World

In South Africa, Truth Can Hurt

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 28, 1998 / 8:46 AM EST / CBS

South Africa's Truth Commission on Thursday held former President P.W. Botha, President Nelson Mandela's ex-wife and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) accountable for gross violations of human rights.

"Where amnesty has not been sought or has been denied, prosecution should be considered where evidence exists that an individual has committed a gross human rights violation," the statutory Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) said in a 3,500-page report on its two-year inquiry into human rights under white rule.

The report was handed to Mandela at a ceremony in Pretoria just over two hours after a Cape Town court dismissed a last-ditch bid by the ANC to block its release.

The ANC argued in papers prepared during the night that it had not been given adequate opportunity to respond to the commission's allegations, which include complicity in the deaths inside South Africa of civilians including children and farm workers.

The commission, headed by Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, branded apartheid (the policy of white domination enforced in 1948 and dismantled in 1994) a crime against humanity.

CBS News Correspondent Sarah Carter reports that Tutu was deeply saddened by the legal row with the ANC, and that during the handover ceremony Tutu and Mandela exchanged angry glares.

Tutu, who has aged visibly since the Truth Commission began its investigation, also said that he is disappointed that Winnie Mandela and other leaders did not step forward and apologize for human rights violations during the course of the investigation.

Speaking outside a convention center where the solemn handover ceremony was to be held later Thursday, the Nobel peace laureate compared the ANC to the white rulers of apartheid.

"I have struggled against a tyranny. I didn't do that in order to substitute it with another," Tutu told journalists. "If there is a tyranny, an abusive power...I will oppose it with every fiber of my being."

Mandela told the handover ceremony he "accepts the report as it is, with all its imperfections, as an aid the TRC has given us to help reconcile and build our nation."

The panel listed crimes including assassination, torture, and abduction by members of the former white minority government and said: "Botha contributed to and facilitated a climate in which the above gross violations of human rights could and did occur, and as such is accountable for such violations."

Amongst state actions for which it said Botha was accountable, it included: "The deliberate unlawful killing and attempted killing of persons opposed to the policies of the government within and outside South Africa."

Botha, 82, denies any wrongdoing during his 10 years as president and has refused to seek amnesty under a parallel provision of the truth commission law. Earlier this year, he was fined and given a suspendd sentence for refusing to testify to the commission on his actions as president until 1989.

The commission said also that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, divorced by Mandela two years ago on grounds of infidelity, was politically and morally responsible for the actions of her so-called Mandela United Football Club, which abused, abducted, and killed Soweto township youths.

"The commission finds further that Mrs. Madikizela-Mandela herself was responsible for committing such gross violations of human rights," the five-volume report added.

The report said Inkatha Freedom Party leader and Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who also has refused to seek amnesty for his actions under apartheid, was responsible for human rights violations.

A half-page of detailed allegations against former President F.W. de Klerk, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993, was blacked out.

De Klerk sought a court order earlier this week to block the report, which was to have linked him to state-sponsored bombings of church and civic offices.

De Klerk said he learned about the events after they had happened and after the perpetrators had decided to seek amnesty for their actions.

In a country where housing and basic necessities are in short supply, the TRC has also been assailed over the investigation's price tag, which works out to roughly the price of one soft drink for every South African.

However, a final calculation of the TRC's cost may still lie ahead.

One of the panel's most controversial recommendations was for wealthy white South Africans, who allegedly profited from apartheid, to assist in redressing the poverty of the system's victims.

"Most businesses benefited from operating in a racially structured context," said the five-volume document, which added, "An alarming gap exists between rich and poor in South Africa."

Among other measures, the commission proposed a wealth tax and that each company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange pay make a one-time donation of one percent of its market capitalization.