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- THE WEEK, Page 14WORLDComing Clean?
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- The government and the A.N.C. deal with the uses and abuses
- of power
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- The charge of "Violence foe the sake of violence" brought by
- an African National Congress commission of inquiry was not the
- familiar litany of human-rights abuses aimed at the usual
- target, the South African government. Instead the report
- detailed violence and torture within the A.N.C. itself. The
- inquiry was ordered by A.N.C. president Nelson Mandela to settle
- allegations by former detainees of atrocities committed against
- them by the A.N.C.'s security department in its detention camps.
- Conceding that the abuses had violated the A.N.C.'s own code of
- conduct, Mandela promised the report would be considered "as a
- matter of grave urgency."
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- While the A.N.C. was admitting its abuse of power, South
- African President F.W. de Klerk was pushing a bill through
- Parliament that would allow unelected persons to be appointed
- to the Cabinet, opening the way for blacks in the government for
- the first time. But De Klerk had less success with a law giving
- amnesty for undetailed politically motivated crimes. The bill
- was vetoed by opposition M.P.s. De Klerk could still railroad
- the bill through his President's council, circumventing
- Parliament. But that, said the a.n.c., would only demonstrate
- his desperation to cover up the crimes of apartheid.
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