As the mammoth report by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was handed to President Nelson Mandela yesterday, two questions competed with the drama of the occasion.

One was whether the TRC's monumental five-volume report on the conflict which nearly tore South Africa apart would advance the cause of reconciliation in a still divided country. Another, not totally separate question, was why the African National Congress had sought a last-minute court interdict - rejected by Judge Wilfred Thring only hours before the handing-over ceremony - to prevent publication of the report.

On the first question it was hard to be positive. The TRC began its life in December 1995 amid controversy over the perceived pro-black nationalist (or anti-Afrikaner) bias of the 17 commissioners. Its penultimate act, the handing over of the report, was similarly mired in controversy, signalled by urgent applications from former president F.W. de Klerk and, more significantly, the ANC seeking to impede release of the report.

Mr de Klerk, a joint winner with Mr Mandela of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993, was partially successful. The TRC agreed to excise its finding that he was an "accessory after the fact" to state-sanctioned bombings in the 1980s, subject to an important rider: if the court finds in its favour, it will reinstate the finding in a special codicil. The ANC was unsuccessful. The judge rejected its application in a hearing which started before dawn yesterday. But the ANC left no doubt that it thought it had been unfairly treated, accusing the TRC of "criminalising" the liberation struggle by finding that it had committed human rights abuses in its quest to topple the apartheid state.

The controversy fuelled by the objections from Mr de Klerk and the ANC was underlined by the Afrikaner-led National Party and the Freedom Front, which boycotted the handing-over ceremony to symbolise their dissatisfaction.

The Inkatha Freedom Party was vocal in its opposition to the TRC report. It accused the TRC of reaching the "preposterous" conclusion that its leaders had formed self-protection units to sabotage the watershed election of 1994, which gave black citizens the same franchise rights as their white compatriots.

The only political party of note which was not dissatisfied was the Democratic Party, which won less than 2 per cent of the vote in 1994 but which has since picked up support, mainly at the expense of the National Party. But during the period which the TRC was mandated to review, 1960 to 1994, the Democratic Party and its precursors were seldom at the cutting edge of the struggle. As radicals on the right and left of the political spectrum put it, their hands were unbloodied because they kept clear of the often bloody struggle.

Even President Mandela allowed a note of reservation to enter his acceptance speech when he said: "I accept the report as it is with all its imperfections, as an aid that the TRC has given us to help reconcile and build our nation." It implied that a start had been made but that a long journey lay ahead. The TRC chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, another former Nobel Peace Prize-winner, reflected the divisive acrimony surrounding the quarrel which led to the ANC court application. "I did not (fight against apartheid tyranny) just to see it replaced by another tyranny," he said.

"I will fight against tyranny with every fibre of my body." The question of why the ANC applied for a court interdict presented a conundrum to journalists who have followed the TRC process closely. Many of the human rights abuses reported by the TRC had already been identified by commissions of inquiry appointed by the ANC itself. By objecting to the TRC report, the ANC merely ensured that the abuses became a major focus of media attention. The ANC's response was classically counter-productive, particularly as the TRC report specifically acknowledged:

that apartheid was a crime against humanity;

that resistance to it, including armed resistance, was justified; and

that - most importantly - the ANC, unlike the Pan-Africanist Congress and the apartheid state, was a signatory to the Geneva Convention and that it strove to contain its liberation war within the parameters of those conventions.

One explanation is that the ANC was badly advised, that its legal advisers erred seriously by advocating a course of action which led to legal defeat and political embarrassment.

The ANC argued in its court application that the TRC had not given it an opportunity to present its case against the adverse findings orally. But the TRC counter-argued - and its position was seemingly upheld by the judge - that the ANC was given the right to reply in writing but failed to meet both the original deadline and later deadlines. If the ANC believed it would be afforded the opportunity to present its case orally when that right had earlier been denied to other aggrieved parties, it was acting on the assumption that the TRC would give it preferential treatment.

It was a costly mistake, one which underlined the integrity of the TRC. As TRC spokespeople pointedly noted, every organisation or individual implicated in human rights abuses had been specifically informed that they could make written, not oral, representations. The ANC had been similarly informed but failed to submit written representations in time and then expected to be treated like a favoured son. When its entreaties were rejected it sought redress from the courts, only to be rebuffed.