South Africa’s last white president, Frederik Willem (FW) de Klerk, has died at 85 on Thursday morning at his home in Cape Town, FW de Klerk Foundation said in a statement.
The statement partly reads;
Former President FW de Klerk died peacefully at his home in Fresnaye earlier this morning following his struggle against mesothelioma cancer.
De Klerk, 85, headed South Africa’s white minority government until 1994, when Nelson Mandela‘s African National Congress party swept to power.
He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela, but his role in the transition to democracy remains highly contested more than 20 years after the end of apartheid.
“He is survived by his wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan and his grandchildren,” the foundation said, adding that the family would in due course make an announcement regarding funeral arrangements.
Hailing from a prominent White Afrikaner family, de Klerk evolved into a moderate reformer influenced by the ideological changes in the late 1980s that saw Mikhail Gorbachev implement his “perestroika” or political “opening” in the Soviet Union.
While de Klerk was in favour of gradual change, the rapid end of the apartheid system was achieved, under his watch, without major violence.
He is most remembered for his February 1990 speech, announcing the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) and other liberation movements.
In the same speech he ordered the release from prison of anti-apartheid icon Mandela after 27 years in jail.
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 celebration in 2006, Mandela heaped praise on his predecessor for taking that leap into the political unknown.
He retired from active politics in 1997 and later apologised for the miseries of apartheid before Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Via FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS.
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