De Klerk must repent for his apartheid sins

THE South African Religious Forum (a national interfaith organisation) condemns the statement made by former South African president FW de Klerk.

The forum hereby formally places on record our shock, disappointment and total dismay at the statement made by De Klerk that apartheid was not a crime against humanity.

No individual should ever defend such a wicked, oppressive and ungodly system. There can never be any justification for such a system that has destroyed and negatively affected the lives of so many human beings. There can never be any justification in defending the actions of those, whose objectives it was to subject, degrade, segregate and divide a nation.

Apartheid was a crime against humanity and the inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutional regime of systematic oppression by one racial group over the rest of the population was committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.

Apartheid, and those who defended such systems, must be held accountable before God and the judicial system unless such a person genuinely repents and expresses remorse in order to rectify their actions.

This organisation stands for truth, human dignity, the achieveit ment of equality, the advancement of human rights and freedoms and the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law within a genuine multiparty system of democratic governance. The opposite (apartheid) is a crime against humanity.

The forum notes the retracting of the hatred statement made by De Klerk and the De Klerk Foundation on February 14, 2020, but declare such a revelation of what still lives in the hearts of the masters of apartheid.

To conclude, we, the religious fraternity, are disappointed by the unrepentant behaviour of De Klerk, the last apartheid president. He is showing the nation that in spite of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) condoning them of the apartheid crimes, he is still possessed by the corruptness which led them from 1948 when they took power from the English.

We would be pleased if De Klerk and other apartheid generals who murdered, maimed, massacred, impoverished, discriminated and marginalised our people change from their diabolic attitude and scoundrel behaviour.

He must understand what it means to scratch the old wounds through harmful words. They must repent for apartheid sins in order to receive pardoning from the people of South Africa.

PRESIDENT: BISHOP SELVAN GOVENDER (RR) | The South African Religious Forum , Durban