Durban - The leader of the Black First Land First (BLF) Andile Mngxitama wants the last apartheid president FW De Klerk, to be arrested and tried for war crimes committed under his watch.
Speaking to Independent Media on Thursday, Mngxitama repeated calls he made on Wednesday at Booysens, Johannesburg where supporters of former President Jacob Zuma held a press conference to announce their battle plans.
He said in 2017, they opened a case against De Klerk because under his watch, the apartheid regime’s killing machinery committed massacres that De Klerk admitted he knew about. Among the massacres that Mngxitama listed was the January, 12 1991 Sebokeng massacre where more than 30 people were killed. Mngxitama also included the June 17 1992 Boipatong massacre that claimed 45 lives.
He also listed the October, 8 1993 killing of five children in Transkei in a raid that was allegedly sanctioned by De Klerk.
“All the massacres that happened at the height of the resistance against the apartheid regime… De Klerk has confirmed knowing or giving instructions that people should be murdered. He did not get amnesty for this, he did not apply to the TRC,” Mgxitama said.
He added that they have already written to the Nobel Peace Prize committee to withdraw the peace prize that was jointly given to De Klerk and Nelson Mandela in 1993. The two were jointly given the prize "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa."
“We asked them to withdraw the prize because he is a mass murderer,” he claimed.
Mngxitama added that if De Klerk is not arrested within a month, they will take their fight to the The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights - a Tanzania based continental court established by African countries to ensure the protection of human and peoples’ rights in Africa.
“We are now thinking that if this government is not going to do anything, we are going to take this man to the African Human Rights Court because it has tried some dictators in Senegal. We believe that this man should go there as well. We are giving this government a month to do something about De Klerk.”
The De Klerk foundation said: “The FW de Klerk Foundation does not respond to comments of this nature.”