Word: botha
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South Africans still tread warily around the aging "crocodile," which is why when P.W. Botha appeared in court today, the authorities didn't know what to do with him. Former president Botha -- known as "the big crocodile" because of his harsh methods -- appeared on contempt charges arising from his refusal to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigating apartheid-era crimes. Even though the 82-year-old patriarch remains unapologetic about apartheid, authorities are likely to cut Botha a deal involving some form of private testimony, says TIME Johannesburg bureau chief Peter Hawthorne: "He's too old and infirm...
...even more startling disclosure, turning to the subject of where his own orders came from. The bombing, he said, had been approved by Adriaan Vlok, the Minister of Law and Order at the time. And Vlok's instructions, according to Van der Merwe, had come directly from P.W. Botha, the President of South Africa...
...leaders finally cracked. The five officers, including a police brigadier who had commanded a hit-squad training camp, claimed they took orders from the State Security Council, a secret junta of military, police and government officials whose sweeping powers enabled it to bypass Parliament. The council was headed by Botha. The officers said Botha also knew about a secret security cell known as the Counter Revolutionary Information Center, which drew up lists of people and places to be attacked, both inside and outside South Africa. Brigadier Jack Cronje testified that police kept files on all known antiapartheid activists. This, said...
Still, the man who appears to bear paramount responsibility may never be brought to court. P.W. Botha, 80, sits in virtual seclusion in retirement on the south coast of the cape. Botha, who suffered a stroke before his 1989 resignation, appears increasingly enfeebled; that, plus his legendary irascibility, may make it awkward if not impossible to force him to face the commission. Embattled and isolated, he refuses to give interviews or even to pick up the telephone; an aide who answered a call last week described the unrepentant hard-liner as "unapproachable." Yet if auguries are to be credited...
That seems a cruel fate for the principle of world community made flesh with such high purpose. Roelof ("Pik") Botha, South Africa's Foreign Minister from 1977 to last year, still believes in the U.N. idea despite its shortcomings. Though the institution is "like a company that can't market its products and whose board members put their own interests first," Botha suspects that devolution of peacekeeping authority to the regional level could bring the same strengths as any corporate shake-up nowadays. Najman goes further. He thinks the U.N. will increasingly turn to "contracting" out its duties as dire...