The US has had its own history of "prime evil" where civil rights has had its assassins as well as those who used Jim Crow law to further an
American Apartheid rooted in the history of slavery. It is now time to begin the process of
Truth and Reconciliation on a national scale. It has been done in terms of
events in Greensboro NC, but a national effort to address what seems in the current crisis only touched on by events in Ferguson MO and the climate of domestic terrorism should address the
compounding moral debts that Ta-Nehisi Coates says needs to be addressed. US police militarization only gives the same kind of cover for a future of rogue police on the South African model that has had its global history in death squads and militias.
South African apartheid-era death squad commander Eugene de Kock has been granted parole after 20 years in jail.
He was nicknamed "Prime Evil" for his role in the killing and maiming of activists fighting white minority rule in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha said De Kock would be released "in the interests of nation-building".
De Kock, 66, was sentenced in 1996 to two life terms in prison and a further 212 years for the crimes he committed.
Mr Masutha said the time and place of De Kock's release would not be made public.
The justice minister stressed that his decision was guided by South Africa's constitution....
The former colonel was head of the notorious Vlakplaas police unit.
He appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which was established a year after South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.
De Kock confessed to more than 100 acts of murder, torture and fraud, taking full responsibility for the activities of his undercover unit.
South African psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela interviewed De Kock many times while he was in jail.
In her book, A Human Being Died That Night, she argued in favour of a pardon for a man she said had been a servant to a brutal regime.
Whilst in jail, the former police colonel asked for forgiveness from some of his victims.
In a letter he wrote to the family of Bheki Mlangeni, a lawyer he killed with a letter bomb, he said: "There is no greater punishment than to have to live with the consequences of the most terrible deed with no-one to forgive you.
"For me, even my own death can't compare."
Meet the Conservatives Who Campaigned for Apartheid South Africa Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff and Jeff Flake all spent their early years trying to end the divestment movement.
In his recent visit to South Africa, President Obama credited Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement for inspiring him to get involved in politics. As Obama recounted in Dreams From My Father, he made his first political speech at Occidental College as part of the divestment campaign. When two white students in paramilitary gear pulled him off stage—in an act of political theater designed to reflect the oppression of blacks under apartheid—Obama said that “a part of me wasn’t acting, I really wanted to stay up there…I had so much left to say.” One of his friends recalled that he “showed no sign of being the orator who would become president nearly twenty-eight years later,” but that he had begun his journey.
While the anti-apartheid movement played a crucial role in Obama’s political maturation, its opponent, the anti-divestment movement, played a crucial role in developing some of America’s top conservative leaders. Republican power brokers such as Grover Norquist, Jeff Flake and Jack Abramoff all launched their careers in the anti-divestment campaign, seeking to keep trade open with apartheid South Africa.