Who is frederick de klerk

Mandela's foundation said de Klerk would "forever be linked to Nelson Mandela in the annals of South African history". However, de Klerk's role in the transition from minority white rule remains controversial.

Many Blacks were angered by his failure to curb political violence in the turbulent years leading up to the elections, while right-wing white Afrikaners, who had long ruled the country under de Klerk's National Party, viewed him as a traitor to their causes of white supremacy and nationalism. His complex legacy was reflected in the reactions of South Africans.

It was the mass genocide of Black people," said Sihle Jwara, a student in Johannesburg. De Klerk's foundation said he had died peacefully at his home in Cape Town on Thursday morning after a battle with mesothelioma, a cancer that affects the tissue lining the lungs. His widow Elita and family will announce funeral arrangements in due course, it said. The foundation of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a veteran of the struggle against white minority rule and seen by many as the nation's moral conscience, said de Klerk had "occupied an historic but difficult space in South Africa".

Some here believe redress has not happened largely because there is no shared acknowledgment that apartheid has continued to go unpunished - De Klerk's passing leaves uneasy questions about how to reckon with this. His father, Fort Calata, was an anti-apartheid activist, and was murdered alongside Matthew Goniwe and two other men by apartheid police in - the so-called Cradock Four. He's been working for years get them justice and in June this year approached the courts to help prosecute the apartheid-era murders.

A ruling is still pending. More about FW de Klerk:. Image source, Getty Images. In truth, he was a man of many parts. Many South Africans waged a long campaign against the system of white-minority rule. Nelson Mandela did not think FW de Klerk was a "great emancipator". FW de Klerk's electoral campaign in South Africa's last white president FW de Klerk apologises in apartheid row.

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. FW De Klerk, South Africa's last president of apartheid, was also a key figure in the nation's transition to democracy.

May his soul Rest In Peace. To have been part of the apartheid system, then worked with Mandela to dismantle it, then serve as his deputy President, was as history-shaping as it gets.

De Klerk played an important role, regardless of motivations, in the freeing of Former President Nelson Mandela and the ending of apartheid. South African actress Pearl Thusi suggested the former president should not have a state funeral.

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