The former South African foreign minister, Mr Pik Botha, yesterday acknowledged that he suspected police of torturing and killing anti-apartheid activists under South Africa's white minority government. But, in testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Mr Botha, who served as foreign minister under three National Party leaders from 1977 to 1994, denied that the cabinet had ever approved the murder of political activists.
Implicitly admitting that he had turned a blind eye and deaf ear to charges that the police were implicated in covert killings, Mr Botha (65) said: "I could have and should have done more to find out whether the accusations that government institutions were killing and torturing political opponents were true."
Mr Botha, a man known for his oratorical and theatrical talents, added after his denial that the police were acting with explicit government approval: "The decisive question is not whether we as a cabinet approved the killing of a specific opponent.
"The question is whether we should have done more to insure that it did not happen. I deeply regret the omission. May God forgive me."
In another startling admission, Mr Botha, who has quit the political arena for a career in business, told the TRC that the 1986 Commonwealth mission to South Africa by the Eminent Persons' Group nearly brokered a peaceful settlement.
It was thwarted when, during their visit, the military launched simultaneous air attacks on three neighbouring capitals, Harare in Zimbabwe, Lusaka in Zambia and Gabarone in Botswana, Mr Botha said.
It "was the greatest disappointment in my 17-year career as minister of foreign affairs. It could and would have saved South Africa a lot of pain, a lot of wounds, a lot of agony," Mr Botha said.
Mr Botha - who as a young parliamentarian earned the reputation as a verligte, or enlightened person, after a speech in which he declared that he was not prepared to die for the maintenance of "petty apartheid" - was questioned about the State Security Council or SSC and the use in official documents considered by the council of the terms "eliminate" and "neutralise".
The SSC acquired particular prominence under the presidency of P. W. Botha and was thought to represent the apex of what was termed rule by "securocrats". In the paradigm of the time, the SSC was seen as a "super cabinet" and the actual cabinet as a subordinate institution which rubber-stamped its decisions.
Mr Botha disagreed with that view of the SSC: "Too much has been attributed to the SSC. More power was given to the ministers. The cabinet was the government."
On the terms "neutralise" and "eliminate," Mr Botha argued that when applied to internal - as distinct from cross-border raids - they could well have meant detention without trial rather than murder. But applied to "hot pursuit" operations against guerrillas they might have been euphemisms for literally wiping out the enemy.
His revelations go beyond those by former president, Mr F. W. de Klerk, who apologised in May for apartheid suffering, but denied knowledge of murders or other abuses committed by the police or military.
In a separate development yesterday, President Mandela agreed after meeting a delegation of farmers to deploy special police units to curb continuing attacks on farmsteads, especially in the Free State.