South Africa's last white president
UNITED WITH MANDELA TO END APARTHEID
RESOLVE TO DO WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS RIGHT.
F.W. de Klerk, who has died aged 85, was South Africa's last white president, a dedicated Afrikaner nationalist who brought an end to apartheid and launched negotiations he knew would lead inevitably to black rule and his own fall from political power.
When De Klerk and Nelson Mandela, the African leader he had released after 27 years in prison, shook hands as they jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, South Africans, both black and white, were still reeling from the implications of a peaceful political transition that had been inconceivable a few years earlier.
De Klerk's own role in bringing about such a momentous change was overshadowed by Mandela's magnanimity and willingness to reconcile all races — qualities that transformed South Africa's first black leader into a revered international statesman.
But history will surely judge that the man who was a lifelong member of the National Party, the once all-powerful Afrikaner political group that had introduced apartheid, was also a courageous, if not visionary, leader.
Mounting international pressures and internal turmoil apart, for a South African leader to stand up and tell his white electorate that he was lifting the ban on the African National Congress and releasing all political prisoners was astounding at the time. “Apartheid is now a closed book,” he declared.
Frederik Willem de Klerk was born on March 18, 1936 in Johannesburg, into a family steeped in South African politics. His ancestors, like those of many Afrikaners, were Dutch Huguenots who had fled Europe in the 17th century to escape the persecution of Cardinal Richelieu.
He was quick to remind interviewers that his family had been involved in the Afrikaners' own “struggle for freedom” — from the British who had occupied the Cape during the Napoleonic Wars. A De Klerk had been hanged by the British for treason before they joined in the Great Trek, the retreat by ox-wagons into the interior. De Klerks had fought in the famous 19th-century battles against the Zulus and later in the Anglo-Boer War at the turn of that century.
De Klerk's grandfather, Willem, was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church and one of the founders of the National Party (N P) in 1914. His aunt was married to J G Strijdom, an early South African prime minister.
His father, Johannes “Jan” de Klerk, became secretary of the N P in the Transvaal province when the party gained power in a whites-only election on an apartheid platform. Jan de Klerk went on to become a cabinet minister and president of the Senate.
In his autobiography, “F. W.”, as he became popularly known, wrote of his pride in his family's heritage: “I was born into a family that had been closely involved in the whole historic development of the Afrikaner nation. We need to acknowledge the deep injustices of apartheid but we must also acknowledge the historical dilemma in which Afrikaners, as a separate nation with their own right to independence, found themselves.” F. W. de Klerk studied law at Potchefstroom University in the western Transvaal and opened what was to become a highly successful legal practice in Vereeniging.
He was first elected to the South African Parliament in 1969 as the N P member for Vereeniging, and 10 years later was in the cabinet under the prime minister John Vorster.
When the irascible, finger-wagging P W Botha succeeded Vorster as South African prime minister, F. W. de Klerk's stature and influence in the N P became stronger.
As he was part of a government that appeared to strengthen apartheid legislation and take even more ruthless measures to combat growing “subversive” opposition, de Klerk was at this stage identified with the verkrampte — or the extreme right wing of the government. He had, for instance, as education minister, defended segregated universities.
His brother, Willem “Wimpie” de Klerk, a respected liberal journalist and editor who had founded the anti-apartheid Democratic Party, would deny that F. W. was a right-wing ideologue. “He is an intensely practical man and a very pragmatic politician,” he used to say. F W himself would often quote Otto von Bismarck's dictum that “Politics is the art of the possible.”
With other cabinet ministers and influential people in the ruling party, de Klerk became increasingly perturbed by the way Botha was allowing his security advisers to increase their political influence. Botha had, in fact, created a powerful body of security chiefs to replace his own cabinet in all key decisions, to combat the mounting turmoil in black areas throughout South Africa.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War in 1989, de Klerk acknowledged that South Africa's formidable and ruthless military structure, which Botha had established ostensibly to combat “the Red menace,” could no longer be justified.
He positioned himself as leader of the verligte (enlightened) faction in the cabinet and as such was elected the head of the N P, becoming State President in 1989 in succession to Botha, who had suffered a stroke. In his first speech as party leader, de Klerk set a new course for change, calling for a nonracist South Africa and for all-embracing negotiations on the country's future.
De Klerk made it clear from the start that negotiations with Mandela and the ANC were a government priority. He immediately set about clipping the wings of the “securocrats,” particularly the sinister security police units which had been responsible for numerous political assassinations and atrocities.
More significantly, he ordered that South Africa's clandestine nuclear weapons program be dismantled.
A heavy smoker and a keen golfer, he had charm, a self-deprecating wit and was socially at ease in any company. “He came across as one of the boys and would enjoy a drink or two along with the jokes in the club house,” said an industrialist who played golf with him. “Underneath it all, one sensed this steely resolve to do what he thought was right for his country.”
De Klerk's personal relationship with Mandela was cordial enough throughout the transitional period and the Afrikaner became the deputy president in the first black government. The two men later had some acrimonious exchanges during Mandela's presidency. In 1996 de Klerk resigned from the transitional government and withdrew to the sidelines with his NP colleagues.
Those close to him at the time said that he had become disillusioned and embittered by the perception promoted by many within the ANC and critics elsewhere that he had been forced by international pressure and internal revolution to cede power. “He believed that he alone had taken the huge decision in the best interests of South Africa's future,” a friend said.
He also suffered personal problems. In 1998 de Klerk and his wife, Marike, were divorced after the discovery of his affair with Elita Georgiades, then the wife of Tony Georgiades, a Greek shipping tycoon who had supported the NP. Elita divorced her husband and married de Klerk, a move that scandalized many Afrikaners.
Marike suffered from chronic depression after the breakup. In 2001, she was found stabbed and strangled to death in her Cape Town apartment. A 21-year-old security guard at the complex was arrested. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment.
De Klerk is survived by Elita and by two sons and a daughter from his marriage to Marike.