South Africa: Ex-police convicted of apartheid-era death

Two former South African police officers were convicted on December 2nd of the 1987 killing of an anti-apartheid activist, according to the Associated Press.

In 1987, student leader and activist Caiphus Nyoka was fatally shot at least 12 times at his family home near Johannesburg by former apartheid-era police officers, Abraham Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander.

The officers were convicted of the murder by a judge at Johannesburg’s Gauteng High Court, and will be sentenced at a later date; a third former officer was acquitted.

Apartheid, a system which led to state-sanctioned discrimination of non-white South Africans under white minority rule, officially ended in 1994.

However, concerns have been raised over the apparent failure to hold authorities to account over apartheid-era crimes, such as the 1985 abduction, torture and killings of four black men known as the Craddock Four.

In April, the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged decades of state inaction and political interference which obstructed efforts to pursue justice after the 1997 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was an inquiry set up to expose apartheid-era abuses.

Six former police officers were directly implicated in the killings; however, all six died before they could be prosecuted. Despite being denied amnesty by the Commission, none of the officers were tried for their alleged involvement in the crimes.

Although South Africa is often credited with having made strides in reconciling its many racial groups since apartheid ended, US President Donald Trump has accused the country of persecuting its white population.

Ramaphosa rejected these claims on March 24th, along with accusations from South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who claimed that the country was promoting a “white genocide.”

These accusations were similarly denied by South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola in May, who stated that “There will never be an exodus of white Afrikaner farmers on the basis of a genocide.”

The Afrikaners, also known as Boers, are the descendants of French and Dutch settlers who arrived in South Africa over 300 years ago. The group was central to the imposition of state-sanctioned segregation, which privileged white people over the majority non-white population.

Many analysts argue that there is little evidence that white South Africans face systematic discrimination based on their race, as the legacy of apartheid continues to benefit the white minority in regard to education, employment and economic access.

Wealth disparity between ethnicities is not limited to South Africa, as there have been growing calls for justice and reparations for formerly colonised nations, such as Algeria, which was a French colony until 1962.

European colonial powers plundered African nations for natural resources, such as gold, diamonds and rubber, while also dominating the political, social and economic spheres of their former colonies.

 

Associated Press and agencies, Maghrebi.org