apartheid

The Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution (CASAC) says that former president, FW de Klerk, must retract comments he made in a CNN interview.

CASAC says it condemns in the strongest terms what it calls the ‘reckless attempts’ by former president FW de Klerk to justify and defend the apartheid system.

CASAC chairperson, Sipho Pityana, points out that De Klerk's comments made a ‘mockery’ of his claims of being committed to fostering a democratic South Africa.

The FW de Klerk Foundation says that former president FW de Klerk's comments about the homeland system during a CNN interview were taken unfairly out of context.

In a press statement, the foundation states that, "The interview dealt with De Klerk’s views as a young man. He tried, as frankly as he could, to explain what motivated him at the time.”

Nobel prize winning author, Nadine Gordimer, has condemned the Protection of State Information Bill (Secrecy Bill), calling it a threat to freedom in South Africa.

In an article titled ‘South Africa: The New Threat to Freedom’ published on the website of the New York Review of Books, Gordimer compares the Bill to apartheid laws.

Some academics believe large sections of the government that are institutionally ineffective or dysfunctional are the result of what they call ‘value-driven system’ of government.

Professor Karl von Holdt, an academic from the University of the Witwatersrand and a commissioner on the National Planning Commission, states that many South Africans’ lives remain largely untouched by the dismantling of apartheid.

Twenty-five South Africans who suffered at the hands of the apartheid security police have claimed a small victory after a United States court ratified a settlement between the claimants and General Motors.

Khulumani Support Group attorney, Charles Abrahams, has been quoted as saying that, "The settlement is a small amount. It was a show of good faith on the part of General Motors, considering that they are bankrupt."

The claimants and the Khulumani Support Group, a lobby group for financial reparations for victims of apartheid, will share an amount of $1.5-million.

A Cape Town boulevard has been officially renamed after the late anti-apartheid MP Helen Suzman at a ceremony in the city.

City mayor, Patricia de Lille, who remembered Suzman's contribution to the fight against apartheid, pointed out that, "Today we rename Western Boulevard after one of the greatest stalwarts of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, Helen Suzman."

De Lille says Suzman, who was born 94 years ago, stood firm in her fight to end racially oppressive tyranny despite 'intimidation, slights, threats and many other challenges'.

The United Nations (UN) has described the African National Congress (ANC) as a movement and a tangible expression of a vision.

UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, points out that, "The power of the ANC lies not just in the numbers of people who vote for it, but the vision that it stands for.”

“The struggle for freedom, justice, human rights and against racism is a global battle. I see the ANC in the vanguard, not just in South Africa but throughout the continent and the globe," he explains.

Apartheid victims have demanded that the state honour its reparations obligations to everyone and not just those identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

In a briefing in Johannesburg, the South African Coalition for Transitional Justice (SACTJ) states that, "We reject regulations which fail to provide the full gambit of reparations needed... as a result of apartheid atrocities."