All South Africans should welcome President Mbeki’s appreciation of the work done by the TRC and his announcement that our government will implement Final Reparations swiftly. By declining the route of general amnesty, the government has preserved the integrity of the whole TRC process. 

In November 1998 the TRC made its proposals for Final Reparations including individual grants to be paid over six years. Relatives of victims and survivors have waited four and a half years to hear the government’s response. That the government accepts its responsibility in this regard is heartening. However, not surprisingly, the governments announced intention to pay less than a third of what had been recommended, has been met with choruses of dissatisfaction and disappointment. 

It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the business community was more successful in lobbying the government than the sector of organisations representing survivors of human rights violations. 

We support President Mbeki’s desire to work with all sectors of society in nation building. The singling out of big business is not a question of punishment but rather of insisting on accountability by those who made exorbitant profit aided and abetted by the apartheid regime. There is no evidence so far, that corporations who benefited from the past will contribute substantially to the process of reparation without sustained pressure. 

If the government had agreed to pay individual reparations as recommended by the TRC it would be in a much stronger moral position to appeal to major corporations and victim groups to eschew litigation and embrace negotiation.

President Mbeki has said with regard to specific cases of individual victims identified by the TRC Act, government will put in place and will intensify programmes pertaining to medical benefits, educational assistance and provision of housing and so on. Because many survivors will have life long special needs, we urge government to set up a special permanent structure within the presidency as recommended by the TRC to address these needs both in the short term and for the foreseeable future. 

Professor Kader Asmal eloquently stated in parliament that “we need a memory based not on the bitter resentment of the past but on the possibilities of reconciliation for the future.”    How tragic it would be if the 22000 people whose stories confronted us all with the painful truth of our past were to become embittered through our collective lack of generosity. 

Now that the President has put before Parliament and the country, the government’s response to the TRC, we urge parliament to amend the proposals and extend the payments to relatives of victims and survivors to six years. In the light of the recent announcement of the collection of R10 billion more taxes than expected, can we afford not to take this route? 

In this context we believe South Africans from all walks of life will gladly contribute to the President’s fund. 

The victory would belong to us all and enable us all to participate wholeheartedly in the proposed National Day of prayer and sacrifice. 

Fr Michael Lapsley, SSM

Chairperson  -  NGO Working Group on Reparations