Saint James Church Massacre - Amnesty

Amnesty

Makoma, Mkhumbuzi and Mlambisa were all granted amnesty for the St James Church attack by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). As a result, Makoma was freed after serving only 5½ years of his sentence, and the trial of Mkhumbuzi and Mlambisa was never completed.

In this and other APLA amnesty hearings, APLA operatives claimed that they were following their orders and that they regarded all whites as legitimate targets as they were complicit in the government's policy of apartheid. In statements made to the representatives of St James church they did however say that they were unaware that the selected target was a church until they arrived in Kenilworth. Dawie Ackerman, husband of one of the victims, noted that perhaps 35-40% of the congregation were people of colour, with the counsel for the APLA saying they had assumed all congregants would be white as the church was in a white area.

Letlapa Mphahlele, national director of operations for APLA, took responsibility for ordering the attacks as part of his application for amnesty. He claimed that he had authorised attacks on white civilians following the killing of five school children by the Transkei Defence Force in Umtata.

Amnesty in such cases was typically granted in terms of the TRC's mandate because the crimes were politically motivated, with the perpetrators following the orders of the APLA commanders, and full disclosure was made to the TRC.

Although amnesty was granted to the individual perpetrators, the TRC found that the act itself, along with other APLA/PAC attacks specifically targeting civilians, were "a gross violation of human rights" and a "violation of internal humanitarian law".