The last South African President under apartheid and key actor in the country’s transition to democracy, Frederik Willem de Klerk has died.
This development was announced by his foundation. He was 85 years old.
The FW de Klerk Foundation in a statement said “FW de Klerk died peacefully at his home in Fresnaye earlier this morning following his struggle against mesothelioma cancer”.
It was gathered that the former president left a final apology, in a video message released after his death, for the pain inflicted on non-white ethnic groups during the apartheid era.
de Klerk, who had previously expressed regret several times for the 1948-91 policy, said “I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to Black, Brown and Indians in South Africa,”.
It should be noted that De Klerk and South Africa’s first Black President Nelson Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for leading the “miracle” transition from minority-white rule in the country.
Reacting to the demise of de Klerk, President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement by Garba Shehu said “Mr. de Klerk was a remarkable moral force for change who will be celebrated for years beyond his death.”
According to the President, “ending the obnoxious apartheid system by a white President was an incredible act of moral courage and fierce commitment to human rights regardless of the colour of the victims of racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa.”
Buhari noted that “the late South African leader had put humanity and justice before personal political ambition by dismantling the abhorrent apartheid system.”
“History will be greatly kind to the late de Klerk because it takes a lot of moral audacity to do what he did at the time he did it. De Klerk who won a joint Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993 alongside Nelson Mandela, will not be forgotten for years to come because of his immense and immeasurable contributions to world peace, human rights and justice,” Buhari added.
