The African National Congress carried out assassinations, car bombings and land-mine explosions in its fight against apartheid, President Nelson Mandela's ruling party admitted Monday.
But it said deaths and cases of torture resulted from the primitive nature of guerrilla warfare communications, not from ANC policy.The ANC said the violence occurred before white-minority rule ended in 1994. The admission was made to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is investigating apartheid-era abuses.
Top ANC officials - including Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Defense Minister Joe Modise and Justice Minister Dullah Omar - appeared before the commission Monday to answer questions.
Mbeki and Modise were among current and former Cabinet ministers who applied for amnesty for apartheid crimes by Saturday's deadline. Monday's hearings were not directly connected to those applications.
In all, about 40 members of the ANC leadership, excluding Man-dela, have applied. Mandela was in prison for most of the period the Truth Commission is covering.
The ANC tried Monday to put the violence into a political context, saying that civilians were never targeted but that it gradually accepted that such casualties were unavoidable.
"We have not attempted to argue that because our struggle was just, this fact justified . . . unacceptable methods of struggle," Mbeki said.
Officials said because of the group's loose, secret structure, field operatives often were not in direct communication with their commanders and were susceptible to committing abuses in the heat of battle. These included "neck-lacings" in which a gasoline-soaked tire was put around a person's neck and set afire.
The report was the ANC's second voluntary submission to the Truth Commission on the workings of anti-apartheid groups before the first all-race elections three years ago.
Formed by the current all-race government to promote reconciliation, the panel can grant amnesty to people who admit to having committed crimes deemed to be politically motivated.