Mandela Names Mixed-Race Panel To Investigate Apartheid Crimes

President Nelson Mandela named a commission Wednesday to investigate crimes committed under apartheid, a step considered crucial to achieving racial peace in South Africa.

The new Truth and Reconciliation Commission will gather evidence of apartheid-era crimes committed by government security forces and by anti-apartheid groups such as Mandela’s African National Congress. It also will recommend whether people who confess to crimes should receive amnesty.

Mandela chose a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to head the 17-member panel of seven blacks, six whites, two people of mixed race and two of Indian descent. Panel members are lawyers, doctors, social workers and ministers.

The panel is considered essential for resolving racial strife in South Africa, which had its first all-race election last year.

White former rulers, including Deputy President F.W. de Klerk of the National Party, fear the investigations will focus on white police and soldiers who killed and tortured blacks under the apartheid regime, instead of gathering evidence on crimes committed by both races.