S. Africa Should Pay Apartheid Victims

The South African government should pay compensation totaling $348 million to more than 21,000 victims of apartheid-era abuses, a commission that investigated the crimes of the era recommended on Friday.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up after the country's first all-race elections in 1994 and headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, made the recommendation for reparations in its final report. Tutu presented the seven-volume report to President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria.

"Had it (the commission) not happened, we would not be where we are today, we would not have the stability we have," Tutu told The Associated Press.

The government has said it has been waiting for the final report before making any payments.

The commission investigated political crimes committed by all sides during the decades of white-minority rule. Believing the country could not move into a peaceful new future without understanding its past, the commission granted amnesty to perpetrators willing to tell the truth about their crimes.

A forum for confession rather than a Nuremberg-style trial, the hearings were broadcast nationally.

Hailed as a success for giving voice to ordinary people and confronting the country with its violent past, the commission was nevertheless criticized for not hearing enough from high-level officials who orchestrated the apartheid regime's brutality.

More than 1,000 perpetrators were granted amnesty, but most senior apartheid-era politicians never accounted for their actions to the commission. Most notably P.W. Botha, who governed South Africa during some of the worst atrocities from 1978 to 1989, ignored a commission summons.

His successor, F.W. de Klerk, did testify. He gave a qualified apology for apartheid, saying he was unaware of the extent of the abuses.

The report found he knew of the 1988 bombing by security police of a Johannesburg building housing anti-apartheid groups. A portion of the findings were blacked out by the commission when de Klerk took legal action five years ago. The former president however, conceded he knew the bombing was ordered by the apartheid government and was reckless.

The report also found that the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party participated in state-sponsored violence and formed death squads with training and arms from the apartheid government.

Yasmin Sooka, a human rights lawyer who served as a commissioner, bemoaned its failure to bring apartheid's elite to task.

"I think that will come back to haunt us," she said.

Richard Lyster, another former commissioner, said more resources and focus should have been given to an investigation unit to pressure more senior officials to come forward.