Latest news with #HowardVarney
Free Malaysia Today
03-06-2025
- General
- Free Malaysia Today
S. Africa reopens inquiry into deaths of apartheid-era activists
President Cyril Ramaphosa set up a judicial inquiry in April following claims of deliberate delays in prosecuting apartheid-era crimes. (AP pic) JOHANNESBURG : A South African court opened an inquest today into the murders 40 years ago of four anti-apartheid activists by a police hit squad in one of the most notorious atrocities of the apartheid era. No one has been brought to justice for the 1985 killings of the so-called Cradock Four, and their families have accused the post-apartheid government of intervening to block the case from going to trial. Teachers Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe and Sicelo Mhlauli and railway worker Sparrow Mkonto were abducted and killed while returning home from a political meeting in the southern town of Cradock. 'After 40 years, the families are still waiting for justice and closure,' advocate Howard Varney, representing relatives of the four men, told the court in an opening statement. 'We intend to demonstrate that the deaths of the Cradock Four were brought about by way of a calculated and premeditated decision of the apartheid regime taken at the highest level of the government's state security system,' Varney told the court in the Eastern Cape city of Gqeberha. The truth and reconciliation commission set up to uncover political crimes carried out under apartheid refused amnesty to six men for the Cradock Four killings. This left them open to prosecution but the post-apartheid authorities took no action, Varney said. This may have been in part due to a 'toxic mix of idleness, indifference, incapacity or incompetence' but the families also believed 'political forces intervened to block their cases from proceeding', he said. 'This inquest is probably the very last chance that the families will get to reach a semblance of closure. They deserve nothing less than a full and comprehensive accounting with the past,' the advocate said. It is the third inquest into the Cradock Four murders, which came at the height of the white-minority government's repression of anti-apartheid activists. Claims of deliberate delays in prosecuting apartheid-era crimes led president Cyril Ramaphosa to set up a judicial inquiry in April. In January, 25 families of victims and survivors of apartheid-era crimes, including the Cradock Four, announced they were suing the government over a 'gross failure' to investigate and prosecute perpetrators.
The Guardian
02-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Inquest into notorious apartheid-era killings opens in South Africa
An inquest into one of the most notorious killings of South Africa's apartheid era opened on Monday with a former general denying that he ordered the deaths of four men who became known as the Cradock Four. Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkonto were stopped at a roadblock on 27 June 1985 by security officers and beaten, strangled with telephone wire, stabbed and shot to death. Inquests into the killings of the four activists were held in 1987 and 1993, before South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994. In 1999, the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission refused six security officers amnesty for their role in the killings. They were never prosecuted and have all since died. Howard Varney, a lawyer for relatives of the Cradock Four, said in his opening statement to the inquest, at the high court in the city of Gqeberha: 'These were four young men who had so much to offer South Africa. The searing pain of their absence persists with the families to this day.' At one of the previous inquests, it was revealed that Joffel van der Westhuizen, the former military commander of what was then the Eastern Province, sent a message to the apartheid regime's state security council requesting permission to 'remove permanently from society as a matter of urgency' the 'agitators'. Another general who received the message argued that this meant detaining the men, not killing them. In an opening statement, Van der Westhuizen's lawyer said 'he denies ever authorising or ordering the killing of the deceased'. The lawyer said the former general was 'not in a very healthy condition' and had so far not been able to get the South African military to pay his legal costs. The lawyer argued that witnesses, who include nine family members of the Cradock Four, could not give evidence that implicated Van der Westhuizen unless he had funded legal representation. Judge Thami Beshe ruled that in the first part of the inquest, which will last until 12 June, witnesses could refer to Van der Westhuizen and three former police officers who are also still alive, as long as they only used information in the public domain. Calata's son, Lukhanyo Calata, said: 'Today is emotional. Good emotion. We've waited so many years to finally get to this point, where a court in democratic South Africa finally gets to hear the Cradock Four case.' Lukhanyo, who is a journalist, noted that some Afrikaners, the white minority that ruled South Africa during apartheid and the same ethnicity as his father's killers, were promoting the false claim that there was a 'genocide' against them, a claim amplified by US president Donald Trump. He added: 'What we are hoping for now is to correct the historic record.' Nombuyiselo Mhlauli, the 73-year-old widow of Sicelo, said: 'We are just hoping that we will reach that stage where we process our grief. Because, since all these years, we are living in our grief.' The relatives of the Cradock Four are among 25 families who in January sued the government for not prosecuting apartheid-era killers. In April, the country's president Cyril Ramaphosa set up an inquiry into whether past democratic governments interfered with investigations and prosecutions. However, the families have criticised the inquiry, as it only has fact-finding powers and cannot award damages. The inquest continues on Tuesday with a visit to the home of Goniwe in the town of Cradock, now called Nxuba, and the site between there and Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth, where the men were abducted.
South China Morning Post
02-06-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
South Africa reopens inquiry into murders of 4 apartheid-era activists by police hit squad
A South African court opened an inquest on Monday into the murders 40 years ago of four anti-apartheid activists by a police hit squad in one of the most notorious atrocities of the apartheid era. No one has been brought to justice for the 1985 killings of the so-called Cradock Four, and their families have accused the post-apartheid government of intervening to block the case from going to trial. Teachers Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe and Sicelo Mhlauli and railway worker Sparrow Mkonto were abducted and killed while returning home from a political meeting in the southern town of Cradock. 'After 40 years, the families are still waiting for justice and closure,' Advocate Howard Varney, representing relatives of the four men, told the court in an opening statement. 'We intend to demonstrate that the deaths of the Cradock Four were brought about by way of a calculated and premeditated decision of the apartheid regime taken at the highest level of the government's state security system,' Varney told the court in the Eastern Cape city of Gqeberha. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to uncover political crimes carried out under apartheid refused amnesty to six men for the Cradock Four killings.
