EFF DAY OF RECONCILIATION

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CHANON LECODEY MERRICKS ONLINE_EDITOR©®™

EFF DAY OF RECONCILIATION 

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes, on this so-called Day of Reconciliation, that there is nothing to reconcile in a society where justice has been deliberately postponed, truth selectively acknowledged, and the beneficiaries of apartheid continue to enjoy stolen wealth and land without consequence. 

Over three decades into democracy, the wounds of apartheid remain open because the crimes of apartheid were never decisively confronted. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) did not deliver justice; it delivered enforced forgiveness. Apartheid criminals were allowed to walk free through amnesty, while those who never applied for amnesty were shielded by a state that lacked the political will to prosecute them. 

Victims were asked to forgive without justice, to heal without truth, and instead of reparations they live with lifelong trauma, loss, and dispossession. 

Today, this failure continues in real time. The recent judicial commission of inquiry established to investigate the suppression and delay of apartheid-era prosecutions has itself been delayed and extended, without hearing substantive evidence for months. This is a continuation of the same pattern that has defined post-apartheid South Africa: endless processes, extensions, and excuses, while victims die without seeing justice and perpetrators escape accountability through time and bureaucracy. 

Families of victims such as the Cradock Four, the COSAS Four, Nokuthula Simelane, and many others are still fighting for justice. These families have had to personally fight for these cases to be reopened because the ANC-led government failed to act decisively against known killers, commanders, and political leaders of the apartheid security machinery. 

These ongoing legal struggles are a clear indictment of the reconciliation project, which continues to protect perpetrators and abandon victims.  

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