When the humanity of brutal perpetrators becomes the story

Detailed summary

The media’s fixation on humanising apartheid-era perpetrators such as Eugene de Kock risks displacing the experiences of victims and survivors whose lives were forever changed by…

The media’s fixation on humanising apartheid-era perpetrators such as Eugene de Kock risks displacing the experiences of victims and survivors whose lives were forever changed by the actions of these assassins.

Sinqobile Makhathini is an independent researcher and former Child Protection Officer at the Children Education Society in Tanzania.

The recent Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into alleged interference in the investigation and prosecution of apartheid-era crimes has reopened what has often been described as the repository of our transition, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The inquiry has once again revived questions of accountability, healing and reparation for victims and survivors of the gross human rights violations committed during apartheid.

In the midst of these efforts, however, journalistic reporting has also emerged that holds the potential for the whitewashing of memory, the flattening of historical atrocities and the displacement of the harm caused by these violations, and risks retraumatising both the direct and indirect victims of the apartheid regime.

Established by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 29 May 2025, the Khampepe Commission is mandated to investigate matters relating to the alleged interference in, and halting of, investigations and prosecutions arising from the TRC process.

Over the past months, the commission has issued summonses to figures including former presidents Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki to account for allegations of “backdoor” amnesties granted to apartheid-era perpetrators. It is alleged that the former presidents were involved in arrangements for shadow amnesties that bypassed the formal amnesty process established by the TRC.

This renewed search for truth has also brought apartheid-era perpetrators, including former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock, back into the spotlight.

Vlakplaas was a state-sponsored counterinsurgency unit and operational base associated with the apartheid government’s Security Branch.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Daily Maverick. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.