BY GREG ROSENBERG
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Amid mounting pressure from South Africa's capitalist class for reintroduction of the death penalty, South African president Nelson Mandela has declared his rejection of such pleas.

"There is going to be no review whatsoever," Mandela told reporters in Pretoria September 25. "We have outlawed the capital sentence. I appreciate the concern of the public, which is due to a lack of information. Our task is to go to the grassroots to mobilize them, and to indicate the strategies that should be adopted if we are going to reduce the level of crime."

The National Party of F.W. de Klerk, the Inkatha Freedom Party of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and the big-business media have campaigned for the reintroduction of the death penalty since it was outlawed by South Africa's Constitutional Court in June 1995. Public opinion polls, purporting to reflect mass sentiment on this question, are being used as a weapon in the political battle over capital punishment. Mandela's September 25 statements came a few days after the Johannesburg Star published the results of one such survey, in which 93 percent of respondents said they favored reinstatement of the death sentence.

The South African apartheid state was one of the world's chief hangmen, until the rising revolutionary democratic movement led by the ANC forced the regime to suspend legalized murder. Some 100 people a year were hanged, up until that time - overwhelmingly blacks.

The growing debate has been fueled by the social breakdown resulting from the legacy of apartheid rule, which the ANC now confronts in its efforts to build a nation and codify broad democratic rights.

The big business press uses official crime to buttress the argument that state-imposed executions should be reintroduced. Last year there were reports of 18,983 murders and 66,838 robberies in South Africa. Stories on carjackings, thefts, and killings of high profile businessmen and diplomats are touted by the media as examples of why executions should be reinstated.

The pro-death penalty campaign has begun to affect some members of the ANC as well.

At a September 1 ANC summit on crime, South African Justice Minister Dullah Omar told delegates that "the view of the summit is that the ANC, as the leading liberation force and democratic force in our country, representing the will of the people, should not be afraid to reassess its position with regard to the death penalty."

Omar, an ANC leader, said the gathering had "taken the position that the [ANC] National Executive Committee should as a matter of urgency review the whole question of the death penalty and if it is necessary the whole position of the ANC should be reviewed."

Mandela, who is also the president of the ANC, forcefully rejected this call. "I will not even ask that the matter be discussed in the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress," Mandela said September 25.

The South African president remarked that "we do not want to arouse false expectations, notwithstanding the success we have achieved in our strategies. There will still be hijackings, robberies, murder, and theft."

Mandela added that there was little public confidence in the South African justice system and police forces. He pointed out that a campaign to root out corruption in the police had led to the arrest of 708 officers between July 1994 and June 1996. "So the tide against crime is gathering momentum," Mandela said.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home