JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The Truth and Reconciliation Commission ends its investigation of this nation's apartheid past tomorrow having produced horrifying truths and not much reconciliation.

The picture that emerged is shocking, revealing a system under which violence and wickedness were practically unrestrained.

The TRC commissioners have been confronted with horror, pathos, eloquence, amnesia, evasions and lies. First came the harrowing testimony of the victims. Then, the spine-chilling confessions of the perpetrators.

The commissioners have listened, sometimes in disbelief, other times near to tears, to accounts of absolute inhumanity and incredible fortitude.

They have seen a torturer demonstrate the "wet bag" method of extracting information by suffocation, taken testimony from a white assassin called "Prime Evil," heard a triple murderer beg forgiveness from the families of his victims, and listened to a widower demand, "A killer must be killed."

They have heard the confession of the Anglican Church that its neutrality during the apartheid era was "a major mistake," an acknowledgment from the business community that it could have done more to oppose the system, an admission of collusion from the media, and apologies from five attorneys general for implementing the race-based laws.

But, according to a poll published this week, most South Africans, black, white and of mixed race, believe that the testimony from 2,500 victims and perpetrators of gross human rights violations in the hope of reconciliation has actually worsened race relations here.

The poll published in the respected Business Day this week found that while 60 percent of blacks thought the commission hearings had been fair, almost the same percentage of whites viewed them as unfair.

Many whites are convinced the commission has been racially biased, focusing on the atrocities of government agents without balancing attention to the excesses of anti-apartheid activists.

Reacting to the poll, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC chairman, said in a radio interview here that the races could not be expected immediately to live together "happily ever after" following the ghastly revelations at nationwide hearings.

The commission could not itself bring about national reconciliation, he said, telling his audience: "Don't look for somebody else to be the one who is going to do the reconciliation.

"Each South African is going to have to say, 'What is the contribution I am going to be making to what will be a national project?' "

The poll findings reflect the almost impossible challenge faced by the commission, which was created in 1996. First was to lay the appalling past to rest by establishing as full a picture as possible of the pain of four decades of racial segregation and oppression.

In the process, perpetrators were offered amnesty in return for honesty and victims were offered modest financial reparation -- about $500 -- rather than revenge.

In the clinical setting of public hearing rooms around the country, weeping mothers and wives have learned how their sons and husbands were tortured and killed and their bodies disposed of, sometimes being fed to crocodiles.

Perhaps the most gruesome recollection was of a group of security officers enjoying an evening barbecue and a beer while on another blazing fire beside them the bodies of their victims were being burned.

It was a bizarre and cruel time when a baby's murder could be rationalized with the assertion that "a snake gives birth to a snake." It was a time when a political assassin could say, "There was nothing personal in the attack. If anything, it is an indication of the importance of the man."

At one of the TRC's most dramatic hearings, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of President Nelson Mandela, sat impassively for days as witness after witness placed her at the center of a web of torture and murder in the township of Soweto before she grudgingly bowed to an emotional appeal by Tutu to apologize for, if not admit to, the violence that swirled around her.

"Things went horribly wrong," she finally conceded.

Appropriately enough, the commission's last witness this week was perhaps its most chilling -- Wouter Basson, chief of the apartheid-era chemical weapons program. His projects included

efforts to produce a bacteria that would target only blacks, to develop a drug that would render black women infertile, and to poison Nelson Mandela before he was released from prison.

In his laboratories, scientists worked on snake venom injections, carcinogenic agents and the production of poison-laced clothes, all to be used in the service of the apartheid state.

"Many of the revelations have been far more gruesome than anyone could imagine," said John Allen, spokesman for the TRC. "It's no surprise that people are more angry after the commission than before it."

The result -- reconciliation, the creation of what Mandela likes to call "the rainbow nation" -- becomes more of a challenge than ever.

"The reason the TRC is necessary is to try to bring the country to some common understanding of its past, on which you can build a basis for its future," said Allen. "Otherwise you will end up like Northern Ireland and countries where communities have totally different understandings of history.

"It's ludicrous to say that the commission was going to bring about reconciliation. We can only lay the basis for it, which is truth."

But frequently even the truth has been hard to establish, particularly relating to the culpability of those in power during the years of violent struggle to overthrow the system of apartheid that the Afrikaner-dominated National Party imposed in 1948.

Only one apartheid-era Cabinet minister -- former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok -- has applied for amnesty from the commission, which has the power to repeal prison sentences or to prevent prosecution in return for a full confession of crimes that were politically motivated.

Vlok accused former state president P. W. Botha of directly ordering the bombing of the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches in Johannesburg, which was suspected of being a refuge for anti-apartheid activists.

Botha, who faces judgment Aug. 18 on a charge of contempt for refusing to testify to the commission, has denied any knowledge of human rights violations by security forces while he was defense minister, prime minister and president during most of the 1970s and 1980s.

He chose not to take the stand during his contempt trial and ignored an appeal by Tutu to make a public apology, leaving a big question mark over his involvement in, or knowledge of, the apartheid-era excesses -- just one of many gaps in the record collected by the TRC.

The TRC loses its power to subpoena witnesses tomorrow, ending its investigation. Its main task now is to write its final report, expected to be 3,000 pages, compiled into five volumes. It will assess the impact of the apartheid period and apportion blame for the horrors it spawned.

The commission has the power to recommend prosecution of those it believes are guilty of gross human rights violations who have not been granted amnesty. It is not known whether it will use the power.

Tutu is to present the final report to Mandela on Oct. 28.

In the meantime, the commission's amnesty process, which led this week to the freeing of four murderers who stoned and stabbed U.S. exchange student Amy Biehl to death in 1993, will continue.

More than 7,500 applied for amnesty, most of them common criminals chancing their luck on gaining freedom. All but 1,400 cases have been dealt with, either summarily or at hearings, and only 125 applicants have been granted amnesty.

Pub Date: 7/30/98