FOR the second time in less than a week, the police officer investigating the rape of an ANC deputy was replaced yesterday amid vociferous criticism of the police by her ANC colleagues for "re-victimising the victim".
After Ms Nomboniso Gaza, wife of the ANC's Mr Raymond Suttner, reported that she had been raped on Robben Island last Monday night, a constable was assigned to investigate the case. He was replaced by a police captain after he was accused of insensitivity and incompetence by Ms Gaza's parliamentary peers.
Yesterday, the captain was relieved of his assignment after it was disclosed that he had been accused but acquitted of raping a 13-year-old girl in 1991. The officer was later found guilty of misconduct by an internal police inquiry.
The Police Commissioner, Mr George Fivaz, ruled that it would be "grossly insensitive" to allow the captain to continue. A police woman of the same rank was appointed to replace him.
In another development, South Africa's Truth Commission - whose raison d'etre is to heal the wounds of past conflict and promote racial reconciliation - is itself said to infected with racial tensions.
Reports of such tensions, highlighted in a front-page article in the Johannesburg Star, have led, the commission chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu (65), to issue a statement from his sick bed.
The prelate, who is recovering from surgery to remove a malignant prostate gland, repudiated claims that a "clique of white liberals", spearheaded by the commission's deputy chairman, Dr Alex Boraine, has marginalised black commission members.
"Anyone who knows me is aware that I am not a person to be, manipulated by cliques," the former Primate of the Anglican Church said. "Dr Alex Boraine consults closely with me on what he is doing. He does not take decisions ... without discussing them with me".