PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela yesterday extended the deadline for amnesty applications to the Truth Commission from midnight tonight to May 10th next.
The extension, announced by Mr Mandela after discussions with the deputy chairman of the Truth Commission, Dr Alex Boraine, and Freedom Front leader, Gen Constand Viljoen, was linked to another.
Under the law establishing the Truth Commission, amnesty cannot be granted for politically-motivated crimes committed after December 6th, 1993, the date on which the present interim or settlement constitution was adopted.
But, in response to requests from Dr Boraine and Gen Viljoen, as well as earlier representation from the commission chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mr Mandela agreed to advance that cut-off date to May 10th 1994 the day on which he was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically elected president.
Mr Mandela described his decision to accede to the requests to extend to the dates as "one of the most difficult" he has had to take in his career: he had made it because, on balance, he was persuaded that it would "consolidate nation-building and reconciliation" by making it more inclusive.
The primary beneficiaries of the extended expiry dates are the neo-fascist Afrikaner Resistance Movement or AWB, and - to a lesser extent - the militant Pan Africanist Congress, an off-shoot of African National Congress.
Several AWB were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment in April for their role in the murderous bombing campaign on the eve of the watershed non-racial elections of April 1994. They were not able to apply for amnesty because their actions, though politically-motivated, occurred after the December 6th, 1993, cut off.
Now, however, their actions fall within the revised prescribed period and they will have more than four months to prepare their applications, thanks to Mr Mandela's decision. Imprisoned zealots of the Pan-Africanist Congress will similarly benefit, including the three men convicted for a murderous attack on a pub in Cape Town in late December, 1993.