Bid to unravel mystery of Mbeki's son

Thabo Mbeki

Memories of the "dirty war" waged by South Africa's apartheid regime against its opponents have been revived by a fresh attempt to discover what happened to President Thabo Mbeki's son.

Kwanda Mbeki disappeared in South Africa in 1981 while attempting to join his father and other anti-apartheid activists in exile. He is assumed to have been killed by agents of the white Government, but his body, like those of hundreds of others who disappeared while resisting minority rule, was never found.

South Africa's first democratically elected President, Nelson Mandela, set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) under Archbishop Desmond Tutu to investigate apartheid-era crimes on both sides of the struggle, but it wound up its work in 2003 with many cases unresolved.

Mbeki has rarely spoken of his own family's losses, and referred to them only in general terms when he gave evidence to the TRC.

Last week, however, the President wrote in his weekly ANC newsletter: "I too, and especially my mother, regret that the TRC process did not succeed to unearth the truth about what happened to our own loved ones who disappeared without trace - my brother Jama Mbeki, my son Kwanda Mbeki and my cousin, Phindile Mfeti."

Kwanda Mbeki's case was referred to the TRC by the President's mother, Olive Mpahla. She said he disappeared when on his way to visit his uncle, Mfeti, although accounts exist of him having been seen in exile. But the TRC did not have the time or resources to investigate many cases, including those of the President's family.

According to South Africa's Sunday Independent, the names of Mbeki's son and cousin are on a list of 477 political disappearances that the TRC forwarded to the National Prosecuting Authority. It has a missing persons' task force which is pursuing the cases and about 1000 others.

Most disappearances date from when the apartheid Government resorted to undercover methods to quell the black militancy which erupted in Soweto and other townships in 1976.

Although the example of the TRC has been copied in many other countries emerging from conflict, there is frustration and bitterness in South Africa at the many agents of apartheid who escaped unpunished or refused to admit guilt.

The main theme of Mbeki's newsletter, however, was a remarkable ceremony of repentance which took place recently at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, when Adriaan Vlok, a hardline law and order minister in the old regime, publicly washed the feet of the Rev Frank Chikane, the director general in the presidency.

"What his [Vlok's] words and actions said to me was that our society, which includes those who matured under circumstances very different from today's, is gradually growing out of its traumatic past," Mbeki wrote.

- INDEPENDENT