Goldstone Commission

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The Goldstone Commission (official English name: Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, German for example: "Investigation Commission for the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation ") was an investigative body founded in 1991 by the South African government. It was under the direction of Judge Richard Goldstone .

Objective and structure

Under the apartheid system , violence in South Africa had increased in the late 1980s. In 1990, previously banned organizations were approved. As a result, there were other sources of conflict that led to violence. The Harms Commission , also set up by the government, was supposed to investigate acts of violence by the security authorities in 1990, but it failed. In January 1991, in view of the escalating situation, delegations from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the African National Congress (ANC) met in Durban and called for an end to the violent clashes. This advance was ineffective. As a result of the worsening situation, the National Peace Accord was formed in September 1991 under the leadership of John Hall , former board member of Barlow Rand and Vice President of the South African Institute of Race Relations , and Stanley Mogoba von of the Methodist Church in South Africa and former President of the Institute.

The commission was founded by President Frederik Willem de Klerk in July 1991 to research the causes of violence and propose solutions. The basis was the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation Act No. 139/1991. It existed until October 27, 1994, that is, until after the 1994 elections , when all adult South Africans had the right to vote for the first time .

The then Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee submitted six personnel proposals for the management of the commission, from which Richard Goldstone was appointed.

In addition to Goldstone, the commission consisted of permanent members: Danie Rossouw, Solly Sithole (both lawyers), Lillian Baqwa and Gert Steyn. After the commission had little influence in its first year of existence, there were investigation units in Johannesburg , Durban , East London , Port Elizabeth and Cape Town from October 1, 1992 , each of which had an international observer.

Course and results

The work of the Goldstone Commission allowed the multi-party talks to continue on an end to apartheid. The Goldstone Commission concluded, among other things, that a "third power" secretly promoted by the apartheid government exists. The commission wrote a total of 47 reports, for example on the secret support of the South African Defense Force and South African Police for the activities of the IFP against supporters of the ANC, the Bisho massacre , the riots in the Cape Town districts of Crossroads and Nyanga , the storming of Kempton Park World Trade Center by Boer extremists and violence against police officers. The security forces were not found to be responsible for the Boipatong massacre in June 1992.

In the course of interrogations of police officers by the commission regarding the cooperation with the IFP, there were intimidation and cover-up attempts by senior police officers. It was also revealed that the chief of Police Unit C (for counterinsurgency, counterinsurgency ) had destroyed all documents showing the cooperation with the IFP and the KwaZulu Police .

Others

Goldstone was appointed a judge at the Constitutional Court of the Republic of South Africa by the newly elected President Nelson Mandela after the 1994 elections . In 2009, Goldstone was the author of the Goldstone Report on the Israeli military operation " Cast Lead " in the Gaza Strip .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The year 1990 in South Africa on the Human Rights Watch website , accessed July 14, 2013
  2. ↑ a b SAIRR : Race Relations Survey 1991/92 . Johannesburg 1992, pp. Lxiii-lxiv. ISSN  0258-7246
  3. ↑ Wording of the law (English; PDF; 53 kB), accessed on July 13, 2013
  4. ↑ Final documents of the commission , accessed on February 10, 2016
  5. ↑ Report of the Commission 1993 (English), accessed on July 13, 2013
  6. ↑ report at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on July 13, 2013
  7. ↑ a b Documents of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 1997, paragraph 10 ( Memento of February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English, PDF; 70 kB), accessed on July 13, 2013