Frederik Willem de Klerk, the former South African president who negotiated the end of apartheid with Nelson Mandela after spending years upholding the system of white minority rule, left a last message of apology to his nation.
De Klerk died at his home in Cape Town on Thursday after finding out in March 2021 that he had lung cancer. He was 85.
“Let me today in this last message repeat: I, without qualification, apologise for the pain, the hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to black, brown and Indians in South Africa,” Mr de Klerk said in the video.
After taking power in 1989, De Klerk removed a ban on the pro-democracy African National Congress, released Mandela from jail and managed the nation’s first all-race elections in 1994. He and Mandela were awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for securing a smooth transition to democracy.
De Klerk “had the courage to admit that a terrible wrong had been done to our country and people through the imposition of the system of apartheid,” Mandela said in his Nobel prize acceptance speech.
“He had the foresight to understand and accept that all the people of South Africa must, through negotiations and as equal participants in the process, together determine what they want to make of their future.”
We were the products of our time and circumstances
FW de Klerk,
former president of South Africa
Born in Johannesburg on March 18, 1936, De Klerk worked as a lawyer until 1972, when he became a politician for the pro-segregation National Party.
Six years later, Prime Minister John Vorster appointed De Klerk as minister of posts and telecommunications, the first of several Cabinet positions he held. During his tenure as education minister, he pushed for racial segregation in universities.
"It is true that in my younger years I defended separate development as I never liked the word apartheid. I did so when I was a member of parliament and I did so as I became a member of Cabinet. Afterwards on many occasions I apologised for the pain and indignity that apartheid has brought to persons," Mr de Klerk said in his last video.
De Klerk came to power in 1989 after President Pieter Willem Botha suffered a stroke and the National Party leadership deemed him no longer fit to govern.
After negotiating an end to white minority rule, De Klerk gave a qualified apology for apartheid, admitting it was unjust and oppressive.
“Like any other people in the world at any time in history, we were the products of our time and circumstances,” he wrote in his 1999 autobiography The Last Trek, a New Beginning.
The former government feared if apartheid was abolished that “our people would be swamped by the vast black majority, and that this would inevitably lead to the extinction of our own hard-won right to national self-determination”.
He also started a foundation to promote democracy and uphold the rights enshrined in the constitution negotiated at the end of apartheid rule. Over the past few years, De Klerk was a vocal critic of the government, accusing it of failing to uphold the rule of law and tackle corruption.
While De Klerk was well regarded abroad, many of his black countrymen felt he did not take adequate responsibility for atrocities committed under his watch.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed to investigate apartheid-era abuses, produced evidence showing De Klerk was present at a meeting of the State Security Council, where the assassination of a pro-democracy activist was authorised. De Klerk denied doing anything illegal.
“Neither I, nor I am sure the great majority of my colleagues in former Cabinets, were involved in or aware of the gross violation of human rights committed by some operatives,” De Klerk wrote in his autobiography. “We deny responsibility for actions of which we were not informed, which we would have not approved.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said he had personally told De Klerk about abuses taking place during his rule and that the president could not possibly have been ignorant of them.
The commission omitted its finding on De Klerk from its final report in 1998, after he threatened to sue to halt publication.
De Klerk was married twice and had three children. He divorced his first wife, Marike, in 1997. She was strangled at her Cape Town apartment in 2001 by a security guard who worked at her apartment complex.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
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Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
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Name: Kumulus Water
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Based: Tunisia
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'Morbius'
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The Bio
Favourite holiday destination: Either Kazakhstan or Montenegro. I’ve been involved in events in both countries and they are just stunning.
Favourite book: I am a huge of Robin Cook’s medical thrillers, which I suppose is quite apt right now. My mother introduced me to them back home in New Zealand.
Favourite film or television programme: Forrest Gump is my favourite film, that’s never been up for debate. I love watching repeats of Mash as well.
Inspiration: My late father moulded me into the man I am today. I would also say disappointment and sadness are great motivators. There are times when events have brought me to my knees but it has also made me determined not to let them get the better of me.
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FIGHT CARD
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Ben Lucas (AUS) v Ibrahim Kendil (EGY)
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UAE squad to face Ireland
Ahmed Raza (captain), Chirag Suri (vice-captain), Rohan Mustafa, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Boota, Zahoor Khan, Junaid Siddique, Waheed Ahmad, Zawar Farid, CP Rizwaan, Aryan Lakra, Karthik Meiyappan, Alishan Sharafu, Basil Hameed, Kashif Daud, Adithya Shetty, Vriitya Aravind
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Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
GIANT REVIEW
Starring: Amir El-Masry, Pierce Brosnan
Director: Athale
Rating: 4/5
