In South Africa, the Ministry of Justice announced on Friday January 5 the reopening of one of the best-known cases of murders of black activists under apartheid. The “Cradock Four”, named after their town in the south of the country, were four freedom fighters whose bodies were found burned and lacerated in 1985.
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With our correspondent in Johannesburg, Claire Bargelès
Despite evidence collected by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission during the transition at the end of the 1990s, justice never completed the investigation.
This announcement was welcomed by the families of the victims but it comes with a bitter taste, since almost forty years have passed since these crimes.
“The last suspect has just died. There is no one left to answer our questions. However, after 1994, there was hope of prosecutions. They never paid for their brutal actions. All this makes us very sad », Underlines Nombuyiselo, widow of Sicelo Mhlauli, former school principal and 39-year-old activist murdered with the three other men.
There have already been two investigations carried out in the 80s and 1990s around this issue but without result. Then members of the security forces admitted their responsibility before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission… and they were refused their request for amnesty, because of incomplete confessions but since then, no prosecution has been initiated.
According to Gina Snyman, lawyer for the Foundation for Human Rights, this is not an isolated case.
“ At the end of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, several hundred files were transferred to the South African public prosecutor’s office. Today, they only work on about 135 cases. We ourselves support 22 families, some of whom have not even been able to find out where their loved ones are buried. “, she specifies.
Despite a stated desire by Cyril Ramaphosa’s government to move these cases forward and a change in 2019 at the head of the South African public prosecutor’s office, the apartheid files are therefore still far from being closed.
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