JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Apartheid was a vicious system of racism and racial separation that ended 30 years ago here, just as Liberia was winding down its first civil war. Since then, South Africa has emerged as an economic powerhouse that implemented a Truth and Reconciliation process that activists, economists, and journalists credit with moving the country toward a more prosperous, equitable and inclusive society. Activists say Liberia has much to learn from that experience.
By Anthony Stephens with New Narratives
Anton Harber, former editor of the Weekly Mail newspaper that opposed the apartheid regime, praises the remarkable approach of the first black president Nelson Mandela and the leadership of his African National Congress which pursued peace and reconciliation with his former oppressors rather than retribution. Mandela himself, spent 27 years in prison. Yet, very few apartheid’s of perpetrators were prosecuted.
“We have to remind ourselves, how deeply divided the society was and how dangerous it was, how close we came to a right-wing revolt, that would have led to civil war. So, we absolutely have to remind ourselves and understand why there was such a need for Mandela to bring everyone together and to prioritise reconciliation. But one of the effects was that some of the worst criminals of apartheid, were never prosecuted and walked free.” Harber says the country is now paying the price for letting perpetrators go. “If you want to prosecute now, senior politicians for corruption, they say, ‘but you didn’t prosecute that apartheid murderer. And yet you’re coming for me?’”
“I think the most important lesson we learned is that it’s a difficult balance between prosecution, amnesty, and reconciliation,” says John Stewart, a former commissioner of Liberia’s TRC, who says he and other commissioners spent 10 days in South Africa, learning about its TRC process. “There are several things we learned from South Africa. The TRC was not a cure all. Our TRC was never able to foster, achieve reconciliation between the parties.”
Although the TRC programs in South Africa and Liberia were born of entirely different circumstances, both had the same choices on punishment for alleged perpetrators and reparations for victims. South Africa, with about 60 million citizens or 12 times more people than Liberia’s 5 million people, recommended that 21,500, victims should receive monetary and other reparations, including healthcare, educational support, and payments to the families of murdered victims for exhumations and reburials. About 17,100 people have received such payments and benefits so far but many more have missed out. About $US168,000 in reparations has been paid over the past five years.
Liberia has implemented a “palava hut,” mechanism – a traditional justice system, to address lesser crimes, including forced labor and theft of properties – in fits and starts over the last decade. Under palava hut, alleged perpetrators and victims were to meet face to face and victims may accept apologies for the crimes. To date “277 war-related cases of human rights violations involving more than 500 people – 275 victims and 244 perpetrators- have been resolved,” according to the UNDP. The TRC recommend $500m be given in reparations to victims. None has received a cent.
As in Liberia, South Africa’s TRC program has been criticized for not doing enough to achieve justice for victims. Outside the constitutional court in Johannesburg, a group of elderly protesters who missed out on reparations payments chant slogansdirected at President Cyril Ramaphosa over what they say is the failure of his government to pay them reparations, as recommended by the TRC.
Noma-Russia Bonase, coordinator for the protesters, accuses the government of excluding them from the reparations program. Bonase says she was raped and her husband was beaten by apartheid police. She says members of her family were killed.
“The minute that our government saw that the victims are going to the TRC to tell their stories, they close it,” says Bonase of the reparations program.
The South African government did not respond to emails, seeking comments on the matter, but in previous interviews, government officials have downplayed the legitimacy of the protesters’ claims.
Prema Naidoo, an anti-apartheid activist who was arrested, tortured, and imprisoned by the apartheid government in 1982 now leads tours at the notorious prison complex known as Constitution Hill, where he was detained. The prison complex has now been preserved as a tourist attraction. Naidoo takes reporters to the cell where he was imprisoned and “tortured for seven days and seven nights, no sleep.” Today tourists flock to the prison to see this and other cells. Naidoo says he brings his grandchildren here on weekends to teach them forgiveness, as he’s done, to those he says were his offenders.
He agrees with Harber that the TRC process was flawed, but he insists the country took the right path.
“The TRC had great fault,” says Naidoo. “But it was the best way to go forward. As Mandela says, we need to put our shoulder to the wheel, and we need to push it up the hill so that we can live prosperously.”
“I’m not bitter. I hold no grudges,” says Naidoo. “We forgave, but we will never forget because you don’t want it to happen again.”
In Monrovia, John Stewart, the former TRC commissioner, says Liberia has already learned much from South Africa’s experience. He says the key to change is accountability for past crimes.
“Once you deal with the question of impunity, you have predators backing off,” says Stewart. “There should be a war crimes court. It should go beyond talk. There must be accountability.”
Dali Tambo, whose father, Oliver, was a leader of the anti-apartheid struggle, says reconciliation has not gone far enough in South Africa. He says it will fail until it brings economic equality to South Africans.
“I think what undermines the rule of law, is abject hopeless poverty,” says Tambo. “It’s lack of education, lack of infrastructure. We have the second biggest economy in Africa. We’re the most unequal society in the world.”
“Reconciliation has to be about the economic form of reconciliation,” says Tambo. “So, if you still own the means of production, you still own the private sector, you still own all the land, and I have nothing. What does reconciliation mean to me as a poor man?”
In Liberia, activists are eager to get the TRC process going.
“We’re going to engage the new government to start a rigorous process to implementing the TRC report,” says Adama Dempster, an official of the Coalition for the Establishment of War and economic Crimes Court in Liberia. “We need to have a government that will show a full support when it comes to addressing the root causes of the conflict.”
This story is a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the U.S. and Swedish embassies in Liberia. The funders had no say in the story’s content.
