Evidence of political killings opens trial

GEORGE, South Africa - The politically charged trial of former president Pieter W. Botha on contempt charges opened yesterday with evidence aired for the first time in a South African court that the apartheid-era leader authorized assassination as part of his government's campaign to preserve white rule.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed a litany of statements lifted from minutes of the apartheid-era State Security Council, which Botha headed, that outlined a comprehensive state policy to "eliminate" or "neutralize" opponents of the white-minority government. Though Botha's lawyer objected to attempts to affix meaning to those terms, Paul van Zyl, the executive secretary of the truth commission and the first witness in the case, said high-level security officials have given statements to the commission that the words used by their political bosses were direct orders to kill.

The State Security Council minutes formed the basis of the subpoenas that the truth commission issued to Botha last year in an effort to get him to account for his government's policy. Thousands of blacks and other opponents of apartheid were jailed, murdered or killed in riots and clashes with police during the unrest that swept South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.

But Botha, who has called the truth-seeking process a "witchhunt" and a "circus," refused to obey the subpoenas, though he did submit a 1,700-page document answering a series of written questions from the commission. For disobeying the subpoenas, the commission filed charges of contempt against Botha. Attempts to cut a deal to avert the trial forced a delay of Tuesday's scheduled opening, but ultimately failed.

Botha, who was prime minister and then president from 1978 until 1989, is the only apartheid-era head of state to stand trial. Though in poor health since suffering a stroke in 1989 and seated in court on a special cushion because of a hip replacement last year, he has lived up to the name conferred upon him - "Great Crocodile" - because of his combative style of leadership during the days of white-minority rule. Yesterday, with only a half-dozen supporters in the courtroom and with his once-powerful Afrikaner people now out of power, he sounded like a man making a quixotic last stand.

"Even if they destroy me, they cannot destroy my soul and my convictions," he declared as he chatted with reporters during a break.

The Botha trial assumed a political focus yesterday as the prosecution led van Zyl in a line of questioning that cut to the core of whether Botha is accountable for the brutal repression that gripped South Africa in the 1980s.

04-16-98