South Africa Announces Apartheid Pay-Outs

BBC ^ | 12-23-2003 | Barnaby Phillips

[blam]

SA announces apartheid pay-outs

By Barnaby Phillips
BBC Southern Africa Correspondent

There have been reconciliation celebrations in South Africa this month

South Africa has started paying reparations to thousands of victims of apartheid, the government says.

They were identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which spent seven years examining the crimes committed under apartheid.

The government is giving a one-off payment equivalent to about $4,500 to the victims of apartheid.

The TRC examined decades of human rights abuses and identified about 20,000 victims earlier this year.

Slow process

The government says it has processed payments for 9,000 people, but more than a third of these payments have already been returned because victims supplied invalid bank accounts.

The government is paying far less in reparations than was recommended by the TRC.

It also rejected suggestions in the TRC's final report that it raise more money for reparations by imposing a special tax on big business.

This has led to bitter complaints from some of the victims that they are not being adequately compensated.

[brewcrew]

The problem with reparations is that the recipients still won't drop it after being paid. The payment is supposed to REPAIR the breach, but it won't.

[Zipporah]

When is Winnie Mandela going to start paying reparations?

[Bedford Forrest]

And when will Thuggo Mbeke's squalid and corrupt regime start paying reparations to the survivors of the thousands of white farmers,their wives and children who have been raped, tortured and murdered by savages, during his illegitimate and lawless dictatorship. Thuggo is riding the tiger but he and his gangster cohorts are too evil and stupid to see it.

[yankeedame]

Considering the state of SA economy, it wouldn't surprise me if these settlements weren't being paid in mid-long term government bonds. At least to whose without any connections, who, surprise, surprise, get their settlements in cash. It's happened before.