Commissions Watch Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry Report
31 Jan 2019
COMMISSIONS WATCH
[31st January 2019]
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE
1st AUGUST 2018 POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE
WERE THEY CARRIED OUT?
Recent disorders in our major cities, and the tragic killing of 12 or more
people, give new relevance to the report and recommendations of the
Commission of Inquiry [the Motlanthe Commission] set up to investigate the
violence and shootings that followed last year’s election. The Commission
gave the President a summary of its report on the 29th November last year
and the full report was released to the public on the 18th December. It is
available on the Veritas website [link].
On the 28th January – just three days ago – it was announced that the
President had appointed an inter-ministerial task force “to address issues
arising from … the findings of the Motlanthe Commission”. [See the end of
this bulletin for a list of its members] More than a month after the
Commission’s full report was published, therefore, little seems to have
been done to implement its recommendations.
Note: Mr Ian Smith, leader of the pre-Independence white régime, used to
establish a “small high-powered committee” whenever he was faced with a
politically embarrassing problem; by the time the committee delivered its
report, he hoped, the problem would have gone away. History repeats
itself, first as farce and now as tragedy.
In this Commissions Watch we shall outline the Commission’s findings and
recommendations in the hope that, even belatedly, something may be done
to implement them.
The Commission’s Terms of Reference
These required the Commission to investigate:
• the circumstances leading up to the post-election violence
• the conduct of the Police in trying to contain the violence
• the involvement of the Army in assisting the Police, and
• whether the force used was proportionate in the circumstances.
The Commission was chaired by a former President of South Africa, Mr
Kgalema Motlanthe, and consisted of three distinguished foreign members
plus three Zimbabwean academics and lawyers.
The Commission’s Main Findings
The Commission’s findings can be summarised as follows: