She asked to say a prayer before she could relate what happened on that dreadful December 24, 1996 in Zwelithemba in the Western Cape.

It is a moving prayer in Xhosa as she communicates with the Man upstairs and asks Him to give her strength to tell the media about an incident which almost left her dead.

To this day, she says in prayer, she is overwhelmed with emotions and anger when she has to recount the incident that has left her in constant pain all over her body and badly damaged her ears.

With teary eyes Olga Macingwana recounts the events of that night in 1996 at Checkers in Zwelithemba.On that particular day she had gone to the supermarket to buy groceries for Christmas the following day.
It was strange, she thought, that there was a smell of something burn ing in the store. But Macingwana is just an ordinary woman with no specialist knowledge of explosives or making bombs, so she could not smell danger coming.

As it would turn out the weird smell could have been a warning sign of the tragic events that were about to unfold.

Macingwana was about to pay for her groceries when suddenly her life was plunged into darkness. A bomb, planted by an AWB member, had gone off. She felt excruciating pain in her legs and she had no idea what had just happened. Two people helped her out of Checkers. But her ordeal was not over yet.

While she was on the pave ment outside another bomb went off. It was darkness again for Macingwana and she woke up in hospital, where it was explained to her that she had been a victim of a racially or politically motivated bombing which had claimed at least eight lives.

Macingwana was devastated at hearing the news. Due to the effects of the incident, she has since never been able to work again. She lives on pills, her ears usually go deaf and there's a throbbing pain in her legs. She lives in abject poverty. Yet the perpetrators are being considered for a presidential pardon for their politically motivated killings and maiming of innocent people such as Macingwana.

The problem with the presidential pardon process is that it seems to put more emphasis on perpetrators while leaving the victims out in the cold.

It was in 2007 that former President Thabo Mbeki established a pardons committee comprising various polit ical party representatives. It was agreed that the committee would be guided by the values in the Constitu tion and the principles of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

It must be noted that the TRC had the powers to grant amnesty to per petrators as long as they were totally truthful, and that their crimes were committed for political reasons. Victims were also given a platform by the TRC to tell their side of the story and were awarded reparations.

A network of civil society bodies (including the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the Khu lumani Support Group, the Freedom of Expression, the Human Rights Me dia Centre, the International Centre for Transitional Justice, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and the South African History and Archives) has rightly challenged the flawed par dons process for political crimes.

Without victim participation, the pardons will be too one-sided and, of course, a complete farce! Mr President, South Africa needs a post-1994 TRC now.

Cedric Mboyisa is political editor of The Citizen.