JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s government handed to his family Saturday the exhumed remains of a political activist whose execution by the apartheid regime 40 years ago caused an international outcry.
The ceremony for Benjamin Moloise came amid new scrutiny of politically motivated atrocities committed during white-minority rule, which ended in 1994, with President Cyril Ramaphosa announcing last week an inquiry into delays in prosecutions.
Apartheid authorities hanged Moloise in 1985 when he was 30 years old for the killing of a security policeman, which he denied. His execution sparked riots in South Africa and protests from several international capitals.
The United Nations passed a resolution calling for the death sentence to be commuted and Pope John Paul II condemned the execution as adding “anguish to a persistent situation of objective injustice”.
The remains of another ANC activist executed by the apartheid government, Abraham Mngomezulu, were given to his family at the same ceremony in Johannesburg’s Soweto.
Mngomezulu was hanged in 1989 aged 23 after taking part in protests against evictions in which a person was killed, the government said.
Both men were buried in unmarked graves without the presence of their families. Their reburial “marks an important milestone in South Africa’s ongoing journey towards healing, justice, and reconciliation,” the ministry said.
The remains of 74 other people executed by the previous regime had already been handed to their relatives for reburial, Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said in a speech for the ceremony.
The government was “determined to ensure that the heroes of our people receive the recognition befitting their contribution to the liberation of black people,” she said.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) created in 1996 to expose crimes such as murder and torture during apartheid held 2,500 hearings over two years with the possibility of offering amnesty.
It has resulted in few trials and Ramaphosa announced Wednesday a judicial inquiry into claims of deliberate delays in prosecutions.
Inquests into deaths of some political activists have meanwhile been reopened this year, including that of ANC leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Luthuli, who died in 1967. An inquest that year said Luthuli was killed when he was struck by a train.