SOUTH AFRICAN NEWS

FW de Klerk facing criminal charges for apartheid

By News Service   February 2, 2016

 

A little-known anti-racism group says that it will be laying 22 criminal charges against former president FW de Klerk and former minister of law and order, Adrian Vlok for crimes committed against black people during apartheid.

The Anti-Racism Action Forum (ARAF) sent out an advisory announcing its official launch, while laying the charges at the Hillbrow police station on Wednesday (3 February).

“ARAF shall lay 22 criminal charges against both FW De Klerk and Adrian Vlok for crimes committed against black people for which they didn’t get amnesty at the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission). Further complaints of racism will be laid against FW De Klerk at the South African Human Rights Commission‚” the group said.

The forum describes itself as a “campaign against racism‚ by anti-racist civil society organisations‚ political parties‚ revolutionary movements and individuals”.

The group’s mission statement focuses on white racism and “land theft” from black people in South Africa, saying that anti-racism movements can only be led by black people.

“In a racist country it is logical for black people to organise themselves around their blackness and do so in their own terms, free of white supervisors. It would be counterproductive for black people as victims of racism to entrust the struggle to end racism to perpetrators of racism,” it said.

In January, the FW de Klerk Foundation submitted complaints to the SA Human Rights Commission regarding 45 social media postings that incite extreme violence against white South Africans.

According to the foundation, “by far the most virulent and dangerous racism – expressed in the most extreme and violent language – has come from disaffected black South Africans.”

The ARAF maintains that black people cannot be racist.

“Black people are neither the beneficiaries of race based privilege nor are they responsible for the imposition of racial prejudice and racism. Our resistance to dispossession, exploitation and systematic dehumanization in response to the legitimization of White Supremacy cannot be racist,” it said.