No regrets, says De Klerk, but amnesty for murderers was
mistake
By JEREMY LOVELL
Cape Town (Reuters) - The last apartheid president, FW de Klerk, said on
Monday that he had no regrets at sounding the death knell of the system
and saving his country from civil war.
"I did what I did because I believed it was the only viable alternative
that I could justify from a moral point of view and because I believed we
would cause a calamity if we did not do so. I still believe the same," he
said in an interview a decade after he opened the way to a democratic
South Africa.
"The risk of civil war has been averted and hundreds of thousands of
deaths have been averted," he said.
De Klerk said in a speech last night at parliament that his only regret
was that he had given in to pressure from the ANC and his own party to
grant amnesty to murderers under the previous reign.
De Klerk was speaking at an event, organised to mark his historical
February 2 speech 10 years ago, when he announced the unbanning of 36
liberation groups, including the African National Congress and announced
the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison.
Not everything in South Africa has improved since in the 10 years since -
crime is rampant, more than one-third of workers lack jobs and corruption
is rife.
But for De Klerk, whose speech opened the final chapter of his own
political career after barely six months as president, the benefits far
outweigh the drawbacks.
"The successes outshine the failures," he said. "Nobody is happy at the
moment with the crime rate in South Africa. Everybody is concerned with
the very high unemployment figures. There is grave concern about the rate
of corruption."
"But all of those can be resolved with good management and the right
policies. It is not insoluble as our situation appeared in the run up to
my speech," he said.
New SA a 'much better place'
De Klerk, 63, rejected accusations by hardline Afrikaners that he had
betrayed his own people. De Klerk took the National Party out of
government and into opposition in 1996, retiring from politics altogether
in 1997.
"The true comparison to make is what would South Africa have looked like
if I didn't make my speech of February 2, 1990. How many white Afrikaner
young men would have died? How high would the unemployment then have
been?" he asked.
"If you make that comparison the inescapable conclusion is that the new
South Africa, with its problems, is a much better place than South Africa
would have been if we did not take the quantum leap and make the major
changes that we did," he added.
Had he ever had any doubts about the unstoppable chain of events that his
speech unleashed?
"No. There were times when I got very upset, when I got very
despondent," he said. "But I didn't have doubts then and at no stage
thereafter did I have any serious doubts about the fundamental
correctness of the direction that we had taken."
"I, together with President Mandela and other leaders, rose above
ourselves.... saw the window of opportunity and moved through it before
history slammed it shut," he added. De Klerk and Mandela won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1993.
De Klerk, who has set up a foundation to further reconciliation between
South Africans, urged Mandela's successor, President Thabo Mbeki, to
maintain the process.
"He should do what he believes is right. I know he has the capacity to do
so," he said. "We laid the foundations. What is now the challenge is to
build on those foundation and not do things that would make them crumble."
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