else serving in our
system of governance, have an obligation to protect our constitutional
and legal order and to contribute to the safety and security of all our
citizens as well as our country's stability.
Instead, they have taken it upon themselves to obstruct
the process of democratic consultation and to block the prospect of land
reform aimed at creating better conditions for development and progress
towards a better life for our people in the communal areas, by threatening
that people will be killed if such land reform is carried out in a manner
provided for by such legislation as will ultimately be approved by our
legislatures.
If, in future, anybody tries to use force to subvert
the implementation of such legislation as will ultimately be enacted,
threatening the lives of our people wherever they may be, the law will
take its course without fear or favour. It would be expected that the
traditional leaders, who are part of our system of governance, would assist
our law enforcement agencies fully and without reservation.
Our country and people paid a very high price during
the struggle to end the system of white minority rule and create the conditions
for our transition into a non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous democracy.
A central objective of that struggle was to end the systemic violence
against the people inherent to and characteristic of white minority domination.
Accordingly, peace and stability, safety and security
are a central part of what we struggled to achieve. We will not allow
that anybody in our society should arrogate the right to themselves to
reverse the victory of peace our country and people achieved at a high
cost in terms of loss in human lives and injury to very many.
Another objective we sought to achieve in our struggle
was to end the division of our people into hostile and mutually antagonistic
racial and ethnic groups. We worked to ensure that our country organises
itself on the basis of the principle of unity in diversity, informed by
the perspective that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black
and white.
However, it is clear that there is still a small minority
in our society, which yearns for a return to the days of antagonistic
racial and ethnic divisions that once tore our country apart. The overwhelming
majority of our people, both black and white, reject this perspective
and will not be forced to accept it through bombing campaigns or threats
of bloodshed.
In the last few days, even as some traditional leaders
were trying to block the system of land reform and others were carrying
out criminal activities that could spark racial tensions, a white South
African sent me a moving letter urging that our country should move faster
towards the resolution of the land question, which is a consequence of
our colonial and apartheid history.
He wrote: "I am one of a large group of farmers
and prominent business leaders who want to speed up land reform. There
is no way that business and the economy will survive if we go the Zimbabwean
route. The route of democracy starts with the land. We sense a climate
of urgency among farmers to resolve the land issue in a sensible way.
In 1994 this country was democratised, which was a miracle, surely we
can also solve the land issue. We feel that everybody in a high position
must make it their responsibility to come up with a solution for their
country. At grassroots level we will be able to motivate farmers, landless
farmers and business leaders in every district in our country."
This patriot speaks for the overwhelming majority of
our people, who understand that all of us have a responsibility to come
up with solutions for the problems that confront our country, overcoming
the divisions of our colonial and apartheid past.
Bombs, terrorism and threats of violence are not part
of these solutions. They constitute an attempt to take away the miraculous
achievement of 1994. The people of South Africa will unite to defeat those
who want to return our country to a past it has rejected.
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