Cape Talk

And that is why I'm a bit concerned about the premise of this particular commission. The idea that there weren't or there were political influences in the decisions that were made about certain high-profile cases. The whole thing was political. The whole thing was a political decision.

Question should be what wasn't political about it. That would be something to look for. But the whole thing was political. What are you talking about? So, you know, and I think that the one thing that is going to be difficult is going to be how you balance and how you bring genuine justice to that matter. Yes. Because I think that the priority of getting into a peaceful political settlement.

Which we did quite successfully in many ways compromised the principle of justice. And unfortunately, we are now hearing that story from somebody who was responsible for the killing of many, many people. And he is emphasizing that principle in his testimony. I suppose a dead man fears nothing, right? Sure.

And while he blames his comrades, Bo F.W. de Klerk and the generals that were under him and says, but these people made decisions and ordered killings and murders of people, and I was just the hand that did it. The political shenanigans that came as a result of this so-called reconciliation process meant that people like me had to suffer and carry the can, as it were.

And I can almost argue that there are people on the other side of that same argument who are arguing the same way who are saying that there was no justice. Yes, there was reconciliation or there is reconciliation, but there was no justice. And therefore, we will forever have that karmic debt to pay. True. That karmic debt will forever take us back and say, ah, but you didn't sort that thing out. You got to go back and sort it out. And the fact of the matter is that we've piled on.

All manner of things on this thing that was not sorted out. And the fear becomes: what happens to all of the stuff that we've piled up on this injustice that has made this building that we've built so weak and precarious. That is the question that people like Eugene de Kok are asking all of us. Yeah? To say, yeah, okay, fine, me. I've gone to jail. You've taken me to jail. I'm going to die. I'm all that stuff. But we have not.

Fixed that stuff. The family of the Cradock Four are also asking that question. They're saying, but we have not fixed that stuff. So, regardless of which side of that political divide the victims of that moment are, they are all asking the same question: where is the justice in all of this reconciliation? And if indeed there's no justice in the reconciliation, can we indeed call it reconciliation? Those are some of the things that are on my.