T he ghosts of the apartheid era have returned to stalk South Africa. There are fresh allegations that the country's last white president, FW de Klerk, was aware that police and army death squads systematically liquidated black activists in the final years of apartheid.
The most damaging claims against the Nobel peace prize winner emanate from the prison cell that houses Eugene de Kock, a former police colonel now serving a 212-year sentence for carrying out scores of assassinations and bombings. De Kock, whose reign of terror earned him the nickname 'Prime Evil', says he has new evidence which establishes that de Klerk (right) is "an unconvicted murderer".
The former president was swift to denounce de Kock's allegations. De Klerk implied he was the victim of a witch-hunt aimed at stripping him of |
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philip jacobson on claims that threaten to tarnish the reputation of South Africa’s last white president |
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the honour earned by the vital role he played alongside Nelson Mandela in securing a peaceful transition to black majority rule in 1994.
But reports in the South African media suggest that other former members of the apartheid regime's brutal security apparatus are preparing to challenge de Klerk's assertion that he was never briefed directly about the activities of the hit squads.
Speculation is growing that de Kock may be acting in concert with his old boss at the Ministry of Law and Order, a scary fanatic called Adriaan Vlok, to finger de Klerk.
Vlok was charged last month with the attempted murder of a prominent black cleric. Newspaper reports suggest that he wants to strike a deal with prosecutors by implicating de Klerk for authorising one particularly notorious death squad operation. It happened in 1993  |
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