Push for the 2024 Apartheid Bill: Ending Support for the Crime of Apartheid in South Africa

BY Sõzarn Barday

 “No one in the Republic of South Africa may participate in, encourage, or support the crime of apartheid” – Apartheid Bill 2024.

Three decades have passed since Apartheid was legally dismantled in South Africa. However, practically, it is still alive and well today. Pockets of White-only towns scatter across the country, with the old Apartheid flag and statues standing proudly. Most notably is Orania, a nationalist Afrikaner town situated along the Orange River in the Northern Cape. Its population comprises approximately 2,500 Afrikaners, a number that has grown significantly since the fall of the Apartheid regime. Orania was founded by Carel Boshoff, a right-wing parliamentarian and the son-in-law of Apartheid’s architect, Hendrik Verwoerd. The town operates its own currency and has no Black residents or workers, with its people claiming they want to live among themselves, free from crime. Meanwhile, its inhabitants exist in a parallel reality where Black South Africans are invisible.

Crime, disproportionately distributed across the country, further underscores the legacy of apartheid. In the Western Cape, violent crimes dominate poor areas—previously allocated to Black, Coloured, and Indian communities under the Group Areas Act. Although sustainable development goals call for concentrated policing in such regions, the security sector has failed to implement this. The South African Police Services (SAPS) are grossly skewed in favour of affluent, predominantly White areas with much lower crime rates. A report by GroundUp highlights this disparity: wealthy suburbs like Camps Bay are allocated one SAPS officer per 112 people, while the township of Khayelitsha has just one officer per 722 people. These inequalities exacerbate poverty, violent crime, and drug addiction—evils the Apartheid government introduced to control and weaken the population.

In more recent instances, racism continues to rear its head. At Pinelands High School, a group of Coloured students ran a mock slave auction of their Black classmates, bidding for them as slaves in a video that quickly went viral. Western Cape Education Department spokesperson Bronagh Hammond described the incident as “hurtful and disturbing,” failing to address the blatant racism involved. Similarly, at Table View High School, a teacher allegedly used the K-word during a lesson on Black Consciousness. Both cases are under investigation by the South African Human Rights Commission. Such incidents reflect a broader, systemic pattern of racial injustice in former Model C schools that often goes unpunished.

Though apartheid was legally dismantled in 1994, it remains a festering wound in South African society. The Apartheid Bill of 2024 aims to confront this lingering inequality.

This Bill, initiated in 2024 by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign – Cape Town and its partners, seeks to ensure accountability for the crime of apartheid. In May 2024, South Africa ratified the United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (Apartheid Convention). The next essential step is passing this legislation to ensure the country complies with its international obligations, a necessary action to demonstrate South Africa’s unwavering commitment to justice and human rights.

The Bill’s primary goal is to hold individuals, organizations, and entities accountable for participating in, encouraging, or supporting apartheid. It will provide a legal framework for South Africa to implement Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against any apartheid state, while also establishing Apartheid-Free Zones nationwide.

Enacting the Bill would have far-reaching implications. It would demonstrate South Africa’s lawful support for Palestinian human rights, which have been egregiously violated by the colonial settler Apartheid ‘state’ of Israel. It would also align with the International Court of Justice ruling (July 2024), which states that the international community must not provide any support to Israel’s illegal occupation. Additionally, it would set a precedent for both local and international solidarity movements.

The United Nations General Assembly (September 18) recently reaffirmed that states are obligated to “prevent trade or investment relations that assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” As such, South Africa must halt Transnet’s coal shipments and the facilitation of Richards Bay port, which currently supplies coal to Israel Electric Corporation. This electricity not only fuels the genocide in Gaza but also maintains Israeli apartheid. Notably, the Ashdod and Hedera coal-fired power plants supply 20-30% of the electricity used by Israeli settlements in the West Bank, weapons manufacturing, and the Israel Defence Force (IDF).

Amid these calls for BDS, South Africa’s trade minister Parks Tau has warned that imposing sanctions outside of multilateral frameworks would violate World Trade Organisation (WTO) principles and could expose the country to legal challenges.

It is also important to note that the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign has lodged a criminal complaint against Benjamin Rattle, a South African citizen allegedly serving illegally in the IDF since October 2023, who is part of the Golani Brigade. South African law prohibits citizens from serving in foreign armies without government permission, which Rattle has not obtained. South Africa has also brought a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. In January, the ICJ ruled that Israel had indeed committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Despite this ruling, the National Prosecuting Authority has yet to prosecute Rattle and more than 70 South African citizens who have fought for Israel.

While we welcome South Africa’s efforts at the ICJ, the next critical step is enacting the Apartheid Bill, which confronts our own legacy of apartheid. With apartheid’s shadow still looming in the form of racially segregated towns like Orania and systemic inequities in policing and education, this legislation seeks to address these persistent injustices. By holding individuals and entities accountable for supporting apartheid and establishing Apartheid-Free Zones, the Bill reaffirms South Africa’s commitment to human rights and justice, extending solidarity to Palestinians suffering under Israeli apartheid. In doing so, it fulfils the country’s international obligations under the UN Apartheid Convention and sets a powerful precedent for movements against oppression, both local and global.

The passing of the Bill would not only mark a legal victory but also serve as a symbolic step toward healing the long-standing wounds of apartheid, ensuring that its horrors are neither repeated nor perpetuated.

 

 

Sõzarn Barday

Sõzarn Barday is an attorney based in South Africa and has a particular interest in human rights within the Middle East