Whites denounced the law creating the commission and the anti-apartheid
background of most of its members. Then, as African victims poured out
accounts of their sufferings, most Whites bitterly opposed the entire
process. This grew to a crescendo of hatred in the Afrikaans press after the
commission cross-examined de Klerk and granted amnesty to the thirty-
seven ANC leaders. When the TRC held hearings in Afrikaner strongholds
like Ladybrand in the Orange Free State, residents insulted the commis-
sioners and refused to serve black members in the restaurants or threw
them out. 4 3 Moreover, one of the two Afrikaner commissioners resigned,
and although the other signed the TRC report, he attached a dissenting
minority report.f" Many Africans, too, were outraged that the TRC criti-
cized crimes committed by the liberation forces as severely as apartheid
crimes.P
Before its report was published, the TRC, in accordance with its legal
obligations, sent summaries of its findings to two hundred individuals and
organizations it had criticized. Their reactions were unanimously hostile.
De Klerk demanded changes in the findings against him, and when the TRC
refused, he obtained an interdict from the Cape provincial division of the