It is a deep concern of Khulumani members that these matters have not yet been satisfactorily addressed and that government and those who have benefited from post-apartheid development, complain when we raise the issue of what has not yet been resolved. Khulumani members keep being told that these things happened long ago in the past and that they should just "forget about them".

We know that these atrocities that were addressed to a very limited extent by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), are like a "foot sticking out of a shallow grave" that many in government and in wider society are pretending not to see. But they cannot continue to be ignored.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission itself named its own limitations in dealing with the past and with the victims of past atrocities. The TRC Commissioners themselves advised that there should be ongoing processes of truth-discovery and of the delivery of justice to victims.

We believe that there is no better time than the present to finally face up to what ordinary people as struggle veterans suffered and to deal with the responsibility of repairing the damage they sustained. We know that where this does not happen, the trauma and the loss, the anger and the helplessness is handed on to the next generation as a task that has not been completed.

In this way, it creates new cycles of victimisation for new generations. We do not want the traumas of the past to continue to contaminate the future of our coming generations and we want them to be exposed to the incredibly proud examples of what ordinary people did to bring down the years of colonial and apartheid oppression.

This has become a very urgent agenda to address.