CONTROVERSY surrounding South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has intensified with the decision by the National Party to seek redress in the court against its alleged bias.
Conceived to promote reconciliation through the truth, the TRC is increasingly under attack for promoting the cause of the ruling African National Congress and delaying rather than fostering the healing of psychological wounds incurred during past conflict.
The decision of the National Party under the former president, Mr F.W. de Klerk, to apply to the High Court follows the TRC refusal to accede to demands for an apology from its chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the resignation of his deputy, Dr Alex Boraine. The court hearing - triggered by Archbishop Tutu's expression of regret and Dr Boraine's statement of incredulity at Mr De Klerk's denial of responsibility for atrocities committed against anti apartheid activists by security forces - will be heard on August 26th.
The application is for a court injunction which would order the Anglican primate to refrain from making public statements which compromise the credibility and impartiality of the commission and dismissing Dr Boraine for contravening central tenets of the TRC's founding law.
The hearing is certain to add to the acrimonious debate on the TRC.
The National Party is not alone in protesting against its perceived lack of partiality similar accusations, though made from different political perspectives, emanate from Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party and Mr Mosibudi Mangena's Azanian People's Organisation, or Azapo.
Two pending events seem certain to add to the controversy the amnesty applications of Mr Dirk Coetzee, the former policeman who first exposed the existence of police death squads, and Clive Derby Lewis and Janus Walus, who are serving a life sentence for the assassination in April 1993 of the ANC and Communist Party leader Chris Hani.
Mr Coetzee is now an ANC member, having joined the organisation after his disclosures, which included his role in the 1981 murder of an ANC lawyer, Griffiths Mxenge. Following Mr Coetzee's conviction for the murder of Mr Mxenge, the ANC has assured the Mxenge family that it will expel him and oppose his application for amnesty.
On amnesty application by Derby Lewis and Walus, the ANC is demanding full details of the "wider conspiracy" behind Hani's assassination.