Hearing for Apartheid-Era Leader Put Off

A regional judge Friday postponed a criminal hearing for former President Pieter W. Botha, but the 82-year-old champion of racial separation used his much-anticipated court appearance to lecture South Africans about the country’s “very dangerous route” under its black leadership.

Victor Lugaju, the black magistrate presiding over the case, ordered Botha to return next month to court in George, in the former president’s home district, to enter a plea on a contempt charge. The judge also set a trial date of April 14.

Botha is charged with ignoring a subpoena from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government panel that wants to question him about crimes committed during his watch by apartheid-era security forces. If found guilty, Botha could be sentenced to two years in jail.

After sitting silently through a brief session with Lugaju, the frail and reclusive former president called a news conference in the George courtroom to defend his white minority government, condemn the truth commission and warn of pending calamity under the government led by the African National Congress.

“I am worried that we are heading for disaster; effective government is grinding to a halt,” Botha said. “What we need now is the unity of all those who are opposed to the forces of chaos, communism and socialism. Afrikaners should also unite and thereafter join forces with groups of similar conviction and principles, so as to oppose that which is wrong in our country.”

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Joined by family members and his fiancee, Reinette te Water Naude, a guest-house owner 35 years his junior, Botha warned of an Afrikaner backlash against a new South Africa that threatens the language, political rights and cultural identity of the white descendants of Dutch settlers.

Saluting several colleagues from his former government who were seated in the court, Botha paid no heed to hundreds of shouting protesters who gathered behind barriers of razor wire outside. The demonstration was organized by the ANC, which claims that Botha’s defiance toward the truth commission is designed to destabilize the country.

Unlike his successor, Frederik W. de Klerk, who offered a conditioned apology for apartheid in an appearance before the truth commission, Botha insisted that he has nothing to apologize for, referring to apartheid as “a form of being a good neighbor.”

“I am not prepared to apologize for actions which I took to remove racial discrimination in this country,” Botha said. “Similarly, I am also not prepared to apologize for lawful actions of my government in its struggle to curb the violent onslaught against our country at the time. I also do not apologize for my views on peaceful coexistence of all the people of our country.”

He left the courtroom through a rear exit.