TRC TO HIGHLIGHT CROSS BORDER RAIDS

THE role of former apartheid president PW Botha in bloody cross-border police raids is likely to come under the spotlight in the next few days as a truth commission hearing into a 1985 ambush in Lesotho enters its second week. Former police death squad leader Eugene de Kock is due to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about the raid, in which eight African National Congress militants and three Lesotho nationals were killed. His testimony is expected to be supported by former police chief General Johan Coetzee — also expected to testify this week — who in his application for amnesty to the TRC said the raid had indeed been discussed by the state security council.