Defenders of democracy must defend the rights of grieving parents to see Enyobeni postmortems

The tragic case of the deaths of 21 children at the Enyobeni Tavern, and last week’s response of the Eastern Cape health department to their parents’ pleas to release the postmortems and causes of death, takes many of us back to the horrors of the apartheid era cover-ups of atrocities committed against citizens by an unaccountable government.

Remember detainees slipping on pieces of soap in a shower and dying? Brain-damaged detainees “shamming brain damage, and then starving them to death”? Or murdered detainees being hung by their jeans and suicide notes being forged to cover up the brutal murders?

We are now at great risk of getting back there, if we are not already in that horror show again. 

How can the Eastern Cape government believe it is appropriate to treat grieving parents of the 21 children who died in the Enyobeni Tavern in July, with such disrespect and insensitivity? 

What is the Eastern Cape government hiding by not letting parents see the written postmortem results? What privacy protection arises when parents as guardians of mostly children under 18 years ask to see the details of the cause of their deaths?

This refusal to account to citizens reminds some of us who were on the receiving end of state security abuses during the struggle for freedom, of the refusal by the apartheid government to give our lawyers reasons why we were banned, detained or denied access to information.  

Our lawyers’ letters would be responded to in simple terms: “It is not in the interest of the security of the state to give you reasons for actions taken against you.” 

Here we are again, confronted by a government that does not regard parents’ rights to see the details of their children’s postmortems, as legitimate and appropriate.

How can the EC government expect poor parents to have the energy, time and resources to go through the bureaucratic process of applying to the promotion of access to information offices, to be granted their legitimate rights to the postmortem results of their own children? This accountability failure and insensitivity is adding salt to actively bleeding wounds. 

Has the government lost all pretence of adherence to ubuntu values, and the empathy and sympathy that are at the heart of being human?