For the past 15 months, Goldstone has headed a five-member judicial commission probing the causes of political violence. His panel has censured the government and its security forces, the ANC and the rival, Zulu-led Inkatha Freedom Party. “To a greater or lesser extent, all the major players in South Africa have dirty hands,” Goldstone says. “In a highly political field, we are the only nonplayers. Whatever the facts turn out to be, we make them public regardless of the consequences.”
The consequences include raised hackles just about everywhere. The commission and its subcommittees have issued 18 reports on violent incidents. Goldstone angered Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi by concluding that some of the hostels housing migrant Zulu workers have become a focal point for trouble. He dismissed ANC claims that a “third force” of active and retired security personnel was stirring up violence in black townships. His biggest coup came last November, when the panel’s investigators raided a military-intelligence office in Pretoria and seized files detailing plans to smear members of the ANC’s military wing with the help of prostitutes, homosexuals and a convicted murderer. The government accused Goldstone of making “wild statements.” But the scandal forced de Klerk to dismiss 16 senior officers and suspend seven others, the biggest military shake-up in 70 years.
When de Klerk picked him to head the commission in 1991, Goldstone had a reputation as a jurist who is sensitive to human rights but not a knee-jerk liberal. His critics say his evenhandedness is all too calculating. “He plays more a political than a judicial game,” charges Anton Harber, coeditor of the Weekly Mail, a muckraking newspaper that has been censured by the judge for relying on “untruthful” sources in its coverage of political violence. “When he makes a ruling, he’s made an assessment of just how far he can push some leader or organization without having them blow up at him. It’s a dangerous political game for a judge to play.” His critics say the objective of the judge’s political gamesmanship is to make him chief justice of the new South Africa.
Goldstone freely acknowledges that “any judge of appeal would have an ambition to be chief justice.” He insists that he never tailors his reports for political reasons. “One is obviously not operating in a vacuum, and I am conscious of the political environment,” he says. “But there’s never been any conscious attempt to be evenhanded in criticism. That has never dictated what we report.” For many South Africans, those reports are one of the few sources of honest and impartial judgments on their government and political parties. These are uncertain times in South Africa; what is widely expected to be the last parliament of the apartheid era began its deliberations last week with a warning from de Klerk that “a devastating war will ensue” if the transition to majority rule falters. With public trust in short supply, Goldstone and his commission could play a vital role in that delicate process.
