The last white South African president (1989-1994), who ended the apartheid regime with Nelson Mandela died Thursday, November 11 at age 85 from cancer, announced his founding. “It is with the greatest sadness that the FW de Klerk Foundation announces the death of former President FW de Klerk peacefully at his home in Fresnaye this morning after battling cancer”, the organization said in a statement.
Frederik Willem De Klerk was born on March 18, 1936 in Johannesburg, the economic capital of South Africa. Her family is ultra-conservative. His grandfather was one of the founders of the National Party in South Africa, which set up the apartheid regime from 1948. His father, Jan, was a minister on several occasions in the 1950s and 1960s.
After studying in a high school in the suburbs of Johannesburg, the young Frederik followed a course in law at the University of Potchefstroom, from which he graduated in 1958. He then became a lawyer in Vereeniging, a town in the Transvaal (today integrated in Gauteng Province). In 1959, he married Marike Willemse, with whom he raised three children. The couple divorced in 1998.
He entered politics in 1972 by running for the legislative elections in Vereeniging. He was easily elected MP, benefiting from the support of Prime Minister John Vorster, a friend of Frederik’s father. Its ascent is then rapid. In 1978, he became Minister of Social Affairs.
The country is in turmoil after the riots in Soweto in 1976, which were repressed in blood. But John Vorster further hardens apartheid, which leads to international sanctions.
Frederik De Klerk held key ministerial positions in the governments of Pieter Botha, John Vorster’s successor in 1978, such as mining and energy. In January 1989, Pieter Botha, who became president, suffered a stroke. Weakened by illness and disowned by the national party, he resigned. Under his tenure, the country’s economic and political situation deteriorated sharply.
The end of apartheid
De Klerk becomes president of South Africa. He must then act and lead significant reforms, while he has the reputation of being a conservative. The country is affected by the economic sanctions which have gradually intensified since the 1980s and by the social mobilization which increasingly challenges apartheid. He then took measures of historic significance. He lifted the state of emergency which had been in effect since 1985. The leaders of the African National Congress (ANC), who wanted an end to apartheid, were released, including Nelson Mandela, the historic leader of the movement, on February 11, 1990, after imprisonment for twenty-seven years.
More than 30 non-white parties are legalized, including the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), a dissident branch of the ANC. Frederik De Klerk, who starts negotiations with the ANC, is confronted with the Afrikaner extremists, who refuse to lose their lands and their privileges, and the reluctance of the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Zulu party of Natal, which fights the ANC . These clashes will kill 20,000 people in two years.
Negotiations are however relaunched within a Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa), in which all the actors of the political scene participate, with the exception of the PAC and the extreme right.
White voters overwhelmingly approved by referendum in March 1992 the reforms led by President De Klerk, which confirmed his continued negotiations with Mandela and his camp. After eleven months of hiatus, they resumed in April 1993, despite the increase in violence in the country. They provide for multiracial and democratic elections in April 1994.
These spectacular advances earned De Klerk and Mandela the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. And economic sanctions were gradually lifted.
“Forgotten in his own country”
In April 1994, the ANC won the country’s first multiracial elections with 62.65% of the vote. The new parliament elects Mandela president of the country. He is assisted by two vice-presidents, Thabo Mbeki (ANC) and Frederik De Klerk. The latter left the government of national unity two years later, believing that the interests of the white minority were no longer assured. Then, in 1997, he left the leadership of the National Party, before announcing, on August 26, 1997, that he was retiring from political life. He then moved to his farm with his new wife, Elita.
The image of the former president has largely deteriorated in public opinion, especially with the start of the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, responsible for shedding light on the crimes of apartheid. They show that Frederik De Klerk took part in the functioning of the regime oppressing the black majority. Above all, he has never expressed repentance and refuses to recognize any personal responsibility.
In 1999, he launched the FW De Klerk foundation, the objective of which is to promote and preserve the presidential heritage of the former leader of the struggle against apartheid, and in particular to promote peace in multi-community states. That year, he published his autobiography The Last Trek. A New Beginning (The Great Trek. A new start, Macmillan, London, untranslated).
De Klerk is also the chairman of the Global Leadership Foundation, established in 2004, whose mission is to advise heads of government on matters affecting them. He also lectures around the world to promote harmonious relationships in multicultural societies.
But in South Africa De Klerk is little listened to. “He is a bit like our Gorbachev, he is praised abroad, but forgotten in his own country”, underlined a researcher in The world, of 4 November 2011.
Dates
March 18, 1936 – Born in Johannesburg
1958 – Law graduate from the University of Potchefstroom
1972 – Elected deputy
1978 – Minister of Social Affairs
1989-1994 – President of South Africa
February 11, 1990 – Nelson Mandela released
1993 – Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela
1994-1996 – Co-vice-president of South Africa
Aug 26, 1997 – Announcement of his withdrawal from political life
1999 – Launch of the FW De Klerk foundation
2021 – Died at age 85 at his home in Fresnaye