FPA Analysis on The Vlok Trial: Self-Indulgence Alert

The Foreign Policy Association has published another of my Great Decisions Analysis pieces. "The Vlok Trial and a Reconciliation With the Truth" looks at the recent criminal proceedings against Adriaan Vlok, South Africa's Minister of Law and Order in the 1980s, and four other members of the security apparatus for a bizarre attempted murder that involved the attempted poisoning of the underwear of anti-Apartheid cleric Frank Chikane in hopes of killing him with neuro-toxins.

The case involves the intersection of my two main areas of interest in South Africa: the state response to the anti-Apartheid movement in the 1980s and the post-Apartheid push for truth, reconciliation, and justice. Almost literally as the piece was posted, it was announced that Vlok pleaded guilty along with his co-accused. By working out a deal, Vlok was able to avoid jail time, though he did receive a ten-year suspended sentence and one assumes that these may not be the last charges he sees.

(Crossposted at the South Africa Blog.)