Frederik Willem de Klerk
Manager of the
Inevitable
FW de Klerk was born into a distinguished Afrikaner family
on 18 March 1936, being one of two sons born to Senator
Jan de Klerk and his wife, Hendrina Cornelia Coetzer.
His father later served as a cabinet minister under Prime
Ministers HF Verwoerd, JG Strijdom (his brother-in law)
and BJ Vorster. Senator Jan de Klerk later became Presi­
dent of the Senate. “There is politics in my blood,” observes
FW de Klerk.
He graduated from Potchefstroom University and
practised law in Vereeniging. Rising rapidly through the
ranks of the NP, he became a Member of Parliament (MP)
in the early 1970s, going on to hold several portfolios as a
cabinet minister in the governments of BJ Vorster and PW
Botha. Elected head of the NP in 1989 after Botha suffered
a debilitating stroke, he became State President later the
same year.
An accomplished political analyst, he monitored
international developments as these impacted on South
Africa, promoted a market economy, applied himself to
dismantling South Africa’s militarised regime and paved
the way for a negotiated settlement to the South African
conflict.
De Klerk stunned South Africa and the world when on
2 February 1990 he announced the unbanning of the ANC
and other banned political organisations, as well as the
impending release of Nelson Mandela from prison after
serving 27 years of a life sentence. He arguably reached
his political zenith when he won the nation’s last all-white
referendum with 69 percent of the vote, against a concerted
effort by the Afrikaner right wing to resist a negotiated end
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Politi c al Leader s
to apartheid. He and Mandela were jointly awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
South Africa’s first democratic elections were held in
1994. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as President
on 10 May 1994, with FW de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki as
Deputy Presidents in a government of national unity. De
Klerk withdrew his party from government on 26 June
1996 and resigned as leader of the NP in mid-1997. In
1999 he established the FW de Klerk Foundation, which
seeks to promote democratic politics and constitutional
rights in South Africa and elsewhere in the world.
F
W de Klerk begins his autobiography, fittingly entitled The Last Trek
– A New Beginning, with a nostalgic reflection on the inauguration of
President Nelson Mandela, with Thabo Mbeki and himself as Deputy
Presidents, on 10 May 2004. He speaks of the beauty and the history of the
Union Buildings, where the inauguration took place. It has a history reaching
back to the post-Anglo-Boer War era of British imperialism, having been the
seat of government for successive white administrations and the venue for the
funeral of Dr HF Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid. A new era had begun. The
heads of the security forces that served under de Klerk saluted South Africa’s
first democratically elected President. Six Impala aeroplanes flew overhead.
“I was no longer President,” he writes. “I never doubted that this would be the
outcome of the reform process which I initiated on 2 February 1990.”
The New York Times published an article on 3 March 2011 entitled “How
to Lose a Country Gracefully” in which it refers to “two of the greatest losers
of the last century”, reminding its readers that “Mikhail Gorbachev lost Russia
and all of its colonies, [and] FW de Klerk lost the richest country in Africa.”
It speaks of a “scarce and undervalued” ingredient in world politics – namely,
a willingness to “stand down” when the time comes. Under pressure from
the international community and facing conflict within their own political
constituencies, both men understood that a little glasnost and limited reform
were insufficient to stem the tide of revolution. De Klerk acknowledges the
economic and political pressures he faced from the international community
and the resistance to white rule in South Africa, while arguing that what
persuaded him to negotiate his party out of power was the realisation that
apartheid was “a failed policy”.
Con v e r s a t i o n s i n Tr a n s i t i o n
39
A Christian and an Afrikaner
De Klerk refers to the importance of Chief Justice Michael Corbett
administering his oath as Deputy President in Afrikaans, indicating that
he had made a point of taking the oath in the name of the triune God.
“I wanted to make my commitment to Christian values within the framework
of religious freedom quite clear,” he observes. Reflecting back on this political
career, he also recalls being sworn in as President of the country in September
1989 in the student congregation of the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk in
Pretoria, as successor to PW Botha: “It was as though I stood before God,
promising that I would execute the task He had given me on the basis of the
biblical principles of justice, peace and neighbourly love.”
Belonging and identity are important to de Klerk. Asked about the place
of individual and group identity in a multicultural society, he spoke of the
need to respect all the different religions, cultures and ethical practices in
the country, emphasising the importance of creating space in society for
everyone to feel completely unhindered from giving expression to who they
are, what they believe and the practices they affirm.
His affirmation of an inherent link between individual identity and the
community of which he is part, persuaded him in the early negotiation
process to argue for group rights and power-sharing to be written into the
Constitution. He later modified this demand, acknowledging that “one of
apartheid’s greatest failings was that it imposed group identities on people”.
As the negotiations unfolded and, in dialogue with some leading voices in
his own party, he accepted that it would not be possible to negotiate a new
Constitution that linked political representation to ethnic identity. He
accepted that it was sufficient for a Constitution to guarantee the protection
of individual rights, while continuing to argue in favour of communal rights
existing alongside individual rights, as well as there being space for minority
views at all levels of government, including the executive level.
He argued that a person’s identity and values emerge from his or her
membership of a particular group and its interaction with other groups,
insisting that his membership of the Afrikaner community is fundamental to
who he is and a primary source of his ethical values. “I am a member of the
Gereformeerde Kerk, the smallest of the Dutch Reformed Churches. I believe
that we Doppers [as the church is known] tend, perhaps, to be more consistent
in the positions that we adopt than more worldly denominations. If we think
that a cause is right we defend it to the bitter end, making us originally among
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Poli t ic al Leader s
the most fiery and consistent supporters of apartheid. However, when we
decide that something is wrong, we tend to be equally consistent in rejecting
it. During the eighties I decided that apartheid was morally untenable since
it had failed completely to achieve the just solution that exponents such as
Dr Verwoerd had promised. I concluded that it was morally unjustifiable and
this became a crucial factor in all my subsequent political decisions.”
Political transition
De Klerk refers to his earlier belief that the rules of apartheid segregation
were necessary as a means towards so-called “big apartheid” as espoused by
Hendrik Verwoerd, when he believed a commonwealth of independent states
would eventually replace white domination over black South Africans. The
problem, as he sees it, was that this idealistic quest for a solution to the racial
politics became a fixed ideology which NP ideologues sought to impose on
the country through political domination and social engineering.
He talks of a growing group of cabinet members and others in the NP
who were slowly beginning to change their views in this regard, referring to
pragmatic developments in the area of labour relations and the reaching out to
other African states under Prime Minister John Vorster and additional policy
adjustments under PW Botha. De Klerk refers specifically to a paragraph in
PW Botha’s much-criticised 1985 Rubicon speech, in which he accepted “the
principle that black South Africans who did not opt for independence within
the black national states will remain part of the South African nation, are South
African citizens and should be accommodated within political institutions
within the boundaries of South Africa”. He points to what he calls this “often
overlooked sentence” that indicates “Botha accepted the concept of a shared
constitutional future for black and white South Africans and, in effect, cut away
the ideological foundations of separate development”. Although the speech
and how it was communicated sparked a national outcry, he contends that
“President Botha and his colleagues were fully aware of the implications of the
statement, which was also the underlying reason for the generation of such high
expectations before the speech was delivered… One must remember that by
1986 we had already repealed more than 100 apartheid laws, including the pass
laws and the so-called Immorality Act. Change was already underway.”
De Klerk spoke of the political context within which change was happening
during the Vorster and Botha years – within which he was seen as a conservative
or verkrampte. He had become leader of the NP in the Transvaal after
Con v e r s a t i o n s i n Tr a n s i t i o n
41
Andries Treurnicht and 17 other MPs quit the NP in March 1982 to form
the Conservative Party (CP) to oppose PW Botha and the NP’s limited
reforms. This required de Klerk to consolidate party membership in the runup to adoption of the new (1983) Constitution that established a tri-cameral
parliament for whites, coloureds and Indians. Reflecting back on the conflicts
within the NP at the time, he recalls: “My task was to ensure that Treurnicht’s
breakaway CP did not win a majority vote in the Transvaal, enabling them to
claim they were speaking on behalf of a majority within the NP. We needed to
choose our words carefully and to defend our reforms with political caution
and astuteness.”
Appointed chairperson of the Ministers’ Council in the House of Assem­
bly, he was required to defend the constitutional changes that allowed for
the limited involvement of coloureds and Indians in government. De Klerk
says that “together with Chris Heunis, Pik Botha and others, I was deeply
involved in exploring new horizons with regard to political rights for black
South Africans, especially those living outside the homelands”.
These were constitutional concerns that reached to the heart of the
divisions within the NP, with de Klerk indicating that “one of my main
concerns was to maintain unity in the NP”. He voiced the concerns of this
constituency regarding the reform process. “At times I played the devil’s
advocate and I consistently raised questions about the political, legislative
and policy implications of the proposals we were wrestling with. So, yes,
I was the voice of caution and I was labelled in the media as the verkrampte.
History, however, needs to judge me by my years as President.”
Political resistance to apartheid was intensifying in the 1980s , with the
UDF being formed to oppose the tri-cameral parliament. Working closely
with the ANC, it committed itself to making the country ungovernable.
“Government was required to walk a political tightrope in promoting change,”
he observes. “We needed to act with political caution and astuteness.”
Tensions were mounting in the NP and, shortly after PW Botha suffered a
stroke, de Klerk became leader of the NP and a short while later he succeeded
Botha as President of the country. He insists that by the time he became
State President he had already decided that apartheid should be discarded.
The question was how to do so and how to manage the process: “In my first
speech after being elected leader of the NP in February 1989, I said that our
goal was a new and totally changed South Africa, free from domination or
oppression in whatever form.”
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De Klerk stunned South Africa and the world when a year later, on
2 February 1990, he announced the unbanning of the ANC and the impending
release of Nelson Mandela from prison. He had informed only the senior
members of the NP two days before delivering the speech. “The majority of
members of Parliament had no idea what I was going to say. Of course some party
members were concerned, but I ultimately had the support of the entire caucus
of the NP in Parliament who supported me and I was able to take the reform
process forward. There was at the same time a white right-wing backlash and
in 1992 the CP won the Potchefstroom by-election in a hitherto safe NP seat.
De Klerk immediately called a referendum for whites, winning 69 percent of
the vote, and paving the way for the start in earnest of negotiations with the
ANC and other political groups. De Klerk made a number of concessions in
response to the demands of the ANC during the negotiations. He was at the
same time accused by the ANC of failing to use his authority as State President
to put an end to violence, which reached its zenith with the Boipatong carnage
where 46 residents of the township were massacred by Inkatha Freedom Party
(IFP)-aligned hostel dwellers in June 1992. The ANC broke off negotiations
with the government and intensified its mass action against bantustan
governments with a march on Bisho, the capital of the Ciskei government.
Contacts between the ANC and the government however continued, bilateral
meetings were held and a record of understanding between the govern­
ment and the ANC was signed in September 1992, which put negotiations
back on track. De Klerk’s political power was waning, Mangosuthu Buthelezi
distanced himself from his government and right-wing opposition against the
NP intensified. The assassination of Chris Hani, SACP leader, by a right-wing
Polish immigrant, Janusz Waluś, in collaboration with Clive Derby-Lewis, a
senior leader in the CP, resulted in further political unrest. De Klerk agreed
that Mandela should address the nation on South African Broadcasting
Corporation television and radio, and Mandela appealed for calm. An election
date was agreed on and the ANC was swept to power on 27 April 1994.
Politics and ethics
Asked to speak about the role of ethics in his political career, de Klerk
suggests that “there are few prizes in practical politics for being morally
right. Those who espouse absolute moral rectitude are unlikely to become
successful political leaders – since their principles will require them to resign
at the first moral test that their party fails to pass. Politics, in essence, is about
Con v e r s a t i o n s i n Tr a n s i t i o n
43
power – and the attainment and exercise of power nearly always requires
compromise. The political art is to acquire power and then to direct public
affairs toward a more just and morally acceptable outcome. One cannot
achieve political leadership without caution, pragmatism and realism. By the
same token, leaders must be prepared to take risks and never lose sight of
the vision or principles for which they are working – however unrealistic this
might appear to be.”
He insists that leadership in this regard requires one to have clearly stated
goals and to work within the political structures to realise these goals: “It is
one thing to know the direction that one’s party or country should take, it is
quite another to persuade one’s colleagues and supporters to move in that
direction. The essence of leadership is about persuading them to follow.”
He refers to his decision in 1992 to call a referendum to counter the charge
that came from the right wing, in the wake of the loss of the Potchefstroom
by-election, that he had lost the mandate to govern, as indicative of the kind
of leadership required at the time. Stressing that leaders need to provide
leadership, he argues with equal certainty that it is essential to strive in a
tireless way to retain the support of one’s constituency.
Realising that the dire political and socio-economic conditions in the
country in the 1980s required the government to act decisively, he responded
to the challenge in a way that went beyond where any of his predecessors
and many of his colleagues were prepared to go. Reflecting back on the
historic speech to Parliament on 2 February 1990, at a meeting in the Cape
Town Civic Centre, he observed: “The reality is that, had we not grasped
the transformation initiative when we did … South Africa would soon have
been completely isolated in the international community.” He added that
many white South Africans accepted that South Africa had to change, while
maintaining that he should have demanded that the settlement include a
minority veto. “Let me assure these critics that this would have been neither
politically feasible nor internationally acceptable,” he argues, stressing that he
felt at the time and still feels that “there should be constitutional mechanisms
in multicultural societies that ensure the involvement of all communities in a
consensus-seeking executive model”.
Asked about the relationship between leadership and the need to respect
the opinions of one’s colleagues in government and one’s supporters, he
states that “it is a very dangerous thing for a leader to allow himself to be
cut off from his colleagues and his support base,” arguing that this was a
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mistake made not only by PW Botha but more recently by Mbeki. “They
established imperial presidencies with gatekeepers. Both established sprawl­
ing bureaucracies within their offices, with expert advisers who tended to
duplicate the functions of ministers. My values were quite different: I had a
small presidential office and expected ministers to be my primary advisers in
the areas of their responsibility. That, after all, is why they were appointed.” He
adds that “although President Zuma has also established a ‘mega-Presidential
Office’ he has thus far not cut himself off within an imperial presidency. He is
more accessible than his predecessor.”
Pragmatism and morality
Analysts and critics of de Klerk’s presidency ask what it was that motivated
him to shift away from being at the forefront of promoting and implementing
apartheid. Despite the reservations which he claims to have had about aspects
of apartheid he was a loyal supporter as well as a provincial leader who held
several top national positions in the NP before becoming its leader and
State President. In a shift away from high-level dependency on the military
and national intelligence community that characterised the Botha years, his
presidency was typified by a high level of perception management, international
diplomacy, sensitivity to the needs of the business community and the use of
scientific opinion surveys, much of this under the direction of Dave Steward, a
former South African ambassador to the United Nations (UN).
To what extent then was de Klerk’s shift away from apartheid that of a
pragmatic politician who served the country by astutely responding to the
political realities of the day? Alternatively, was it the move of an accomplished
politician who had come to a realisation that the policies he had supported
over the years were morally wrong? He argues that it was a combination of
both: “We had landed ourselves in a morally indefensible place. Morality
dictated that there needed to be full and equal rights for all and it was my task
as leader to get us there.”
However, despite the considerable contribution to political change
in South Africa that he undoubtedly made, it needs to be asked whether a
clearer public rejection of the old order would not have enabled him to
contribute more positively to the shaping of the new order. His perceived
moral equivocation regarding the role and intent of the apartheid government
is seen at several points of his involvement in the transition. These include
the public perception of his strained relationship with Mandela, the difficult
Con v e r s a t i o n s i n Tr a n s i t i o n
45
circumstances surrounding “black-on-black” violence and his response to the
enquiry concerning the apartheid years by the TRC.
• His difficult public engagement with Mandela needs to be placed within
a context in which de Klerk had become a scapegoat for conservative
Afrikaners, who believed he had given away too much in negotiations.
This is underpinned by an apparent sense in which he at times projects
a feeling that the price he has paid in this regard has not been sufficiently
acknowledged by the ANC or the public media. The fact that the inevitable
tensions of political debate and contestation pitted him against a global
icon of the twentieth century struggle for democracy and human rights in
the person of Mandela had placed de Klerk in a near untenable situation.
Mandela initially perceived de Klerk to be a “different kind” of NP leader,
“a man of integrity” and someone with whom “he could do business”. The
underlying tensions between the two men, however, emerged as early as
in the opening session in 1991 of the Convention for a Democratic South
Africa (CODESA) as the formal negotiation process became known.
Speaking after the delivery of a cordial speech in which Mandela expressed
the hope that the talks would lead to peace, de Klerk accused the ANC of
effectively pursuing a double agenda, by continuing the armed struggle
and refusing to disclose illegal arms caches. At the conclusion of de
Klerk’s speech, which was intended to end the proceedings for the day, an
incensed Mandela walked unannounced to the podium. “Even the head
of an illegitimate, discredited minority regime, as his is, has certain moral
standards to uphold,” he observed. “If a man can come to a conference
of this nature and play this type of politics, very few people would like to
deal with such a man.” Given the extent of the allegations concerning the
involvement of security forces in the “black-on-black” violence and the
alleged involvement of a “third force” in train and township violence, the
ANC responded to de Klerk’s speech with cynicism and anger.
The friction between Mandela and de Klerk continued. It manifested
itself in 1993 when Mandela and de Klerk received the Philadelphia
Freedom Medal from President Clinton, at the Nobel Prize ceremony
in December 1993, in the television debate prior to the first democratic
elections in April 1994, and again in the heated exchange of words
between Mandela and de Klerk captured by the media at a dinner to
open the new headquarters of Gencor, a leading South African company,
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in Johannesburg in September 1995. Commenting after the event, de
Klerk observed that on that occasion “Mandela revealed an aspect of his
character that indicated he had more bitterness in him than what had been
previously shown”.
Asked how his relationship and interchange of views with Mandela
impacted on the negotiation process, de Klerk said: “Much of politics
is driven by the personal characteristics and foibles of leaders. Personal
relations play a key role in situations where mutual trust is often essential.
Despite our often stormy relationship, Nelson Mandela and I were always
able to put our differences aside when the national situation demanded
it. Leaders are obliged to work with the counterparts and Mandela and
I were ready to do so. In our retirement, we have become friends.” De
Klerk today regards Mandela as “a good and trusted friend”.
• The “black-on-black” violence escalated to the point where the ANC
repeatedly asked how a President with all the resources of the state at his
disposal could not have done more to stop the overt levels of violence in
black communities. De Klerk vehemently denies having had a two-track
strategy in which violence and negotiations were allowed to operate in
tandem. He insists that: “Violence seriously undermined the negotiations
on which I had staked my presidency. Accordingly, I consistently and
repeatedly ordered the security forces to confine themselves to their
statutory duties and did everything I could to try to get to the root of
allegations concerning ‘third force’ violence.” He had appointed several
commissions to probe allegations of involvement of the security forces
in fomenting violence. These included the Khan Commission of Enquiry
into Secret Projects shortly after he became State President in 1989, the
Harms Commission of Inquiry into alleged murders and unlawful acts
of the security forces in 1990, the Commission of Inquiry Regarding
the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation in 1991 under Judge
Richard Goldstone and an enquiry by General Pierre Steyn in 1992 into
allegations concerning the involvement of the South African Defence
Force in political unrest and violence, which resulted in the forced
retirement of a number of senior defence force generals.
Although he was a member of the State Security Council prior to
becoming State President, de Klerk states that it was not briefed “on
clandestine operations involving murders, assassinations or the like – all
Con v e r s a t i o n s i n Tr a n s i t i o n
47
of which were evidently carried out strictly on a ‘need to know’ basis”.
However, the findings of the TRC state that de Klerk “displayed a lack of
candour in that he omitted to take the Commission into his confidence and/
or to inform the Commission of what he knew, despite being under a duty
to do so”. It explicitly found that he failed “to make full disclosure of gross
violations of human rights committed by senior members of government
and senior members of the [South African Police], despite being given the
opportunity to do so”. De Klerk is adamant in his response. “Yes, there were
plenty of rumours about illicit security forces activities. But I had no hard
evidence to act on and repeatedly asked the ANC and others to provide me
with such evidence as they might have had concerning the illegal activities
of the security forces, on which I was ready to act. It was not forthcoming
and when I received evidence from Pierre Steyn, I acted.”
• De Klerk apologised at the TRC hearings for the “pain and suffering”
caused by the disgraced system of racial separation, an apology which
he repeated on several subsequent occasions. He insisted, however, that
neither he nor his party authorised the assassinations, torture and other
human rights abuses that were among the hallmarks of white minority rule.
Questioned by the Commission, he indicated that he was “not prepared
to accept responsibility for the criminal actions of a handful of operatives
of the security forces of which [his] party was not aware and which would
never have been condoned”. His testimony was in contrast to that of his
Deputy Minister of Law and Order, Leon Wessels, who observed: “It was
not that we did not know; we didn’t want to know. We didn’t talk about
it; we whispered it in the corridors of Parliament … I cannot condone
these violent unlawful acts, but nor can I condemn the persons; I cannot
disown them. We were on the same side and fought for the same cause
… I cannot disown any of those men and women who were on our side.”
Asked about Wessel’s response, de Klerk points out that with hindsight,
he should have been more vigilant at the time that the allegations were
reported, whereas he left these concerns to his colleagues in the cabinet
responsible for the security forces and accepted the integrity of those in
charge of the security forces. He continues at the same time to assert that
such criminal actions that occurred within the security forces were those
of individuals who acted outside the law – and that it would be wrong to
blame all members of the police and armed forces for the actions of a few.
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• Having on several occasions criticised the TRC for its findings, when
asked to respond to these findings he said: “I never doubted the need for
a TRC. Where it went wrong was that its composition did not represent
all the parties that had been involved in the conflict of the past. As a
result, it was not able to produce a history with which all South Africans
could identify. Its other mistake was that its mandate was limited to the
conflict between 1960 and 1994 whereas it should have dealt with the
whole troubled saga of South African history. Our radically different
understandings of our history remain the main source of division in
South Africa today. Lastly the TRC failed to sufficiently investigate
‘black-on-black’ violence.”
Asked whether his values had changed over the years and since his years of
involvement in government and as State President, he replies: “My values
have remained constant – but with age my view of the world has, I hope,
broadened and mellowed. In hindsight, yes, I suppose I have mellowed.”
Asked whether, in retrospect, his decision to leave the government of
national unity was the correct one, he says it was, “because the ANC had
refused to accept any provision for a limited form of power-sharing at an
executive level in the final Constitution”. His concerns expressed throughout
the negotiations surface again. From his perspective, “the Constitution
and government had failed to accommodate the reality of South Africa’s
multicultural composition in executive structures. As a result, minorities
have often felt excluded from the process of government. I did not want
a veto of any kind, simply a mechanism that would ensure that all our
minorities could feel accommodated in the institutions of government.
An increasingly marginalised minority voice in the National Assembly
was insufficient for this purpose.” He expresses further concern that “the
government of national unity had become a gilded cage within which the
NP had diminishing influence on policy; where the ANC began to steamroll
decisions and to deny me, as NP leader, the right to publicly criticise its
policies; and where we were increasingly associated with ANC policies with
which the NP and its supporters fundamentally disagreed. Yes, I still believe
that my decision to withdraw was correct.”
He sees the ANC today facing the kind of deep internal divisions that are
reminiscent of those within the NP in the 1980s, wondering “which faction
in the ANC will eventually gain the upper hand”. He argues that, in order for
Con v e r s a t i o n s i n Tr a n s i t i o n
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the country to meet the challenges it faces, the ANC will need to provide
clearer and more decisive leadership. This, he predicts, will hasten what he
sees as the looming split in the political alliance, leading to a realignment of
South African politics. The alternative, he argues, will result in increasingly
less effective governance and the loss of international confidence in the South
African state.
De Klerk’s contribution to peaceful change in South Africa was
considerable. It also provides a bold illustration of the complexity of the
intertwining of moral conviction and political realism – that seems to a
greater or lesser extent to be an inevitable part of political leadership. He has
also set an example of when to leave high office that leaders in Africa, the
Middle East and elsewhere would do well to emulate. It needs however to be
asked to what extent de Klerk’s generally perceived equivocation regarding
the events of the past have contributed to the apathy of those South Africans
who fail to understand the enduring material and psychological impact of the
past on present society.
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