South Africa Needs To Address The Lingering Legacy Of Its Police Using Excessive Force

PROFESSOR FRANS VILJOEN

SOUTH Africa has a painful history of police using excessive force against protesters. In one of the worst incidents under the apartheid government 69 protesters were shot in cold blood by police outside a police station in Sharpeville in 1960.

One of the legacies of that terrible day is that no one was held to account. No one was ever held criminally responsible or civilly liable for the deaths. Instead of identifying, naming and holding responsible those who shot protesters, the apartheid state brought charges of public violence against 70 residents of Sharpeville who were part of the protests.

The protests were against the identity documents the apartheid regime forced black people to carry, restricting their movements.

A quarter of a century later South Africans need to be reminded of the past they seek to leave behind. When he signed into law the Constitution of the Republic