Irony of crime highlighted by heist at FW’S home

THOUGH it sounds controversial and inconsiderate, the irony of crime is that it knows no colour, creed, no social standing – and it does not care who you are.

Yesterday’s news that former apartheid president, the late FW de Klerk, is the latest victim – posthumously – of the rampant crime most South Africans have experienced.

The Nobel Peace Prize, worth a million, that De Klerk was awarded alongside former president Nelson Mandela in Norway in 1993 was stolen in a burglary at his home in Cape Town's upmarket Fresnaye suburb.

Pieces of jewellery belonging to his widow, Elita, were also taken from a safe.

It is unafrican to kick a man when he is down – even when he is dead. But there are always exceptions.

Many believe the former statesman did not deserve the award in the first place.

Ask the families of the Cradock Four, the families of victims of the Boipatong massacre, Umtata massacre, victims of the 1990s sponsored blackon-black violence, and many more.

When he was elevated to the presidency of the Nationalist Party in 1989, South Africa was going through tough times – with repressive apartheid laws and stinging global economic, political and cultural sanctions.

In no time De Klerk was to introduce reform measures – not out of his volition, but upon realising that apartheid was unsustainable.

In a few months, De Klerk had won the hearts and minds of many locally and internationally. Equally, he had alienated the white minority group that had benefited from racial laws.

De Klerk participated in the peaceful transition of South Africa from apartheid to a democracy in 1994 and formed part of a government of national unity under Mandela after the ANC won the 1994 elections.

Regrettably, or perhaps showing his true colours, he was to court controversy almost three decades later when he told an international audience that there was nothing wrong with apartheid.

In a BBC interview, he said he was “not fully agreeing” with the presenter who asked him to confirm that apartheid was a crime against humanity. He died in November last year having returned to his former self, a racist and an apartheid apologist.