WATCH | ‘No victor’ meant no prosecutions after apartheid – Mbeki

Former president Thabo Mbeki says the TRC process was the only realistic option to address apartheid crimes because neither the ANC nor the apartheid regime won the war.

Mbeki was on Monday answering questions at the Khampepe commission of inquiry about the government’s 2003 response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and its decision to ask the National Prosecuting Authority to examine cases linked to political violence that the TRC’s amnesty process had not addressed.

He said the country’s transition was shaped by the reality that the ANC had not defeated the apartheid government by 1990.

Thabo Mbeki explains that the Helen Suzman Foundation criticised the presidential pardon process, arguing that the reasons for granting pardons were not made available even to Parliament. He says the pardons reopened an existing debate over whether people who committed offences… pic.twitter.com/ay4eqEsxWR— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) October 19, 2026

“The liberation movement had not defeated the apartheid regime. Neither had the apartheid regime defeated the liberation movement,” Mbeki said. “So there is no possibility of addressing the matter of justice. There’s no possibility for anybody to impose a system of justice. It would only happen where there was a victor, which is why there’s a discussion about the victor’s justice.”

Mbeki said the ANC’s approach was rooted in the 1993 constitution’s provision on national unity and reconciliation, which later gave birth to the TRC.

He said the ANC could not pursue prosecutions against former apartheid president FW de Klerk without risking the country’s transition. “There was no possibility for us in the liberation movement to say arrest FW de Klerk and charge him because he has done this and that.

“If you did that, it would mean you don’t want a solution. It means you want the conflict to continue. But we want the conflict to end.”

At the same time, he said a blanket amnesty would have been wrong because too many people had been harmed. “We can’t take this other route either, of saying just forget and let past bygones be bygones. A general amnesty, forget everything. That wouldn’t be correct either, because there are too many people who have been harmed.”

Mbeki said the TRC model drew on Chile’s truth and reconciliation process and was designed to allow perpetrators to disclose the truth. “Let these people who are responsible for the commission of these gross violations of human rights have an opportunity to come and tell the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about those things.

“The relatives of the person who was killed must also be there and have an opinion about this.”

He said some families chose to forgive perpetrators after hearing the truth and seeing remorse, while those denied amnesty were meant to face prosecution. “For those people who would not get amnesty, there must be a possibility to subject them to criminal prosecution. That’s part of the justice thing.”

Mbeki said the ANC had to convince its own supporters, many of whom had suffered the most under apartheid, that this was the best available route to justice. “The ANC had to convey this message, not just as a matter of a negotiated room. We had to communicate to our own side to support us, to say on the justice issue, this is where we’re going.”

Commissioner Andrea Gabriel asked whether the ANC’s failure to ensure prosecutions for those denied amnesty, nearly 30 years later, was part of the justice it had promised victims and their families.

“The ANC is not responsible for that,” he said. “Part of the justice was, in addition to telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and getting amnesty, that there was another element to the justice — that when you fail, then you should be subject to criminal prosecution. That’s part of the justice.”

Mbeki is expected to return for cross-examination at a later date yet to be determined by the commission.