Word: klerk
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...suspicions are not altogether farfetched. De Klerk has been criticized repeatedly by human-rights groups for not reining in his security forces. Despite previous success in crushing illegal A.N.C. military activities, the government has notably failed to punish the perpetrators of township massacres. Says Helen Suzman, a white liberal and former Member of Parliament: "They have got to get cracking on the security forces and weed out those elements known to be against reform...
...A.N.C., the two problems go hand in hand. Secretary-General Cyril Ramaphosa blamed De Klerk for the massacre, accusing the government of pursuing a strategy that "embraces negotiations together with systematic covert actions, including murder." Survivors of the atrocity accused Zulu migrant workers staying at a local hostel and loyal to the Inkatha Freedom Party of carrying out the killings -- but the survivors also claim that government security forces took part in the attack...
Privately, A.N.C. leaders say they do not believe De Klerk is orchestrating a Machiavellian plot. They understand that part of the problem is a culture of intolerance and factional hostility from which their own members are hardly immune. They do angrily blame the President, however, for cynically doing little to stop the bloodshed in the hope that it will exacerbate divisions in the massive black electorate and hinder the A.N.C.'s ability to build a strong political organization in the townships...
...Klerk, moreover, has expressed ambivalence when Zulu war parties known as impis have paraded provocatively through township streets carrying spears and other so-called cultural weapons. Professor David Welsh of the University of Cape Town believes the government is guilty of "gross negligence" for having all but ignored repeated recommendations that could have prevented the Boipatong massacre, such as maintaining police surveillance of migrant-worker hostels...
While it has made similar threats before, the A.N.C. decided to break off negotiations this time because the Boipatong massacre came amid indications that De Klerk was beginning to drag his feet on ceding full-fledged democracy. He started to take a harder line immediately following the March referendum in which white voters overwhelmingly endorsed his reform program. In May, Round 2 of CODESA ended in failure largely because De Klerk's negotiators adamantly insisted on powerful checks and balances amounting to an effective white veto in a future political system. De Klerk seemed to be turning his back...