Former President P.W. Botha yesterday scuppered hopes of a deal with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which would have averted his trial on charges of defying a subpoena to appear before the commission.
In doing so Mr Botha reportedly rejected the advice of his lawyers, who had been locked in urgent discussions with counsel for the TRC in an 11th hour bid to reach an agreement before 8.30 a.m. yesterday, the deadline set by the Attorney General.
The compromise which lawyers were working towards was for Mr Botha to answer questions at a closed TRC hearing in George, near his retirement home, instead of at a public hearing in Cape Town.
But Mr Botha told reporters on his arrival yesterday at the Magistrate's Court in George: "I am not prepared to testify before the TRC. I am [only] prepared to have discussions with Mr Mandela and Dr Tutu."
Extrapolating from that statement, it seems Mr Botha, who has submitted a 1,700-page written deposition to the TRC in reply to its written questions, hoped private discussions with President Nelson Mandela and TRC chairman, Dr Desmond Tutu, would form the basis of a deal.
Not even a further postponement of the start of the trial for an hour enabled Mr Botha's lawyers to persuade him to modify his stance. The trial (which could, theoretically, result in the imprisonment of the octogenarian former president) eventually started after 11 a.m. local time.
Speaking just after that, Archbishop Tutu said: "I'm very deeply distressed because yesterday we were close to an agreement. We want to bed thinking a deal was on the cards. It has not turned out that way at all." The TRC legal adviser, Mr Jeremy Gauntlett, had earlier said: "He [Mr Botha] has repudiated everything we've been talking about."
Mr Botha, who has described the TRC as "a circus" and accused it of trying to break the morale of the Afrikaner people, struck a defiant note minutes before the start of the trial: "Even if they destroy me, they cannot destroy my soul and my convictions," he said.
The only witness at yesterday's court hearing was the TRC executive secretary, Mr Paul van Zyl. He told the court the TRC had originally agreed that Mr Botha could provide written replies to questions. But, he added, after the TRC acquired access to the minutes of the State Security Council - which Mr Botha headed and which planned the counter-revolutionary strategy against the ANC-led rebellion - there were suspicions the council might have authorised the violation of human rights, which the TRC is legally bound to investigate.
Minutes of State Security Council meetings documented orders to "eliminate" and "neutralise" black activists.
The TRC wanted to question Mr Botha on another issue after it received an amnesty application from former Law and Order Minister, Mr Adriaan Vlok. In his application Mr Vlok stated Mr Botha had authorised him to bomb the headquarters of the SA Council of Churches in the 1980s.