President who ended Apartheid dies at 85
A VIDEO apology for the grief caused by apartheid from former South Africa president FW de Klerk was released following his death yesterday at the age of 85.
De Klerk, who released Nelson Mandela from jail and oversaw the end of the hated racist regime, passed away at home in Cape Town after a battle with lung cancer.
Hours later, his office issued the prerecorded posthumous video expressing his remorse over the country’s brutal discriminatory system of white minority rule.
In the video, a gaunt-looking de Klerk says: “I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to black, brown and Indians in South Africa.”
South Africa’s last apartheid leader was head of state between September 1989 and May 1994.
Gasps
On February 2, 1990, he announced the release of anti-apartheid leader Mr Mandela, who had spent 27 years in captivity.
The decision led to multi-party polls in 1994. But de Klerk was to become hated both by white supremacists as a “traitor” and as a denier of crimes against humanity under the apartheid regime.
Just five months after he was elected – with South Africa’s isolation deepening and its economy deteriorating – Mr de Klerk also announced in the same historic 1990 speech the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid political groups.
Amid gasps, several members of parliament left the chamber as he spoke. But, just nine days later, Mr Mandela walked free.
Four years after that, the heroic figure was elected as the country’s first black president as black people voted for the first time.
By then, Mr de Klerk and Mr Mandela had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their often tense co-operation in moving South Africa away from institutionalised racism and towards democracy.
Tributes, tempered with criticism of his legacy, were paid around the world following the announcement of Mr de Klerk’s death yesterday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I am saddened by the death of FW de Clerk, a leader who changed the course of history by freeing Nelson Mandela and working alongside him to end apartheid and bring democracy to South Africa.”
The Nelson Mandela Foundation said the former president “will forever be linked to Nelson Mandela in the annals of South African history”. A statement said: “De Klerk’s legacy is a big one. It is also an uneven one, something South Africans are called to reckon with in this moment.”
This is believed to be in reference to de Klerk’s efforts to dismantle apartheid, but refusal to make a full accounting and reconciliation for controversial incidents that took place under the regime.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu also sent his condolences to Mr de Klerk’s family. But the Tutu Legacy
Foundation yesterday said Mr de Klerk had refused to acknowledge that apartheid was a crime against humanity.
A statement said: “It is sad that Mr de Klerk missed the many chances he had to fully reconcile with all South Africans by acknowledging the full extent of the damage caused by apartheid.”
‘A leader who changed the course of history by freeing Nelson Mandela’
Tyranny
Peter Hain, anti-apartheid campaigner and Labour cabinet minister, said: “FW de Klerk was to South Africa what Mikhail Gorbachev was to the Soviet Union – midwife from tyranny to a new politics.”
Mr de Klerk was born in March 1936 in Johannesburg, into a line of Afrikaner politicians. He worked as a lawyer and served in a series of ministerial posts before taking over from PW Botha as the head of the National Party in February 1989.
Last year, he became embroiled in a row in which he was accused of playing down the seriousness of apartheid. He later apologised for “quibbling” over the matter.
In the video yesterday, he added concern about his nation’s future, saying: “I’m deeply concerned about the undermining of many aspects of the constitution, which we perceive almost day to day.”
He is survived by wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan and his grandchildren.