800 S African 'truth' row resolved

Desmond Tutu chaired the Truth Commission

By Alastair Leithead BBC, Cape Town

A dispute between South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the mainly-Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party has been resolved.

In an out-of-court settlement in Cape Town, the TRC has agreed to amend a number of sections which blamed the party for human rights abuses during the final years of apartheid.

The settlement now opens the way for the final report to be published and for victims of the apartheid era to receive compensation.

The TRC, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was set up to investigate human rights violations under apartheid, to advance reconciliation and reconstruction of a new South Africa.

Objections

Doctor Mangosutho Buthelezi and his Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) had questioned the findings of the report and a court case was due to begin on Wednesday to challenge 37 entries directly accusing both the IFP and Doctor Buthelezi of human rights abuses.

Buthelezi objects to amnesty

President Thabo Mbeki was due to be handed the final document last year, but the objections raised by Mr Buthelezi and the IFP had delayed is publication.

They were challenging 37 separate statements directly blaming he and his party for a series of human rights abuses in the years leading up to the collapse of apartheid.

The judge at Cape Town high court approved the settlement, which includes a number of changes of wording in the final report, although not all the concessions demanded by the court action.

And the addition of an appendix from Inkatha.

This would clearly state the party's objections to the whole amnesty process, which it has been opposed to since the public hearings accounts from victims and confessions began in 1996.

Thousands of people named in the report have been recommended for reparations - payments as compensation for the suffering they endured under apartheid.

These will progress with the publication of the final report.