The South African government has declared its intention to finally scrap the remaining pillars of apartheid but has not said a word about the redress for the wrongs that these laws have inflicted upon millions of South Africans.

Thousands have been displaced, deprived of their ancestral lands, subjected to indiscriminate shootings and torture. Millions have been discriminated against by virtue of their skin.

As the country moves towards democracy and an end to Apartheid, what is to be done about the crimes that have been committed in the name of Apartheid?

Will South Africans forego their right to justice and redress for the crimes be allowed to walk free?

After the findings of the Harms Commission into the existence of death squads, State President F W de Klerk said: “Let bygones be bygones”.

Democratic Party leader, Zac de Beer sounded the warning bells when he responded: “It is all very well for the State President to look towards the future, but I fear these specters from the past will come back and haunt him.

The government’s cavalier attitude thus far to ‘past violations’ suggests that it intends taking no action. Instead it has opted for a campaign for peace without truth or justice.

What could be the consequences for South Africans if they do not finally rid themselves of the gangrene infecting the country’s body politik?

Canadian lawyer and author of “Justice Delayed: Nazi war Criminals in Canada”, David Matas, believes that an inadequate response to the injustices will result in the cry for justice resurfacing later.

Speaking at the national association of democratic Lawyers’ conference last year, he said that while the British, in 1948 had successfully led a plea for prosecution of nazi war criminals to be ended, the desire for justice had restarted the prosecutions, years later.

He believes that South Africa runs the risk of living through this same dynamic. “If there is an amnesty now, for political reasons, of the worst crimes of Apartheid, there may well be, twenty, thirty, even forty years from now, persistent efforts to bring the criminals to justice.

“The desire for justice will not be quashed by political compromise. It will resurface here, as it has resurfaced world wide in relation to the crimes of the Nazi holocaust, “ he said.

Inadequate redress will also mean that those who have been responsible for some of the worst crimes of apartheid will remain at their posts and be in a position to pursue their criminality for other ends.

The experience has been, says David Matas, that in other countries where an amnesty or law of immunity has accompanied a transition to democracy, these methods are no longer used for political repression but to fight common crime.

An Amnesty International report indicates that after a general amnesty in Brazil in 1979, police continue to act beyond the law torturing criminals ‘with impunity and increasingly resorting to extra judicial executions.’

The report concludes that the lack of thorough investigation and prosecution for serious abuses in Brazil had condoned such nations.

“ The message an amnesty or immunity law gives is that these crimes are acceptable, that the perpetrator runs no risk by committing them, that no matter what the law syas, an amnesty will rescue the perpetrators, “ he said.

So far in South Africa, there has been talk only of an across-the-board amnesty or indemnity. Nothing has been said by the two major parties - the National Party and the ANC about prosecution of criminals or reparation for crimes committed.

History offers a number of possible scenarios. In Portugal, after the revolution in 1974, the Portuguese people wrote a clause into their constitution to provide for the prosecution of former political leaders held responsible for atrocities.

In Argentina in 1985, the generals responsible for atrocities were sent to jail. There was no general amnesty but they have since been released and huge crowds came out on to the streets in protest.

In Chile more than a decade after large numbers were executed in the National Sports Stadium, the debate is on.

ANC legal expert, Albie Sachs describes what he found there on his recent visit.

He says all political argument there takes place in context of three words: reconciliation, truth and justice.

The defenders of the old government under Pinochet accept reconciliation but on condition that the past is not raked up.

The present center-left government has instituted a Commission of inquiry into reconciliation and justice, which is likely to call for exposure of crimes but not punishment and some form of reparation for victims.

Ex-political prisoners and families of those who have disappeared feel that justice for them means naming names and punishing people who were responsible for the Chilean atrocities.

In South Africa the focus is on achieving peace, rather than justice. But can one be achieved without the other being properly addressed?

The ‘confession of guilt’ of Afrikaner theologian, Dr Willie Jonkers, where he acknowledged his part in apartheid’s cruel rule, was a step in the right direction and accepted as such by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who acknowledged it as “ the beginning of a process towards the reconstruction of a just society.”

But the refusal of the state thus far to follow the example of Dr Jonkers calls into question its commitment to accepting responsibility for the crimes, which it has perpetrated against this entire nation.

Instead it proceeds with an arrogance and self-righteousness as it boasts of the strides it has made in dismantling a system that has caused untold hurt.

There are many who would have valued De Klerk using the opening of parliament in February to ask for forgiveness for the wrongs of the laws, which he intended repealing.

Instead, he presented himself as a liberator, freeing the country from the fetters of apartheid laws- unleashing a confusion amongst a battered people that this country can ill afford.

And the ANC, neglects to dispel the myth.

It too proceeds from the assumption that ‘bygones should be bygones’ and with a surprising insensitivity, amongst other things, had gone ahead without repudiation, to meet with leaders such as Allan Hendrickse and homeland leaders who have stood in direct opposition to those who have fought so hard for a united, democratic South Africa.

University of the Western Cape psychologist Saths Cooper says it would have been important for ANC leaders to clearly state that they did not agree with what these leaders had done in the name of Apartheid before they had met with them.

“ It is very important that the people have a sense that their grievance is being addressed, there has to be some public demonstration that the atrocities of the past are behind us,” says Cooper.

“Years after Nuremberg, they are still bringing those who committed atrocities to book. To expect people all of a sudden to forgive and forget, is too much,” he said.

Matas understands the dilemma faced by the ANC. “The ANC has made a virtue of necessity. It has internalized what the current regime itself would want. Prosecution complicates transition to democracy. Transition to democracy is the main goal. Therefore, for the ANC, prosecution is to be avoided,” he said.

The ANC has, in fact, gone out of its way to be reconciliatory, to allay white fears, to prove to the former oppressors that it will not be vindictive or seek retribution.

This is understandable bearing in mind the physical realities of power relations in this country. But the ANC has a constituency out there which is still suffering the consequences of security force action- a constituency that will have to concretely experience that there has been adequate redress of its suffering for peace to have any meaning.

It is unlikely that the majority of South Africans, living as they do, will be as generous as Albie Sachs, who survived the blast of a car bomb planted by South African agents.

For Sachs, the only vengeance that can assuage the loss of his arm is ‘the triumph of our ideals’. If the price in South Africa is that those involved in these terrible murders go unpunished; it is worth it, Sachs wrote in his book, the Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter.

Matas argues strongly that South African democrats should not jump to this conclusion too readily:

“If South Africans are going to pay a price for peace, they should know what the price is,” he said.

Failure to prosecute torturers, murderers, criminals against humanity as a price for peace, would be a violation of international human rights laws,” he said.

If there was a general amnesty, South Africans would also be paying the price of making their country a haven for its own international criminals, he said.

In terms of international law, an amnesty in South Africa would not prevent people from being prosecuted the moment they set foot outside the country.

Sachs does not believe that it is simply a question of punishing those concerned- but rather of ensuring that they are not able to act in the same way again.

“We have to ensure that our country firmly repudiates those kinds of actions and that nobody will feel they can get away with it.

“There will have to be total exposure of all the hidden secret forms of poisonings, the murderers, assassinations.

“The true victory over the torturers do not come from locking them up in a cell- but from exposing what happened,” he said.

With exposure should come some form of reparation for the most visible victims of Apartheid- the tortured, the imprisoned, the forcibly moved, he said.

Eleven years after the Lancatser House agreement left ownership of the land in the hands of the white minority, the Mugabe government faces tremendous pressure to redress the imbalance. Repealing laws with no plan to correct the injustice they have meted out will only be putting off what will then one day have to be done.

A general amnesty without thorough investigation and exposure should be approached with far greater caution than is presently manifested by either the government or the ANC. The government will do well to look beyond its recently launched R4million “Peace First” campaign if it wants justice to be done. So far, its actions suggest that it has no intention of cleansing this society from the rot, which extends down to its foundation. Nor should the ANC ignore the deep feelings of hurt burningodged in the psyche of millions in this country. Alongside its quest for peace, it should place on the negotiating table its quest for justice.

Only in the way will the ghosts of Apartheid be laid to rest.