Ongoing bid to access apartheid-era military documents back in Gauteng High Court

THE ongoing legal battle for the right to access apartheid-era records held by the Department of Defence and Military Veterans is this week back in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg.

Lawyers for Human Rights is taking on the plight of the non-profit organisation Open Secrets in a bid for these documents to be made available.

This is an almost 10-year-long fight which relates to information that was requested about the policies and practices of the apartheid government during the height of apartheid-era international arms sanctions busting.

The 95 folders sought contain information concerning dozens of secret apartheid-era military procurement projects as well as visits and liaisons with people and organisations in countries such as Argentina, China, France, Israel, Paraguay, Portugal, Switzerland, Taiwan and the US.

The organisation said these were clearly of enormous public importance for understanding South Africa's violent past. These records were and are still needed by organisations such as Open Secrets to piece together the story of what happened, why and who is accountable.

According to Lawyers for Human Rights, the importance of this material is central to telling the truth and exposing hidden histories, as Open Secrets has shown in the book Apartheid Guns and Money.

This fight for access to apartheid-era records started in 2013 when the South African History Archive Trust requested access to various documents which are the possession of the department.

This request was undertaken in consultation with Open Secrets, a civil society organisation focused on investigating the links between economic crime and human rights abuse.

Following several attempts at engaging with the department in order to access these records, Lawyers for Human Rights turned to court to try and force the department to furnish the refused records.