THEPOLITICALTRANSITION
idency.Elements in the police, the army, and the security forces continued
to kidnap, torture, and assassinate political opponents. De Klerk always
denied that his government was behind the violence and insisted that he
did everything he could to stop it; but Mandela came to the conclusion
that a government-related Third Force was responsible for extensive at-
tacks on ANC supporters, and his trust in de Klerk evaporated.P News of
the abuses began to appear in the press in July 1991, and over the next
three years a commission headed byJudge Richard Goldstone issued a se-
ries of reports increasingly critical of government agencies. However, the
full extent of the criminal activities was not revealed until after the change
of regime, when Mandela appointed a Truth and Reconciliation Commis-
sion, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.26 In 1998, after three years'
work and thousands of interviews the commission reported that "a net-
work of security and ex-security force operatives ...
fomented, initiated,
facilitated and engaged in violence, which resulted in gross violations of
human rights, including random and targeted killings.V?
The KwaZulu Homeland and the province of Natai, which included