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FW De Klerk
| Date: |
02 May 2004 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Nicola de Chaud
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
In 1994 F W De Klerk - then State President of South Africa - handed over the highest office of the land to Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela (Former President): 'The time for the healing of the wounds has come.'
He stood centre stage with his former enemy under the approving gaze of millions across the world.
F W De Klerk (Former President): 'I believed, and I still believe with the value of hindsight, it was the only honest and workable alternative for us to follow.'
F W de Klerk is a twentieth century enigma; he takes his place in history as a statesman who did the right thing. Yet he retains the stain of his long association with the architects of apartheid. Analysts have often questioned his motives. What brought this conservative Afrikaner nationalist to the place where he was willing and able to take the leap into a new dispensation?
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'Why could the miracle happen here? If you look at Ireland, you look at Israel, the DRC, it is so difficult.'
De Klerk: 'I think it is because, from the two main sides in our conflict of the past, there was a realisation that there was no victory in sight for anybody. What do you do when your home is under serious threat? You save that which you love with your inner heart.
F W grew up in a home that was deeply committed to the Afrikaans culture, language and heritage. His father served in the Governments of Strydom, Verwoerd and Vorster. As a young man, F W says, he unashamedly supported apartheid.
De Klerk: 'My youth and young days were dominated by the Afrikaner ideal that we must have self-determination in the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer War.'
He writes in his autobiography that he believed that without apartheid, his people would have been swamped by the vast black majority. He entered parliament in 1972 under Prime Minister John Vorster when the Nationalist Party was at the pinnacle of its confidence and power.
De Klerk: 'In my early years as a backbencher, firstly I started coming to Parliament and became involved in all sorts of debates.'
He says he began to realise that the concept of grand apartheid was unworkable.
De Klerk: 'When I became Minister of the Interior. I had to deal with the situation of classification and there were tragic individual cases. I didn't like doing that. It was really with the 1976 riots that the realisation came that we are pointed in a direction of a downward spiral of escalating violence.'
He says he welcomed the tentative reforms introduced by P W Botha in the early 80s. The tri-cameral constitution made a place for coloureds and Indians in a white parliamentary constitution. He says this forum had a profound personal impact.
De Klerk: 'Listening to the impassioned speeches had a tremendous emotional effect on me, and this debate brought me down to earth with the realisation that we had to change fundamentally. We were on the wrong road.'
However, the National Party stayed on that road for another long decade. The 80s were the most explosive and repressive years of the apartheid regime. Anti-apartheid organisations set out to make South Africa ungovernable and the international community voiced their protest and shunned all that was South African. P W Botha's response to these threats was to impose the harshest limits on all civil liberties.
De Klerk: 'Then came the states of emergency - with its Draconian methods - that, from a purely factual point of view, succeeded in suppressing the violence, but it created a political situation that somewhere along the line would explode again. You can't forever keep thousands of people in jail without trial. Somewhere something would have to give. So the process that made the later F W de Klerk was the realisation that we had failed to bring justice. And the challenge was to do what is right.'
Ruda: 'Many people would question that deeply, coming from someone who was in government during apartheid.'
De Klerk: 'I'm not saying it in order to get approval, I'm giving you what was in my heart.'
F W became leader of the National Party in February 1989. His internal acceptance speech held the promise of far-reaching changes to come.
De Klerk: 'I stood up and said I will lead this party on the basis that the time has come for a quantum leap. And I remember that one member of the caucus shouted, 'Leap F W, leap!'
On the 2nd February 1990, F W took the leap.
De Klerk flashback: 'I wish to put it plainly that the Government has taken a firm decision to release Mr Mandela unconditionally.'
In one historic moment, he opened the way forward to negotiating a new South Africa. He had met Nelson Mandela for the first time a few months before his release from prison.
De Klerk: 'Both of us wrote later in our autobiographies, we could report to our various constituencies, 'We think we can do business with each other'.'
Business began with the Convention for Democratic Change in South Africa 18 months later. CODESA was a gathering of 300 delegates from across the political spectrum and it marked the beginning of the end of National Party rule.
De Klerk: 'I foresaw that that would entail for me and my party the loss of a major share of the power.'
Those early negotiations took place against a backdrop of mistrust and suspicion. The ANC accused the Government of fuelling violence across the country. And F W de Klerk was fiercely critical of their continuing armed struggle.
De Klerk (flashback): 'An organization which remains committed to an armed struggle cannot be trusted completely when it also commits itself to peacefully negotiated solutions.'
De Klerk's closing address at CODESA was received with cold fury. Nelson Mandela launched what F W described as a scathing personal attack.
Mandela (flashback): 'Even an illegitimate discredited minority regime such as his has certain moral standards to uphold.'
De Klerk: 'Some of my colleagues had to calm me down.'
Mandela (flashback): 'He sometimes has very little idea of what democracy means.'
De Klerk: 'Fortunately, I think, sanity prevailed and I decided to take it on the chin and let the statesman be the person who speaks and not the aggressive politician.'
It was in the context of this bitter exchange that Nelson Mandela and F W de Klerk made a formal commitment to the basic elements of a democratic state.
De Klerk: 'The issue that really caused the disruption of a good relationship... a warm relationship... was ongoing violence. From our side things like Operation Vula, things from their side, like accusations that later have proven to be true, of continued unacceptable security force involvement in ongoing violence.'
F W remembers the Boipetong massacre as the darkest moment. Negotiations were almost aborted after the slaughter of 48 innocent men, women and children in June 1992. One year later one of the ANC's most popular heroes, Chris Hani, was assassinated. Peace for South Africa hung in the balance.
Nelson Mandela appealed to the nation to choose peace not war.
De Klerk: 'He showed great leadership in calming his people, realising how precarious the moment was.'
Mandela and De Klerk resolutely negotiated their way through many precarious moments.
De Klerk: 'Very early, I think, we reached the point of no return... that somehow or another we had to find our way.'
The first democratic elections in 1994, was a remarkable achievement dubbed a 'miracle'.
De Klerk: 'The overwhelming emotional experience I had was a sense of fulfillment.'
On 5th May he conceded defeat to his once arch-enemies.
De Klerk (Flashback): 'I shall be surrendering power not to the majority of the moment, but to the South African people.'
De Klerk: 'Without being arrogant, the feeling I've done what I set out to do.'
De Klerk (flashback): 'After so many centuries, all South Africans are now free. God bless South Africa. Nkosi sikelele Afrika.'
The South African experience stands as an inspiration to the rest of the world.
De Klerk: 'I'm proud, deeply proud, of the fact that notwithstanding the very deep complexity of our nation and its makeup, that we have found a way to rise above the differences. And if we look at all the conflicts across the world, it lies in the failure to manage diversity.'
Today FW offers his experience to other world leaders. He has established The Global Leadership Foundation, which aims to be a helpline to troubled world leaders.
Ruda: 'What have you learned in South Africa that you can take out there?'
De Klerk: 'There are some simple things... The only way to peacefully resolve conflict is meaningful negotiation. Things won't resolve themselves; leaders have to take initiatives. They have to do some creative things in order to change things about.'
No one can deny that F W De Klerk took strong action in helping to bring about South Africa's democracy. He now works behind the scenes encouraging other world leaders to do the same.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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