Word: apartheid
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Merwe's statements before Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission marked a turning point in the process of seeking redress for the brutality suffered by millions of South Africans during apartheid's kragdadigheid ("ironfistedness"). Set up by President Nelson Mandela last year, the commission has heard mainly from victims. But while many of their stories were moving, the inquiry was perceived as largely feckless, unable to tie the crimes to perpetrators, black or white, on either side of apartheid. Despite offers of amnesty, alleged culprits refused to confess because they were convinced they could get a better deal...
That perception was reinforced 10 days earlier by the verdict in the trial of Magnus Malan, former Defense Minister and one of apartheid's most feared leaders. Malan was accused, along with 17 other men, of conducting a notorious 1987 hit-squad murder of 13 people, including seven children. Despite widespread belief in their culpability, Malan and his co-defendants were acquitted of all charges by a white Supreme Court judge. The ruling was interpreted as a massive blow to the Truth Commission's power to persuade former henchmen of the regime to cooperate...
...There's no way that any of us can accept this as a way of life," he said. "This is apartheid legislation...
PRETORIA, South Africa: The testimony of a man convicted of right-wing political murders in South Africa may solve a notorious, nine-year-old murder mystery in Scandinavia. In 1986, Swedish prime minister and anti-apartheid activist Olof Palme was shot in the back by an unknown gunman. Testifying Thursday in an attempt to mitigate his sentence on murder and robberies, Eugene De Kock said former South African spy Craig Williamson had led an operation to assassinate Palme. The murdered Swede had supported the African National Congress throughout the 1960s and 1970s and was one of the foremost supporters...
After arriving in the United States in 1968, Marshall's criticism of the racial inequities and repressive police brutality of apartheid South Africa grew increasingly vocal, making a return to her homeland impossible...