Apartheid-Era Ruler Rejects Compromise

Last-minute hopes of averting a divisive courtroom showdown between former President Pieter W. Botha and a truth commission examining apartheid-era crimes were dashed Wednesday when he rejected a deal negotiated by his lawyers.

“Even if they destroy me, they cannot destroy my soul and my convictions,” the erstwhile apartheid leader told journalists after his trial got underway in George, his longtime political base.

Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate and chairman of the government commission, said he was flabbergasted by Botha’s refusal to strike a compromise. Tutu said he was particularly upset since it was Botha’s lawyers who approached the commission about finding a way to avoid the racially charged trial, which pits the unapologetic last strongman of apartheid against the black-led panel endeavoring to put the country’s troubled past to rest.

Tutu told South African public radio that negotiators for both sides thought an agreement had been reached Tuesday night but that Wednesday morning, Botha’s lawyers unexpectedly disclosed that he would not go along with it.

“They asked me could I go and . . . try to persuade him to accept what we had thought was almost a formality,” Tutu said. “He said to me when we talked that he was prepared to meet only me and President Mandela. Nobody else.”

Botha, 82, is charged with ignoring a subpoena to appear before the government-created Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a panel that Botha and other apartheid-era loyalists have rejected as biased against Afrikaners, the white architects of the country’s former policy of racial separation.

Tutu said the proposed compromise would have let Botha answer questions in private and without the presence of certain commissioners he regards as biased. But under no circumstances, Tutu said, could the commission let Botha sidestep its formal proceedings entirely.

“We cannot accept that whoever a person may be, however powerful they may be, they can act recklessly without giving an account to the people,” Tutu said. “Our country has said we are not going the route of the Nuremberg trials. We are finding another way of dealing with our past. But we are also seeking to create a new moral culture of accountability, a moral culture where we say impunity is out.”

The commission wants to question Botha about his leadership in the 1980s of the State Security Council. Some witnesses have testified that the council of government and military officials authorized the torture and killing of anti-apartheid activists.

The commission also wants details of the Botha government’s campaign against black liberation movements, particularly the one led by the then-banned African National Congress, which now governs the country under Nelson Mandela.

Last year, Botha submitted about 1,700 pages of answers to commission queries. But commission investigators say that many of his replies were vague and unresponsive. Botha insists that Tutu promised him he would not need to appear before the commission if he provided the written information; Tutu denies such a deal was struck.

After failing to honor three orders to appear before the commission, Botha was charged with contempt of court by the Cape Town attorney general. At a court appearance in January, he railed against the government and vowed never to apologize for his government’s record.

On Wednesday, the first witness in Botha’s hearing--truth commission Executive Secretary Paul van Zyl--read aloud State Security Council minutes and policy documents that referred to “neutralizing” and “eliminating” black leaders, Associated Press said. One document from 1986 mentioned a meeting where “methods other than detention must be considered” for dealing with those seeking to end white rule. Van Zyl said the minutes show that Botha was present at the meeting.