EPILOGUE
In the opening chapter of this book the reader was introduced to the many faces of apartheid repression which were clearly recognisable at the time of its writing in 1989. Yet more faces were soon to emerge from the shadows, but few could have anticipated the extreme ugliness of the final mask of destabilisation that was to bring down the curtain on this cruel saga. By the time the liberation struggle had run its full course and a democratically elected government was installed, the human cost, in the simple terms of loss of life, reached the appalling total of around 2 1 000 dead. What was of particular significance was the fact that of this total, 14 000 lives were lost in the 4 years immediately preceding the elections, i.e. during the destabilisation era. In other words, twice as many people died during the 4 years of destabilisation as died during the preceding 40 years. This pattern is echoed in the numbers of major massacres recorded by the HRC -91 during the 4 years of destabilisation as compared with 46 during the 40 years of total strategy. Likewise, assassinations by hit squads escalated 6 times in annual rate during the first 3 years of destabilisation as compared with the rate during 1980 to 1989. This highly skewed pattern of destructive repression speaks volumes about the callous duplicity of destabilisation strategy. It must surely rank as the mother of all covert operations.
In the global village of today, the observance or violation of human rights is no longer regarded as a domestic matter. The international community gave a clear and unequivocal demonstration of this principle when it declared apartheid to be a crime against humanity, not only that part of humanity that was the direct recipient of the evils of apartheid, but all humanity. This declaration was an important enunciation of the universality and indivisibility of human rights in today's world. The price to be paid for practising repression increases daily and in the case of the apartheid regime proved to be fatal. In the new South Africa where there is a natural concern that the repression of the past may never again be visited upon us, a shield has been erected to guard against such a possibility. That shield is the Bill of Rights guaranteed by a constitution which is itself underpinned by a system of checks and balances and agreed to by the overwhelming majority of our population. It is true to say that our Bill of Rights can stand proud with any similar document anywhere in the world today. The strongest guarantee that repression in any form not be allowed to creep back into our lives, is to ensure that the government of the day observes the classic four layers of its obligations towards our Bill of Rights, namely, to respect, to protect, to promote and to fulfill these rights, and in so doing, deliver the fruits of democracy to all the people of South Africa.
EPILOGUE
