South Africa's de Klerk brokered end to white rule
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[November 11, 2021]
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South
Africa's last white president F.W. de Klerk, who died on Thursday aged
85, stunned the world when he scrapped apartheid and negotiated a
peaceful transfer of power to a Black-led government under Nelson
Mandela.
But while he was feted globally and shared the Nobel Peace prize with
the revered Mandela, de Klerk earned only scorn from many Blacks
outraged by his failure to curb political violence in the turbulent
years leading up to all-race elections in 1994.
And many right-wing white Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French
settlers who had long ruled the country under de Klerk's National Party,
viewed him as a traitor to their causes of nationalism and white
supremacy.
Frederik Willem de Klerk died at his home in Cape Town on Thursday, his
foundation said, after a battle with mesothelioma cancer, which affects
the tissue lining the lungs.
De Klerk's metamorphosis from servant of apartheid into its wrecking
ball mirrored that of the former Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev. Both
were good party men who rose to the pinnacle of power before moving to
reform or dismantle the systems that had nourished them for decades.
The collapse of Gorbachev's Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe
helped pave the way for de Klerk to launch his own bold initiatives, as
it removed the spectre of the "Red Menace" that had haunted a generation
of white South Africans.
"The first few months of my presidency coincided with the disintegration
of communism in Eastern Europe," de Klerk wrote in his autobiography,
"The Last Trek: A New Beginning".
"Within the scope of a few months, one of our main strategic concerns
for decades was gone," he wrote. "A window had suddenly opened which
created an opportunity for a much more adventurous approach than had
been previously conceivable."
Less than three months after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, he opened
the way for an end to more than four decades of apartheid with a
bombshell speech to parliament on Feb. 2, 1990, that "unbanned" the
African National Congress (ANC) and announced the release of its leader
after 27 years behind bars.
Fearing a leak and a backlash from right-wing whites, de Klerk had kept
the momentous decision secret from all but a handful of cabinet
ministers. Even his wife was in the dark until she and de Klerk were
heading to parliament.
At de Klerk's 70th birthday celebrations in 2006, Mandela heaped praise
on his predecessor for taking that leap into the political unknown.
"You have shown courage that few have done in similar circumstances,"
said Mandela, who died in December 2013 at the age of 95, less than six
months before the 20th anniversary of South Africa's first all-race
elections.
WHITE DOYEN TURNED RADICAL
A lawyer from a prominent Afrikaner political dynasty, the urbane de
Klerk was cut from the cloth of white apartheid rule and was a member of
the Broederbond, a secret Afrikaner society dedicated to white
supremacy.
De Klerk launched his parliamentary career in 1972 as member for the
right-wing mining town of Vereeniging and was for several years minister
in charge of a schooling system that spent 10 times more on white
children than on Blacks.
He challenged then-finance minister Barend du Plessis in the 1989 party
election of a successor to ailing apartheid hardliner P.W. Botha and
then ousted Botha from the presidency in a cabinet coup a few months
later.
Botha showed no remorse for apartheid until his death in 2006 aged 90.
De Klerk's rise was viewed as a consolidation of white rule and
threatened to escalate the vicious racial conflict that already had
killed more than 20,000 Blacks.
"When he became head of the National Party, he seemed to be the
quintessential party man, nothing more and nothing less. Nothing in his
past seemed to hint at a spirit of reform," Mandela wrote in his
autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom".
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Former South African President FW De Klerk arrives to attend
President Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation address at
parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, February 13, 2020. Brenton
Geach/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
The negotiations on a peaceful transition to
non-racial democracy that followed Mandela's release were held
against the backdrop of mounting political violence and often looked
as though they would be derailed, a scenario that would almost
certainly have plunged the nation into a bloody race war.
Black and white analysts said de Klerk was too cautious in moving
against security force right-wingers suspected of fomenting violence
and of being out of touch and ill-informed about the horrific gun
and spear attacks in Black communities.
But peace prevailed in what many commentators refer to as a
"political miracle".
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
In 1993 de Klerk shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela, who would
win the presidency the following year in the first multi-racial
elections in Africa's biggest economy.
After the vote, the National Party shared power in a "Government of
National Unity" in which he served as a deputy president.
But the relationship between de Klerk, a chain-smoking whisky
drinker, and the austere Mandela was often strained, and De Klerk
pulled out of the government in 1996, saying the ANC no longer
prized his advice or guidance.
He retired from active politics in 1997 and later apologised for the
miseries of apartheid before Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.
"History has shown that as far as the policy of apartheid was
concerned, our former leaders were deeply mistaken in the course
upon which they embarked," he said.
In retirement, he headed the F.W. de Klerk Foundation, devoted to
working for peace in multi-cultural societies.
He divorced his wife of 39 years, Marike, in 1998, and married Elita
Georgiadis, the wife of a Greek shipping tycoon.
In December 2001, Marike was murdered in her luxury beachfront home
in Cape Town, an incident that underscored South Africa's rampant
rates of violent crime.
In an interview with Reuters in 1999, de Klerk said South Africa
faced an array of threats ranging from crime to rising unemployment
and discontent among potential voters.
"There is growing disillusionment among all sectors of the
population in South Africa. All South Africans, all investors, all
people with an interest in South Africa are deeply concerned about
the crime rate. We need a breakthrough," he said.
However, 10 years later he sought to strike a more balanced tone,
saying shortly after President Jacob Zuma's accession to power in
2009 that the polygamous Zulu traditionalist would "confound the
prophets of doom".
He also appeared genuinely moved by Mandela's death.
"Tata, we will miss you," he said in a statement, using the
affectionate South African term for grandfather by which Mandela was
known.
As he walked away from Mandela's body lying in state at Pretoria's
Union Buildings, where two decades earlier he handed over power, de
Klerk wiped a tear from his eye.
(Reporting by Johannesburg bureau; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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