'Crocodile' Rocked

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CAPE TOWN: The "great crocodile" appears to have caught himself in a trap of his own making. In choosing to hang tough and reject a deal allowing secret testimony to South Africa's Truth Commission, former president P.W. Botha found himself defending a contempt of court case that will likely cover the same ground. "In the end, Botha's simply doing it the hard way," says TIME Johannesburg bureau chief Peter Hawthorne. "The commission will present all the evidence against him in order to explain why he was subpoenaed, and Botha will have to respond to that evidence. But the result of his stubbornness is that he has to do it in court, when the Truth Commission were offering him a private hearing." His defiance, however, isn't surprising -- Botha is one of the few leaders of the old regime who hasn't bothered to shed crocodile tears over apartheid.