KADER ASMAL, former chairman of the Irish Anti Apartheid Movement and now Minister of Water Affairs in Nelson Mandela's cabinet, faces a defamation action for allegedly describing a political opponent as a "baboon".
A Johannesburg lawyer, Mr Richard Nesbitt, told The Irish Times last night that he had been instructed by Mr Lucas Mangope, leader of the United Christian Democratic Party, to sue Mr Asmal. The pending action arises from a televised programme in which Mr Asmal is alleged to have labelled Mr Mangope a "baboon" during a ceremony marking the opening of a new water point in the Winterveld, a vast settlement area north of Pretoria.
Mr Nesbitt said: "Chief Mangope saw the programme and heard Mr Asmal's remark. So did his friends and members of his family and political party."
Mr Asmal's spokesperson, Ms Themba Khumalo, said: "Minister Asmal has read about the defamation action. But he has not received any official communication, either from Mr Mangope or his lawyer. Until he does, he cannot comment.
Mr Mangope is the former president of Bophuthatswana, one of the four nominally independent tribally based polities established under the previous government's policy of separate development or, as it is more widely known, apartheid. He was deposed as president when the South African government formally dissolved Bophuthatswana on the eve of South Africa's first non racial general election in April 1994. The immediate cause of the dissolution of Bophuthatswana - perhaps the most successful of the four nominally independent states - was a rebellion against Mr Mangope's government which threatened to engulf the statelet in anarchy.
Mr Mangope has since been accused of enriching himself at the expense of the people over whom he ruled with an iron hand. The accusation, levelled by a commission of inquiry appointed by the ANC controlled provincial government which replaced the Bophuthatswana administration, is linked to pending legal action against Mr Mangope to recover 18 million rand (£2.75 million) he purportedly embezzled.
. The judge in the trial of a former defence minister, Gen Magnus Malan, and several high ranking security officers under the previous government will give his decision today on a defence application to dismiss the multi murder charges against the accused.
The men have been charged with responsibility for a massacre in KwaMakhuta, near Durban, of 13 civilians as part of a covert war waged against the ANC and its allies.
De fence counsel contended last week that the state had failed to establish that there was a case to answer.
Judge Jan Hugo was originally due to give his decision last Friday, but deferred it until today.