SA Pres Mbeki May Face War Crime Charges
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The South African civil rights group AfriForum has lodged a submission to the country's national prosecution authority (NPA), stating that they intended to lodge formal war-crime charges against 37 leading members of the ruling African National Congress, one of whom is the country's president Thabo Mbeki and its police chief Jackie Selebi. AfriForum said the 'footsoldiers' who had carried out the Operation Cetshwayo orders had applied for amnesty through the Truth and Reconciliation commission - but those like Mbeki and Selebi, who had been ultimately responsible for approving the bombing campaign against South African civilians, had not taken any responsibility for it.
One of the complainants is South African terror-victim Mr Dirk van Eck, who lost more than half his family during the ANC's terrorist campaign . He is still trying to discuss the issue with the office of the president and has tried, thus far unsuccessfully, to try and hold a meeting with the director-general of the presidential office, Frank Chikane.
Van Eck is among the many victims of Operation Cetshwayo who want to determine whether or not the 37 ANC-leaders who had approved Operation Cetshwayo including Thabo Mbeki and police chief Jackie Selebi, should be charged with crimes against humanity.
AfriForum spokesman Kallie Kriel said cases like Van Eck's are contained in their 140-page report about the civil rights violations carried out against civilian South Africans by the African National Congress and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). Kriel said that at the ANC-conference in 1985 at Kabwe, top ANC-leaders such as Mbeki and Selebi had formally approved the use of mines and other explosives against South African civilians in the murderous terror campaign they had given the name "Operation Cetshwayo.' (after the last king of an wholly independent Zulu nation, 1879).
LINk to Operation Cetshwayo Truth and Reconciliation Commission testimony:
http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/decisions/2000/ac20111.htm "Foot soldiers' of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed branch of the African National Congress such as Abboobaker Ismael abd Solly Zacharia were sent into South Africa by Mbeki, Selebi and other members of the ANC-executive in exile, to set off many explosions during which a great many civilians of all races were also killed: there were also many attacks against police stations such as the bombing of John Vorster Square police headquarters on 5 March 1986 but most of the explosions had targetted public places which were frequented by civilians such as the limpet mine attack at the Department of Community Development in Johannesburg on 3 December 1983, three explosions at a Brakpan shopping centre on 15 May 1985, the limpet mine attack at the Medical Centre, Johannesburg on 30 May 1985, the explosion at the Southern Cross Fund offices on 31 May 1985 and the limpet mine attack at Capital Park electricity substation during 1981; the Johannesburg Magistrates Court bombing during 1987, the attack on Uncle Tom's Administration offices during 1980 and the unsuccesful attempted sabotage at Watloo Petrol depot; the bombing of Johannesburg Magistrates Court and the devastating bombing of Church Street in Pretoria - for which the explosives had been smuggled in through a diplomatic pouch of The Netherlands by a Dutch anti-apartheid activist who has since received amnesty for her deed.
LINK to more testimony on Operation Cetshwayo:
http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/decisions/2000/ac200195.htm Mbeki and Selebi 'could be charged with crimes against humanity" AfriForum's Kriel said that 'if this matter cannot be resolved during this meeting with Chikane, they may 'well face the unappetising task' of charging SA president Thabo Mbeki and the police chief Jackie Selebi -- two of the 37 names listed as those who had formally approved Operation Cetshwayo -- 'with very serious crimes against humanity" including war-crimes.
The point which they wanted to emphasize to Chikane in the meeting requested by Van Eck, was "that we wanted to close off all those questions from the past without having one side being privileged over the other side." The SA regime had recently announced that they wanted to prosecute several apartheid-era government ministers for ordering an attack on a camp in Angola housing ANC-exiles.
LINK TO ORIGINAL AFRIKAANS REPORT:
http://www.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2158672,00.html http://www.rense.com/general77/warcri.htm
Topic: Mbeki May Face War Crimes Trial (Read 1211 times)