Honest apologies for political and human rights wrongdoing are rare enough in today's world to merit attention and applause, especially if they have to do with a conflict so bitter and prolonged as that between supporters and opponents of apartheid in South Africa. Mr F. W. de Klerk's apology to the Truth Commission on behalf of his party and government colleagues yesterday was the most forthright and clearcut he has issued, as was immediately acknowledged by Archbishop Tutu, the chairman.
Such an approach is precisely what is required to bolster the political purpose of the commission, which is designed to provide a platform for reconciliation and amnesty of those who committed gross violations of human rights during the struggle over apartheid. Mr de Klerk gave a thorough going account of how his party came to adopt such mistaken policies. He recalled the racist ideologies that supported and justified colonialism in Africa, predicated on the supposed inability of indigenous peoples to rule themselves, which his party inherited; he admitted that the homelands policy was built upon territories altogether too poor and marginal to sustain any autonomous development, and that they never enjoyed popular support and he accepted responsibility as president for violations committed in his government's name, even though they were not specifically decided upon by his cabinet.
Mr de Klerk also sought to put his party's record in the context of a "total war" between capitalist South Africa and the revolutionary onslaught mounted against it by the African National Congress and its Communist Party allies. He insisted that human rights violations were committed by his opponents as well, as by agents of his own regime. And he voiced a suspicion that members of the security forces who were against his own change of policy towards the conflict had their own motives to run an independent repression directed against the transformation process.
These qualifications allowed Mr de Klerk to claim with justice and considerable honour at the end of his submission, that "the transformation process belongs to us all". His statement yesterday is fully in keeping with the spirit of reconciliation that has guided the changes in South Africa over the last six years. it is also a shrewd move for a party that must attract substantial black support if it is to stand any chance of returning to power at the next elections. Recent policy drift and uncertainty in Mr Mandela's government over the crime wave and vigilante groups, dubious party funding and economic and industrial relations policy, have revealed that there is much that an effective political opposition can get its teeth into.
The ANC has to realise that the admirable commitment to the creation of a strong civil society and due legal process in South Africa's constitution needs to be matched by a greater humility when ii makes mistakes, as it inevitably must. Apologies car work both ways in such a political system. As mane more South Africans come to realise how painfully slow changes can be, there is a greater need to avoid the impression that the benefits of office flow only to those in power.