Dirty tricks and de Klerk

Deputy President F.W. de Klerk has provided a reasonably credible alibi in response to charges that he ordered, or knew about, security force "dirty tricks" during the last four years of his presidency. His argument is that covert projects were restricted to a minimum and subject to Cabinet control; any abuse was the work of elements lower down the security hierarchy promoting "their own political and even criminal agendas".

No direct evidence has been led to indicate the direct complicity of National Party leaders after 1990, and claims to the contrary by tainted operatives must be treated with the greatest circumspection, given their strong motive for passing the buck.

That security force diehards did set out to derail constitutional talks and the transfer of power to the ANC can hardly be doubted. However, although they represent a misuse of state resources, non-violent programs of the State Security Council's intelligence wing -- including the launch of an anti- ANC party -- are not the main issue.

At the center of the conspiracy appear to have been the former (covert operations) officers and other security force members. They could not accept the likely accession to power of the ANC, which they had spent their professional lives fighting, and the impending destruction of the security force monolith which had given them so much personal power.

Promotion of violence was their chosen strategy. The Goldstone report published last week, referring to the movement of arms from Namibia to Inkatha before the election and the deployment of Inkatha fighters in Johannesburg, hints at their role.

That de Klerk should have been involved in their activities strains belief. The NP strove to control the negotiating process, and through it entrench itself in power. Why would it consciously place the talks in jeopardy? How could it reasonably expect to manage large-scale upheavals in such a way that its own supporters were insulated? Would it really have courted outright civil war and economic collapse when the unbanning of the ANC and the initiation of negotiations were specifically designed to avert this?

De Klerk, however, has other questions to answer. The Goldstone report points to the complicity of senior police officers. The fact that high-level corruption was not detected and rooted out earlier points to abject failure on his government's part.

Despite persistent claims of third force spoiling, and a suggestive pattern of violence which peaked at key stages of the talks, he moved against renegades in the security forces only when driven to do so by the Goldstone Commission. His refusal to believe that his negotiation efforts were being undermined from within by elements in the security establishment he commanded continues to have repercussions today in the violence and instability which, even now, threaten the country's prosperity. De Klerk may not have known what his policemen were doing. But as head of state and the State Security Council, he should have made it his business to know.

-- Business Day, Johannesburg