Chairperson of the FW de Klerk Foundation Dave Steward responds to a claim made in an opinion article by Brett Herron that there was a deal between the NPA and the apartheid government over the prosection of pre-1994 crimes.
In response to Brett Herron’s article 'Walus parole embodies imbalance of post-apartheid justice' I would like to point out that FW de Klerk did not make a statement 'confirming that there had been a deal' between the NPA and 'the old order' regarding the non-prosecution of pre-1994 crimes.
The reference to such a deal appeared, in passing, in an article that the Foundation wrote on 2 July 2021 regarding the NPA’s plans to prosecute such offenders which was based solely on claims in apartheid cop Joao Rodrigues’s court papers that such an agreement had been reached. As we made clear to media at the time, we had no independent knowledge of the supposed agreement and simply wished to make the point that if the NPA intended to prosecute pre-1994 offenders it should prosecute all those from all sides of the struggle who had not received amnesty from the TRC.
FW de Klerk was struggling with cancer at the time and had no part in writing or approving the Foundation’s article.
- Dave Steward is the chairperson of the FW de Klerk Foundation