By Anna Majavu
SEVEN human rights organisations have demanded that the DA formally apologise for leading a multiparty forum that recommended apartheid killers for a presidential pardon.
"We call on the DA to offer a formal apology to victims for the role the party played in denying them a voice in the political pardons process," the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the International Centre for Transitional Justice, Khulumani Support Group, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, the Human Rights Media Centre, the Freedom of Expression Institute and the South African History Archives said yesterday.
The bodies said they felt provoked by the DA's Dene Smuts' Sunday Times article in which she complained that presidential pardons were decided in secret.
The organisations said that two years ago, retired DA MP Tertius Delport had chaired a political party reference group that compiled a list of names of those who should receive a presidential pardon.
The list included apartheid police minister Adriaan Vlok.
The organisations interdicted then-president Kgalema Motlanthe from pardoning all those on the list after the court ruled that their victims and the victims' families should have been consulted first.
"Civil society organisations attempted to persuade the reference group and Delport to open up the special pardon process to public scrutiny .
"Delport refused to do so," said Comfort Ero and Piers Pigou of the International Centre for Transitional Justice.
"Delport wrote to then president Thabo Mbeki advising him not to accede to the requests, " the rights organisations said yesterday.
Marje Jobson of the Khulumani Support Group said it was "safe to assume that the DA had formally approved of the exclusion of victims as well as the blanket secrecy".
"The DA ought to repudiate Delport's insistence on maintaining secrecy and his refusal to permit victim participation," said Fanie du Toit of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.
Smuts said "we decline to issue apologies to NGOs". She said the DA, the former Democratic Party and even the old National Party had believed "transparency and the rights of victims to be informed should be observed".
She said people would have to ask Delport why his group behaved differently.
In Sowetan.
CSVR is a multi-disciplinary institute that seeks to understand and prevent violence, heal its effects and build sustainable peace at the community, national and regional levels.
