Khampepe Commission: 48 years later, a family is still waiting for justice. (Photo: Marthinus Koekemoer)
Almost five decades after Jaap van der Merwe, a farmer from Thabazimbi, was murdered in 1978, his family is still waiting for justice – without anyone being prosecuted or held accountable so far. His body was never found.
Jaap’s son, Cilliers (64), testified movingly before the Khampepe Commission on Thursday in an attempt to get answers about his father’s death. He testified for about two hours about the delay in the investigation, the lack of prosecution and the lasting pain the murder caused the family.
According to Van der Merwe, four members of the then military wing of the ANC, uMkhonto we Sizwe, killed his father in 1978 on the border of Botswana.
A policeman interviewed an MK member in the 1980s, after which it was confirmed that the four alleged perpetrators were in the country at that stage. The four posed as hitchhikers near the border. Here they apparently shot a white man, took his firearm and took his bakkie to the border. The van was later found there.
The policeman concerned put this information on record.
The names of the four allegedly involved are also known. Three have since died, while the fourth later joined the government’s security forces and was known as “China”.
The local police investigated the case at the time, but “since the early 1990s, the investigation began to drag on and the case was never closed,” he testified.
(Photo: Marthinus Koekemoer)
He told the commission that it came to light over time that some of those allegedly involved started working for the state security police and were therefore never prosecuted.
“Political interference happens in numerous cases and clearly emerges in the murder case of Van der Merwe’s father,” said Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum.
Van der Merwe also told that at the time his mother testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and did not want the people who killed her husband to be prosecuted.
“She would have accepted it if the four members had applied for amnesty,” he said. “However, this did not happen – the members never came forward.”
The murder left his mother as a single parent of five children.
The Van der Merwe family has since approached AfriForum to help ensure that the murder case is followed up again. According to Kriel, this case is one of three that the organization brings before the commission.
(Photo: Marthinus Koekemoer)
“We see a trend that some cases brought before the TRC are indeed investigated by the National Prosecuting Authority. Other cases, such as that of the Van der Merwe family, are simply never given attention,” said Kriel.
The family hopes the commission’s work will change that and hold those responsible for the murder accountable.