Truth panel report names ANC, Winnie

The report was handed to South African President Nelson 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 byNobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu branded apartheid, the policy of white domination enforced in 1948 and dismantled in 1994, a crime against humanity.

Tutu said he was “devastated” by the ANC’s attempt to block publication. He greeted the ruling party’s court defeat as “a triumph for truth and humanity”.

Mandela told the handover ceremony that 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 SouthAfrica.”

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 suspended 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 Madikizela-Mandela herself was responsible for committing such gross violations o human rights,” the five-volume report added.

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

A half-page of detailed allegations against formerpresident 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 other recommendations, the commission proposes a wealth tax or a once-off levy on individuals and companies to help redress the black poverty that is a legacy of apartheid.