Mandela's old nemesis warns of disaster
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Johannesburg
The world's most famous former jailbird, Nelson Mandela, and his ex-jailer, PW Botha, met yesterday for a "frank" exchange of views of right-wing threats and the state of government in South Africa.
The meeting at the south coast resort town of The Wilderness was called by President Mandela to discuss the impending trial of a former defence minister, Magnus Malan, and 10 other officers for 13 apartheid-era murders. Their arrest has angered conservative whites who have accused Mr Mandela of launching a "witch-hunt" against former rulers.
"If General Malan ... and others are prosecuted in a wrong way, then things can lead to disaster and I want to stop that road to disaster," Mr Botha said yesterday.
Mr Mandela said the men were indicted by an independent judiciary, not by the government. He rejected the former president's request to call a moratorium on prosecutions of apartheid-era leaders until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been established next year. The commission has the power to hear and grant amnesty for old regime crimes
Asked about whether he planned to appear before the body, Mr Botha replied: "I am not going to the Truth Commission. I am not going to repent. I am not going to ask for favours. What I did, I did for my country, for my God, for my people and for all the people of South Africa."
Mr Mandela had visited Mr Botha several times before but yesterday's meeting was his first public encounter with the man who refused to release him from political imprisonment that lasted 27 years until 1990.
The President listened to his erstwhile nemesis lecture him about the Afrikaner commitment to freedom and the dangers of waking the "tiger" of black and white nationalism. He also told Mr Mandela to "stop the rot" he believes has set in since white rule ended last year.
Mr Botha commended Mr Mandela for looking after Tuynhuis, the presidential office in Cape Town, but went on to attack the importation of foreign ideas. "I said to the President, you cannot in South Africa succeed by transplanting an American system of government and that is what we are having today.
"I believe that this present confused situation will destroy the President himself if he doesn't take care of the wrong directions certain people are taking."
Mr Mandela responded with a homily on the need for reconciliation and a warning that "the masses of South Africa's people ... will pick up stones to bring down bombers" in defence of the freedom they won in last year's elections.
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