S. African Truth Panel’s Report Faces Court Challenge

The final report of this country’s truth commission, meant to clear the air about the nation’s racist past, may instead resemble apartheid-era documents that were left with gaping holes by government censors.

Back from the printers on Wednesday, the five-volume report is scheduled to be delivered today to President Nelson Mandela and made public. However, a last-minute court challenge this morning may delay the release of the document or force commissioners to delete, at least for the time being, unflattering references to Mandela’s ruling African National Congress.

“If it comes to that, we would have to tear the pages out,” said John Allen, spokesman for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “I don’t know what is going to happen.”

In a court hearing that began just after dawn, a Cape Town judge was hearing arguments from lawyers for the ANC and the truth commission. At the start of the emergency hearing, the judge barred the release of the report to journalists. The release had been scheduled for several hours before the noon hand-over ceremony. It was uncertain if the ongoing court case would also delay or stop the ceremony.

“If there is a tyranny and an abuse of power, let them know that I will oppose it with every fiber of my being. That is who I am,” said former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the commission chairman, who went on to say that he was “deeply saddened” by the ANC action.

As commissioners hosted a party in Pretoria on Wednesday night, the ANC called a surprise news conference in Johannesburg to announce that it would seek a court order blocking the panel from implicating it in “gross human rights violations” during the struggle against apartheid.

The ANC announcement came just hours after Frederik W. De Klerk, the last white president of South Africa, succeeded in blocking a small section of the report that reportedly implicated him in the cover-up of two state-sponsored bombings in the 1980s.

Although it has focused mostly on the wrongs of the former white-minority regime during 2 1/2 years of public hearings, the commission--created by the ANC government--was charged with examining apartheid-era abuses on all sides.

Many ANC activists have objected to such evenhandedness, saying it is unjust to consider abuses on behalf of “the struggle” in the same forum as those committed by South Africa’s white oppressors.

Portions of the commission’s document--leaked during the past few days to local media--reportedly accuse the ANC of targeting civilians, executing suspected spies and mistreating prisoners in its clandestine camps in neighboring countries.

The report is also said to hold the erstwhile underground organization responsible for the wrongdoings of Mandela’s ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who was convicted of kidnapping and assault in 1991.

ANC officials said they were left with no choice but to seek a court order because the commission had refused to consider the organization’s rebuttal to the findings.

The commission warned the ANC and about 400 other individuals and organizations that the report would reflect negatively upon them.

Allen, the panel’s spokesman, said 15 people persuaded the commissioners to drop references to them.

ANC Secretary-General Kgalema Motlhanthe told state-owned television that the truth panel rejected the ANC submission because it arrived too late.

Motlhanthe accused the commission of “corresponding with us in bad faith” about the report.

“At this late hour, the only relief we have is for us to go to court and seek the court to instruct them to remove that section . . . until they have heard us and considered our submission,” he said.

Allen said he did not know how many of the report’s 3,500 pages include references to the ANC’s alleged abuses.

In De Klerk’s case, truth commissioners agreed to withhold their half-page findings until the matter is heard in court.

“We will fight this matter [De Klerk’s lawsuit] quite vigorously,” Tutu said. “The commission faced legal threats. . . . However, in no case did the commission capitulate in the face of those threats.”