Now, following our dirty tricks revelations last week,=20 we begin the search for the wonderful, mystical line=20 that separates what former president FW de Klerk knew=20 from what he didn’t know. Judging by his seven-page=20 statement this week, he has a simple answer: everything=20 legal he knew about and will take responsibility for;=20 and everything illegal he didn’t know about, and has no=20 need to take responsibility for. Neat, isn’t it?
There are gaping holes in his argument. The first is=20 that the National Party government had, during its=20 tenure, purposefully blurred the distinction between=20 the legal and the illegal. The rule of law was=20 undermined and, as our informant Paul Erasmus, has made=20 clear, security forces were given carte blanche to=20 break the law as long as their activities were aimed at=20 De Klerk’s enemies (see PAGES 6-8).
For De Klerk to claim ignorance of these illegal=20 activities is ludicrous. They were, after all, often=20 reported in the media. One did not have to sit on the=20 state security council to know about them. In fact, one=20 can ask De Klerk why, if this behaviour was never=20 discussed in the council, as he suggests, he didn’t=20 raise a matter of the kind a security body would need=20 to deal with.
De Klerk claims his record proves that he was the=20 person who dismantled the machinery responsible for=20 illegal actions and did everything possible to prevent=20 it after Mandela’s release. He also asks why he would=20 want to support actions that worked against everything=20 he had tried to do since February 1990.
This is a disingenuous attempt to rewrite history. De=20 Klerk’s strategy in 1990, powerfully illustrated in the=20 current television series The Death of Apartheid, was=20 to unban the ANC, but use his powerful and covert state=20 machinery to ensure it did not win an election.=20 Erasmus’ Stratcom training in “dirty tricks” started=20 six months after Mandela’s release. He was involved in=20 bugging ANC and PAC meetings some 30 months afterwards.
De Klerk did undertake various smokescreen attempts to=20 disguise this, such as setting up the most famous=20 cover-up, the Harms Commission, and the ending of=20 finance for front companies involved in these dirty=20 tricks. But he did not stop the activities of these=20 fronts — he merely stopped official contact with them.
The line, therefore, between what De Klerk can or=20 cannot accept responsibility for exists almost entirely=20 in his own head.
But, listen carefully. In the distance, you can hear a=20 “cluck, cluck”. That is the sound of chickens coming=20 home to roost. There can be little doubt that, with the=20 Truth Commission and the revelations of people like=20 Erasmus, De Klerk is going to have to account for his=20 dirty past.
At last.