An anti-racism group will on Wednesday lay criminal charges against the last apartheid-era president FW de Klerk and former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok.
The newly-formed Anti-Racism Action Forum (Araf) would open 22 criminal charges at the Hillbrow police station in Johannesburg for “crimes committed against black people for which they didn’t get amnesty”, the group said on Tuesday.
Araf spokesperson Zandi Radebe said the forum had information that proved De Klerk and Vlok’s involvement in criminal acts. This included the security police’s killing of the Cradock Four and the killings of five schoolboys, two of them aged 12.
Radebe said there was a lack of understanding about racism in South Africa and how it manifested. She said the proper definition of racism was one that absolved blacks of being racist themselves, because blacks were still victims of “white supremacy”.
“White supremacy is the cardinal enemy we must defeat to be able to breathe,” Araf says on its website.
Radebe said the bigotry displayed by the likes of Penny Sparrow was simply “banal racism”.
“White people still treat us like animals and when we black people articulate that truth we are seen as racist,” Radebe told News24.
Araf described itself as a “statement” that brought together black people and organisations such as Azapo and the PAC.
In addition to laying charges against De Klerk and Vlok, Araf wanted to see land returned to its “rightful owners”, black people.
It intended laying a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission against De Klerk, after his foundation submitted a complaint to the commission about 45 social media posts it said incited violence against whites.
