IN FOOTAGE supplied by News24, group manager Ishmet Davidson can be seen lying openly on camera.
Davidson falsely claims that Naspers offered an apology in 1996. The disputed fact, has been refuted by the both the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Final Report.
Medialternatives is in possession of correspondence with the department’s TRC Unit showing clearly that the company did not participate in the commission.
In the video clip, Davidson says:
“It’s not the first time this question came up, should Naspers apologise or not, as a matter of fact it came up with the TRC hearings many years ago, would have been in 1996 or around there, to the best of my knowledge, Naspers did sort of offer some form of an apology, in particular the editors at the time which would have been more Media24 than Naspers.”
He then tells the victims and survivors of apartheid to “move on”
Davidson is the one who should rather “move on”, and get his facts straight, “sort of” since the group of journalists he refers to participated in the TRC in their private capacity.
Neither Naspers, nor Media24 participated in the commission, and no offer of an apology by the company to the victims and survivors of the apartheid system was ever made during this period. Instead the Group sent a copy of its corporate history ‘Oor Grense Heen’, with a letter explaining they did not feel any need to add to this text.
The document was not accepted by the commission.
It was not until the weekend announcement of 25 July 2015 that an apology of any substance was offered. A fact backed up by several news stories on the event, carried by IOL and international media, including Sibusiso Tshabalala writing in Quartz Africa
“When the prominent anti-Apartheid activist, Steve Biko, was killed in detention, it was Die Burger – one of Naspers’ oldest daily newspapers – which sided with the security police in an editorial, three days after Biko’s death.” writes Tshabalala.
“For many more deaths like Biko’s and hundreds of people who were held in detention, Naspers publications not only towed the Apartheid government’s line, but also began normalizing the ideology of racial segregation – justifying violence of South Africa’s Apartheid government.”
The late apology as offered over the course of the past days, comes twenty-one years after the first democratic elections, and only appears to extend to day-to-day activities by the company during apartheid, but not the overall involvement of Naspers in drafting race policy nor the implications of two decades in which the company has opposed the findings of the commission.
Several titles owned by the company, including Die Burger, have published articles and cartoons critical of the commission, which has been depicted as nothing more than a “biegbank” or confessional.
Naspers former director, PW Botha for example, has been depicted as the only person with any back-bone, able to stand up to the commission.
He refused to participate in the TRC and was instead subpoenaed, resulting in a series of legal drama’s around this precise point. Davidson is thus fraudulently introducing an amendment and revision to the Final Report, in contravention of the TRC Act, establishing the commission.
In further news, Khulumani, the support group for victims and survivors of the apartheid system, has welcomed the weekend’s statements by Media24 CEO Esmaré Weideman, but says acknowledgement of responsibility is a first step and the work of the commission must continue.