14 November 19911
The developments in South Africa are currently at a critical juncture. Since the South African President F. W. de Klerk's historic speech at the opening of Parliament in January 1990, significant changes have taken place in that country. As we survey these reforms today, on the eve of substantive negotiations between the South African Government and the opposition parties, however, we must conclude that those changes do not qualify as irreversible or profound - not yet.
Hundreds of political prisoners remain in jail with little hope of early release. Arrests for political offences and political trials continue. While the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has recently concluded an agreement with the South African Government that will permit the repatriation of tens of thousands who remain in exile, that process will proceed in the absence of the general blanket amnesty required by the Office of the High Commissioner in other countries. Many will return home under partial indemnities that will fail to dispel their fear of arrest on unknown charges.
The broad power that continues to be authorized by the Internal Security Act and the Public Safety Act to control, suppress and punish certain forms of peaceful political activity creates a chilling effect on political participation.
While the Group Areas Act has indeed been repealed, it has been replaced by legislation that will permit local white communities to take measures that will maintain the status quo in racially segregated communities. Similarly, the repeal of the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936 will have very little impact. The vast majority of South Africa's black population have been left so desperately poor, primarily as a result of the operation of those laws, that they have no financial means to purchase the property now theoretically available to them. The Population Registration Act has been repealed but the impact of repeal will largely be limited to infants born after the date of repeal: they will no longer be classified as white, Asian, Coloured or African. All others in this society, however, will retain their racial classifications and significant legal consequences that attach to those classifications. Most important, those classified as African continue to be denied the right to vote.
While fostering an image abroad of dismantling apartheid and partaking in "good faith" negotiations, the South African Government has secretly waged a State-sponsored campaign against its principal negotiating partner, the African National Congress. Through covert operations carried out by the South African police and military, and secret funding to the Inkatha Freedom Party, President De Klerk's Government has carried forth a double agenda. At best, the South African Government has proved to be in collusion with Inkatha in an attempt to manipulate the power balance between Inkatha, the National Party and the ANC. At worst, the Government may be proved to have been directly involved in the brutal acts of violence that have taken over 1,700 lives this year alone.
Meanwhile, foreign Governments like that of the United States are moving quickly to lift sanctions before the bona fides of the South African Government are clearly established.
Perhaps most important, the backdrop against which the National Party and leading anti-apartheid activists are now sitting down to negotiate is stained with instability born of violence - violence for which there is mounting evidence of South African police involvement. The emergence of these trends coupled with government intransigence on old issues pose serious threats to the success of the upcoming all-party conference. Serious obstacles remain in the way of progress.
In my written statement, which I should like to submit for the record, I assess in some detail the degree to which the South African Government has complied with the preconditions for negotiations established in the United Nations Declaration on South Africa adopted by consensus by the General Assembly at its sixteenth special session on apartheid. I then go on to describe the process that those negotiations will take over the next year or two. Finally, I analyse the brief and constitutional proposals of the National Party.
However, what I should like to do with the limited time that I have left for this oral presentation is to concentrate on what we consider to be the single greatest obstacle currently barring progress, that is, the violence currently raging in South Africa.
Instead of a climate conducive to political participation, the ongoing violence has created an atmosphere dominated by fear. Under current conditions, newly established rights created through the lifting of restrictions on persons and organizations are being undermined because of a citizenry too fearful to exercise them. The death toll for this year alone is 1,745, with over 2,000 reported injured.
What makes the problem of violence so difficult to address is the fact that it is so multifaceted. On the one hand, there is what has been referred to as interfactional fighting but with respect to which there are mounting reports of police involvement.
The casualties of this brand of violence typically are ordinary township citizens. At the other end of the spectrum are highly organized hit-squad assassinations, primarily of prominent political leaders. The range of participants in the violence extends from government forces to the black and the white civilian population, including white right-wing extremist groups. In addition, while in the past there was an appearance that the targets of the violence were chosen on the basis of their political affiliation, recently there has emerged a pattern of totally indiscriminate violence which has led to a more generalized destabilization in the townships.
Several recent incidents have provided new evidence of police involvement. In one instance, over a hundred people have been reported killed in a conflict that ostensibly pits two rival taxi associations against each other. The scene of this conflict was characterized as more akin to a bomb-site than a residential neighbourhood after one night during which 200 shacks were burned to the ground, leaving 78 homeless and 11 dead.
Sworn affidavits from 36 witnesses have been submitted to the police linking police officers to the violence. Accounts of police instigation and inaction have become too numerous to dismiss as fabrications. In another incident,
"Seven members of the South African police are currently being tried for the murder of 11 residents of an area known as Trust Feed, on 3 December 1988. The central witness in the case, which is currently pending in the South African Supreme Court, Natal Provincial Division, is an Inkatha leader who has testified that he participated in a plot with the accused police officers to kill Trust Feed residents who were challenging the authority of Inkatha leaders".
In addition to suspected collusion of the police in township violence, credible allegations have emerged of police and military death squads which have attacked top anti-apartheid activists in South Africa and as far away as France. While a government commission of inquiry, the Harms Commission, absolved the South African Government of culpability for the more than 60 deaths investigated, it did conclude that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute former army-death-squad members in one murder and for further investigations related to three other planned assassinations. According to the Johannesburg-based Human Rights Commission, this year alone there have been hit-squad attacks resulting in 46 deaths and 34 injuries; more than 60 people have been assassinated in the last 18 months. Just in the short period between June and September 1991, 33 suspected death-squad assassinations were committed, primarily involving African National Congress (ANC) victims.
In the course of an inquest, currently in progress, into the assassination on 25 February 1991 of Chief Maphumulo, a Zulu chief loyal to the ANC, a former member of the South African security force has admitted to carrying out that assassination pursuant to a security police directive. The witness, Officer Lucky James Mntambo, testified that he had participated in an armed attack on Chief Maphumulo's home. The attackers included Inkatha members the police. Mntambo also related how he and other policemen, on instructions of their superiors, took steps to conceal their identities by wearing ski masks and by attaching bags to their AK-47 rifles so that no spent cartridges would be left behind as evidence of police involvement. Outside the inquest, Mntambo told reporters that since joining the Security Branch in 1988 he has taken part in hit-squad attacks that have killed at least 15 people. The victims, he reports, were always ANC people. In addition, he admitted to being part of a group led by a police captain that killed the man who had been Chief Maphumulo's driver on the day before the driver was scheduled to appear and testify at the inquest. The judgement in that inquest is still pending.
The National Peace Accord, signed on 14 September 1991, has been hailed as a serious attempt to quell the violence. The Accord requires adherence by all parties to a code of political conduct and it further regulates the conduct of police and security forces in the context of political rallies and demonstrations. Although the goals contained in the accord are laudable, serious problems have arisen in its implementation. Since the signing, over 200 people have been killed. There are widespread reports of South African Police violations of the Accord and of the failure on the part of the Government to educate the security forces and members of the general public as to its contents. There have also been complaints of police failure to monitor commuter trains, which have been the scene of several brutal attacks. Since the Accord, 16 deaths have resulted from 11 commuter-train attacks. The police apparently patrolled stations for a short period of time and during that period the attacks did, in fact, decline; however, violence has resumed since the patrols stopped.
The United Nations Declaration on Apartheid and its Destructive Consequences in Southern Africa states,
"We believe that it is essential that the necessary climate be created for negotiations. There is an urgent need to respond positively to this universally acclaimed demand… " (resolution S-16/1, annex, para. 5)
Far from contributing to the climate that is called for in the United Nations Declaration, the recent wave of violence significantly undermines it and further evidences a failure on the part of the South African Government to discharge its responsibilities, even those responsibilities extant prior to the signing of the Peace Accord.
Clearly, the Government has a duty to refrain from waging war against its own citizens through its own security forces. If the Government is not itself orchestrating the violence and the police officers involved are acting independently, then the Government has an affirmative obligation to take steps to assert the same control over delinquent elements of its own forces as it has in the past asserted over those opposed to apartheid. It must insist that all the members of the enforcement branch of its Government maintain law and order in a responsible fashion through competent investigation and vigorous prosecution.
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