TRC Inquiry: ANC's decisions 'hindered justice for apartheid atrocity victims'

TRC Frank Chikane_TRC Frank Chikane 777 Reverend Frank Chikane details some of the reasons that the TRC recommendations were not acted upon.

The threat of having 37 ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) members arrested to take responsibility for what their operatives did in retaliation against the apartheid government was among the reasons the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) cases were not acted upon by the government.

This was revealed during the testimony of Reverend Frank Chikane at the TRC Cases Inquiry, chaired by retired Justice Sisi Khampempe, at Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown, on Tuesday.

Chikane, a church leader who fought apartheid, was detained multiple times and at some point faced an attempt on his life in 1989, told the Inquiry that apartheid government operatives were armed with the ANC NEC’s minutes of a meeting, obtained from Lusaka.

In those meetings, the ANC had deployed its military wing, the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK), to fight the apartheid government.