Two Plead Guilty in '89 Case in S. Africa

Apartheid-Era Officials Who Tried to Kill Opponent Receive Suspended Sentences

JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 17 -- Two of the apartheid era's most visible faces of government repression pleaded guilty Friday to attempting to assassinate an opponent in 1989 but received suspended sentences under a deal made with prosecutors.

Former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok and former police chief Johannes van der Merwe entered their pleas in the Pretoria High Court along with three lower-ranking policemen.

The men were charged with attempting to kill cleric Frank Chikane, then a leading anti-apartheid figure, by lacing his underwear with poison during a trip to the United States. He became violently ill but survived the incident.

Chikane, now a top adviser to President Thabo Mbeki, welcomed the plea bargain. "I'm pleased that this thing is over and that we can move forward," Chikane said, according to the South African Press Association.

Apartheid ended in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was elected president and the African National Congress took power.

Hundreds of apartheid-era criminals won amnesty from the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which encouraged people who had committed atrocities to reveal their misdeeds in exchange for protection against prosecution. Vlok was among those who received amnesty, but because he did not specifically confess to the attempted assassination of Chikane, he remained vulnerable to prosecution.

The five convicted men issued a statement saying they had wanted to acknowledge their roles in the assassination attempt sooner.

"After the commencement of the Truth and Reconciliation process and the amnesty trials, we were prepared to apply for amnesty in this case," the statement said, according to news reports. "However, as is clearly revealed in the plea agreement, we were only in possession of limited information and, as the S.A. Defense Force emphatically refused to take part in the process, there was no conceivable way in which we were able to reveal all the facts."

The commission, which was headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the mid-1990s, is regarded as an international model for societies attempting to overcome legacies of violence and repression. But it also left many South Africans feeling as though their oppressors had escaped punishment.

Yet despite demonstrations outside the courtroom Friday, many South Africans said they were pleased the case had been resolved, even if Vlok and the others managed to avoid prison.

"It was all symbolic politics," said political analyst Xolela Mangcu, speaking from Cape Town. "It's impractical for us to be sending all of these people to jail."

A group representing civilian victims of violence perpetrated by anti-apartheid activists said the plea bargain should allow investigations to go forward against former African National Congress militants as well.

Many South Africans saw the case against Vlok as a signal that those who refused to confess to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission would face prosecution. Vlok, who has undergone a religious conversion, gained even more prominence because of a public act of repentance last year, when he apologized to Chikane and washed his feet.