The South African Council of Churches (SACC) has welcomed an apology by apartheid law and order minister Adriaan Vlok, but said on Monday it was insufficient.
SACC general secretary Eddie Makue commended Vlok, who recently apologised to director-general of the Presidency Frank Chikane for police atrocities committed during his tenure.
However, he said Vlok and his former government colleagues still owed the South African people a full confession.
The gesture by Vlok - who washed Chikane's feet in an act of contrition - was no substitute for full disclosure, said Makue.
Full confession "Many high-ranking members of the former government failed to participate unreservedly in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process. As a result, we are left with many unanswered questions concerning responsibility for gross human rights violations during the apartheid years."
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One such case was the 1988 bombing of Khotso House, the SACC's national office, Makue said.
He urged Vlok and "others with knowledge of these crimes" to demonstrate their repentance by identifying those responsible and apologising to the victims.
Meanwhile, the African Christian Democratic Party's Reverend Kenneth Meshoe said it took a "real man of courage to say 'I am sorry'". He saluted Chikane for allowing Vlok to wash his feet and for accepting the apology.
"He showed how those who have been wronged should respond to those who caused them pain."
Meshoe said the two had set a good example to a country that should promote reconciliation and nation-building over and above political activism and racial polarisation.
"It is not every person that has the guts and humility to ask for forgiveness when they have done wrong. There are husbands who would rather see their marriages end in divorce than ask their wives for forgiveness when they have erred," he said.
Meshoe said those who described Vlok's foot-washing apology as "provocative" and "insensitive" needed help themselves.
The Star reported on Monday that a former activist who had been framed by Vlok for the bombing of the SACC's headquarters, found the apology to be "provocative and insensitive." - Sapa
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