Apartheid

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African apartheid were therefore in actual fact committed with total impunity. 217
For example, Wouter Basson (‘Doctor Death’) was charged in 2001 by South African
state prosecutors with – among 45 other crimes – the crime of having around 200 prisoners of
war murdered in South West Africa (now Namibia). The prisoners, members of the anticolonial
and anti-apartheid South West African People’s Organization, SWAPO, were
summarily executed by Basson’s assistants by means of injections of muscle relaxants.
Apparently, it had turned out that other execution techniques, such as strangling, previously in
use for such ‘operations’, were psychologically taxing on the executioners.
However, the charges against Basson were dismissed by the presiding judge, Willie
Hartzenberg (who had been appointed during the apartheid era), because ‘the alleged crimes
had occurred in Namibia…and therefore could not be prosecuted in South Africa. Moreover,
they were covered by the indemnity granted by the South African administrator of Namibia at
the time of the country’s independence [from South Africa] in March 1990.’ Basson denies
having been involved in the massacres of SWAPO prisoners, and is still free. After a long
trial, Hartzenberg cleared Basson from guilt on all of the initial 46 charges on April 11, 2002,
but state prosecutors appealed the ruling. In June 2003, South Africa’s Supreme Court finally
ruled out a retrial. Possibly due to secret deals between the governments of the USA and
South Africa, reportedly in order to keep him and his know-how regarding chemical and
biological weapons out of touch with Ghaddafi’s Libya, Basson still practised as a stateemployed
medical doctor until his suspension by the Mbeki government in 1999 and now runs
a private practise in South Africa. 218
Due to legal circumstances such as these, not only the South African criminal justice
system, but also the TRC a forteriori disregarded entirely around 98 per cent of the actual
killings directly and indirectly carried out by the apartheid regime and its immediate allies in
the neighboring countries from 1960 to 1994, and all killings prior to that. With regard to
apartheid in the wide sense, the TRC therefore dealt with far less than a single per cent of all
the killings that actually took place. These vast imbalances could be considered to be the
greatest weaknesses of the TRC.
Without attempting to play down the domestic violence perpetrated and engendered by
the apartheid regime, it could be said that it rather successfully managed to ‘export’ its
continuous war abroad, especially to the neighboring countries, actively setting up immediate
allies, namely marauding groups of corrupt and ruthless bandits, with the aid of the USA
217
With a 282-137 vote, the US House of Representatives backed a measure sponsored by the Republican Party
Representative Tom DeLay of Texas that would severely limit US participation in what he described as ‘a rogue
court’. See N.N.: EU Wants International Criminal Court Set Up Soon, June 11, 2001. At this time, 32 countries
had already ratified the court, which, based on the principles of Nazi war crime trials after the Second World
War (to a large extent initiated, formed, and carried out by the USA itself), will try individuals accused of the
world’s most heinous atrocities – mass murders, war crimes and other gross human rights violations. Sixty
ratifications were needed for the International Criminal Court treaty to go into force. A total of 139 countries had
thus far signed it, signaling their intention to ratify. On April 11, 2002, the number of ratifications rose to 66, and
US resistance hardened as it reiterated its intention not to ratify the court, and even threatened to withdraw its
signature, a highly unusual approach to international law. N.N.: US Restates Opposition to International Court,
April 11, 2002. On July 1 of that year, finally, with ratifications from 74 countries, the court’s jurisdiction came
into effect. The influential US-based rights group, Human Rights Watch, criticized the US position in strong
language: ‘This stunning hypocrisy sends a signal that the rule of law is only for other people, not for US
nationals’, Kenneth Roth, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. The European Union also opposed
the USA on the issue, but did not dare to use such straightforward criticism in its official statements. See
Monaghan: U.S.-EU Split on International Court Resurfaces, 2002. Along with the USA, China, Iraq, Libya,
Qatar, and Yemen, Israel’s parliament also voted against joining the court, realistically fearing that many elite
Israeli citizens may also face being charged and convicted on several counts by it. N.N.: Israel Opts Out of
International Criminal Court, July 1, 2002. See also footnote 152, above.
218
Boateng 2001; Thomas: S.Africa Apartheid Germ Warfare Expert Not Guilty, 2002; N.N.: Retrial of Wouter
Basson Denied, June 4, 2003