(Johannesburg) He officially ended apartheid and freed icon Nelson Mandela: Frederik de Klerk, South Africa’s last white president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, died Thursday at the age of 85.
“It is with the greatest sadness that the FW de Klerk Foundation announces the death of former President FW de Klerk peacefully this morning at his home in Fresnaye”, a suburb of Cape Town, its foundation announced in a statement.
He was said to have suffered from mesothelioma, a cancer that affects the tissues around the lungs in March, the same day he was 85e birthday.
“He leaves behind his wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan, and his grandchildren,” adds the text written in English and Afrikaans.
With the reputation of a great conservative, De Klerk succeeded President PW Botha in 1989, weakened by a heart attack.
On February 2, 1990, this National Party apparatchik, against all odds, declared to Parliament: “The hour for negotiations has arrived”. It announces the unconditional release of ANC leader Nelson Mandela, in prison for 27 years, as well as the lifting of the ban on anti-apartheid parties.
“Spirit of reform”
This decision truly launched the transition process which led four years later to the organization of the first multiracial elections in the country’s history, won by Mandela.
The two men jointly received the Nobel Prize in 1993, for “their efforts aimed at the peaceful demise of the apartheid regime and for the establishment of a new democratic South Africa”.
Twenty years later, FW De Klerk felt that his decision had averted “a catastrophe”, lifting whites out of their “isolation and guilt” and allowing blacks to access “dignity and equality ”.
He accompanied the young democracy for two years by becoming vice-president of the first black president in the country. But in 1996, he resigned, criticizing the new constitution for not guaranteeing whites that they could continue to share power.
The following year, he gave up the presidency of the National Party and began his retirement from political life.
Born March 18, 1936, De Klerk has always evolved in Afrikaner nationalist circles, descendants of the first European settlers who speak a language derived from Dutch.
“He seemed to be the epitome of the man of the apparatus […] Nothing in his past seemed to indicate the shadow of a spirit of reform, ”Nelson Mandela wrote in his autobiography.
In 2020, he sparked a heated debate by denying that apartheid was a crime against humanity, before apologizing.
The big dates of Frederik de Klerk
Here are the key dates in the life of Frederik de Klerk, the last white president of South Africa who ended apartheid in 1991.
– March 18, 1936: birth in Johannesburg of Frederik Willem de Klerk in an Afrikaner family.
– 1972: begins his political career with his election to Parliament under the label of the National Party (NP), gives up his profession of lawyer.
– 1978-1989: Minister (Posts and telecommunications, Mines and Energy, Interior and Education).
– 1989-1994: President of South Africa.
– February 2, 1990: legalizes the African National Congress (ANC) and the release of its historic leader Nelson Mandela.
– 1991: put an end to the apartheid regime which since 1948 had made racial segregation the keystone of the economic, political and social life of his country.
– 1993: receives the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela for putting an end to apartheid.
– September 9, 1997: leaves the leadership of the National Party and retires from political life.
– 2000: creates the FW de Klerk foundation to promote peace in multi-community states.
– December 4, 2001: his ex-wife Marike de Klerk is murdered at her home in Cape Town.
– February 14, 2020: publicly affirms that apartheid is not a crime against humanity before apologizing.
– March 18, 2021: His foundation announces that he is suffering from cancer.