Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

638 • STATE CO-OPTATIONintensified its police repression of antiapartheid activists, until 1994.The scope of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission included bothantistate terrorism by opponents of the former regime and state terrorperpetrated by the former South African regime and its allies. Theterms of the Commission allowed anyone who volunteered testimony,even of a self-incriminating nature, immunity from prosecution providedthat the testimony was complete and truthful. Later in the work ofthe Commission there would be controversy regarding whether or notremorse or contrition had to be presented in cases of self-incriminationfor immunity to be granted. Out of 6,441 petitions for amnesty, only849 were granted while 5,392 were refused. Other petitions of an originaltotal of 7,112 were either withdrawn or had become moot.The Commission’s 3,500-page report, issued on 28 October 1999,placed most of the blame for the disappearances and murders on theall-white apartheid regime. Nonetheless, it also found that the AfricanNational Congress, Winnie Mandela, the former wife of PresidentNelson Mandela, the Inkatha Freedom Party of the Zulu nation, andthe Afrikaner Resistance Movement, as well as numerous prominentpublic and private citizens of different racial backgrounds, had been involvedin various forms of terrorism and repression. The last presidentof the apartheid regime, F. W. de Klerk, was also cited as an accessoryafter the fact in the bombings of ANC institutions, which charge headamantly denied. When former South African president P. W. Botharefused to appear before the Commission, he received a fine and suspendedsentence, both of which were overturned on appeal. The familyof Steve Biko, an ANC activist allegedly murdered in police custodyduring the apartheid period, brought a lawsuit before the South AfricanSupreme Court in an unsuccessful attempt to have the Commissiondeclared unconstitutional and its amnesties overturned.Although in theory the work of the Truth Commission was intendedto clarify unsolved cases and to bring closure and healing toSouth Africa, many of the members of families of victims believedthat the testimony of former South African military and police officialswas selective, self-serving, and falsified and that the work of theCommission was incomplete and flawed. See also BOER ATTACKFORCE; UMKHONTO WE SIZWE.STATE CO-OPTATION. Discussion of state terrorism ordinarilyinvolves two main types: first, state terror in the form of internal