Apartheid-Era Crimes Get an Anguished, Angry Airing

The testimony was gripping, horrifying--and sadly typical.

The first woman’s husband died in police custody in 1976. The next three women told how their husbands disappeared in 1985, allegedly in police hands. And the last man was maimed in a grenade attack on a bar in 1993.

These five stories of anguish and anger dominated the first hearing Monday of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as it began an extraordinary attempt to confront, if not solve, the crimes of the apartheid era.

“We’ve come to unearth the truth about our dark past and to slay the ghosts . . . that haunt us,” Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the commission chairman, said somberly as he opened the nationally televised session in a packed City Hall auditorium in this city about 475 miles south of Johannesburg.

Clearly, not everyone agreed. The hall was evacuated for 30 minutes after two people telephoned bomb threats to police and a local newspaper. Testimony resumed after a police bomb squad and dogs combed the building and found nothing.

The threats only highlighted the sensitive work of the truth commission, which will roam the country for the next two years to expose the wounds of the past, from petty indignities to gruesome atrocities, in hopes of providing a catharsis to what Tutu called a nation of “traumatized and wounded people.”

The 17 commissioners will work in three groups. The largest panel will hear thousands of victims of human rights abuses, including those who suffered at the hands of anti-apartheid groups. A second set of commissioners will award compensation in some cases.

The third group will grant amnesty to perpetrators who confess their role in the death squads, torture and other crimes of the police state, or who took part in anti-apartheid bombings, sabotage and torture camps.

Fewer than 300 people have applied for amnesty, however, and the commission has no power to prosecute or punish those who refuse to come forward. That has angered many victims, who seek justice and retribution over pardons and reconciliation.

“There is no feeling of forgiveness in my heart,” Marius Schoon, whose wife and 6-year-old daughter were killed in 1984 by a security force bomb meant for him, complained last week in a letter to a Johannesburg newspaper.

Relatives of three other prominent victims, including the family of black activist Steve Biko, who died in police custody in 1977, have sued to stop the commission from preempting punishment of the killers.

The promise to provide amnesty, enshrined in the country’s 1993 interim constitution, was part of a crucial compromise between the former white regime and its black-led negotiating partners. Officials say it paved the way for the country’s first all-race elections in April 1994.

“Without the amnesty provision, there would have been no political settlement,” Justice Minister Dullah Omar said recently. “It was the one issue that stood in the way of democratic elections. And it took us away from the abyss of violence and war, without any end in sight and without any victors in sight.”

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Other controversies also dog the commission. Liberal groups complain that the panel is denying due process by preventing cross-examination of witnesses. And former security officers have sought a court injunction to prevent testimony from witnesses who they say plan to accuse them of committing crimes.

But the disputes were forgotten Monday as the first five witnesses poured out a torrent of fear, frustration and rage. In some ways, their stories seemed less important than the fact that they finally got to tell them in public, in detail and in a country where some of the same officials are still in power.

The first witness, Nohle Mohapi, told how her husband, Mapetla, a key aide to Biko, was tortured by police. “Under your feet, you’d be burned with cigarettes,” she said. “You’d be electric-shocked. They’d put things on you so you’d jump and jump.”

In August 1976, police told her that her husband had hanged himself in his cell. Her greatest anger Monday was aimed at the officer who laughed openly as she identified her husband’s body. “I still remember this,” she said bitterly.

The next three witnesses, Elizabeth Hashe, Monica Godolozi and Nomali Rita Galela, said their husbands vanished May 8, 1985. Although police denied involvement, witnesses in subsequent court cases said the three, all leaders of a group that organized anti-apartheid boycotts and strikes, were seen alive in local jails after their disappearance.

All three women pleaded for the killers to come forward so they can find their husbands’ bodies and bury them with dignity.

The final witness, Karl Andrew Webber, lost his left arm and partial use of his right hand after a masked gunman raked the Highgate Hotel bar in East London with an AK-47 and hand grenades May 1, 1993.

Webber, the only white victim to testify, now lives on a $100-a-month disability. He can’t bathe or shave without help. He refused to say if the attackers should be granted amnesty. But he said he was pleased that he had testified. “I think our stories should be told,” he said.