Cape Town – The GOOD party has criticised the move by AfriForum to request the Khampepe Commission to investigate political interference that “prevented ANC [African National Congress] leaders from being prosecuted for terror attacks during apartheid”.
Earlier this year, President Cyril Ramaphosa, the leader of the ANC, appointed retired Constitutional Court Judge Sisi Khampepe to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Inquiry into prosecutorial and investigation delays into apartheid era crimes.
AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said his organisation submitted a formal submission, in that regard, to the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry on Friday, 10 October 2025, the deadline day.
“The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has recently begun to unilaterally prosecute members of the former security forces for various crimes, but still refuses for political reasons to also investigate the misdeeds of ANC leaders,” Kriel said Sunday, 12 October 2025.
“Therefore, AfriForum once again asks that the book of the past be closed, but that if this does not happen, the ANC leaders who did not receive amnesty will also be investigated for the sake of equality before the law.”
However, the suggestion has sparked an angry response from the GOOD Party, which accused AfriForum of “weaponising whataboutism to whitewash accountability”.
The GOOD party said that if Afriforum has information about acts of terror carried out in the name of the ANC or anyone else during the apartheid era, it must share this information with the NPA, instead of trying to use it to whitewash apartheid security force killers”.
The GOOD party added: “Threatening to release information about the ANC, but only if the government doesn’t stop investigating crimes perpetrated by erstwhile members of the apartheid security force, amounts to political extortion and undermines the Constitutional principles of equal justice and accountability”.
Apartheid was declared a crime against humanity by the United Nations.
Democratic South Africa established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to achieve what Kriel refers to as closing the book on the past.
The TRC was a mechanism to grant amnesty to people who committed apartheid-era crimes, provided they approached the commission and were judged to have told the truth and committed the crimes to achieve a political objective.
“Those perpetrators who chose to ignore the opportunity to apply for amnesty, or did not qualify, were liable for prosecution – regardless of their political leaning. And regardless of whatever information Kriel claims to have,” the GOOD party said.
Commenting further, the GOOD party said Kriel seeks to revise history by creating a false equivalence between those who perpetrated and defended apartheid and those who struggled for democracy and justice.
“If Afriforum has compromising information about ANC leaders, it must give this information to the NPA, which has a mandate to prosecute without fear, favour or political direction,” the GOOD party said.
“Afriforum wants to believe that Afrikaners in particular, and white people in general, have ‘got away’ with apartheid without ever being held accountable or contributing to the development of a sustainable democracy.
“It wants to distance its people from any responsibility, more than 30 years into democracy, for the fact that colour-coded structural inequality remains a dominant feature of South Africa’s landscape – as does criminal impunity.”
The GOOD party said Afriforum (and its sister organisations in government) are swimming against the preamble of the Constitution, which states South Africans must “recognise the injustices of our past… honour those who suffered for justice and freedom, and respect those who have worked to build and develop our country”.
The GOOD party added: “If Afriforum has any integrity, it would release whatever information it holds about acts of violence committed by the ANC as well as its own supporters.
“The NPA must carry out its mandate to prosecute criminals.”
