Former South African president FW de Klerk dies aged 85

ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo reports on the legacy of South Africa's last apartheid president

FW de Klerk, who oversaw the end of South Africa's white minority rule as the country's last apartheid president, has died aged 85.

Mr de Klerk died after a battle against cancer at his home in the Fresnaye area of Cape Town, a spokesman for the FW de Klerk Foundation confirmed on Thursday.

Mr de Klerk was a controversial figure in South Africa where many blamed him for violence against black people and anti-apartheid activists during his time in power, while some white people saw his efforts to end apartheid as a betrayal.

It was Mr de Klerk who in a speech to South Africa's parliament on February 2, 1990, announced that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison after 27 years.

With South Africa’s isolation deepening and its once-solid economy deteriorating, Mr de Klerk, who had been elected president just five months earlier, also announced in the same speech the lifting of a ban on the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid political groups. Amid gasps, several members of parliament left the chamber as he spoke. Nine days later, Mr Mandela walked free. Four years after that, Mandela was elected the country’s first black president as black people voted for the first time.

By then, Mr de Klerk and Mr Mandela had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their often-tense cooperation in moving South Africa away from institutionalised racism and toward democracy.

Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a towering anti-apartheid activist, issued a guarded statement about de Klerk’s death.

De Klerk “played an important role in South Africa’s history ... he recognized the moment for change and demonstrated the will to act on it,” said Tutu’s foundation.

Boris Johnson said he is "saddened" and offered his condolences to Mr de Klerk's family.

In a statement posted on Twitter the Prime Minister said, "de Klerk will be remembered for his steely courage and realism in doing what was manifestly right and leaving South Africa a better country."

Global Security Editor and former Africa Correspondent Rohit Kachroo on FW de Klerk's complex legacy

South Africans are divided over FW de Klerk’s legacy. He was once a passionate defender of apartheid, the system of racial separation which had allowed him to become president. But it was his decisions while in power which meant he was the last leader of a racist, repressive government. The transition from democracy was tense but largely peaceful, and it was the willingness of both sides to commit to reconciliation which won de Klerk and Mandela the Nobel Peace Prize.

At de Klerk’s 70th birthday celebrations, Mandela said: “If we two old, or ageing, men have any lessons for our country and for the world, it is that solutions to conflicts can only be found if adversaries are fundamentally prepared to accept the integrity of one other."

But many South Africans dismiss his portrayal as a heroic emancipator who had a ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. Rather, they saw him as as apartheid criminal and strategic pragmatist who was forced into a corner by South Africa’s pariah status. Last year, de Klerk was forced to apologise for saying it wasn’t his view that apartheid was a crime against humanity.

“This is not the time to quibble about the degrees of unacceptability of apartheid” he later accepted.

Lukhanyo Calata, the son of one of the 'Cradock 4’, a group of anti-apartheid activists tortured and murdered by Apartheid security forces in 1985, tweeted: "#deklerk died peacefully … they tell us. Unlike those whose murders he ordered.

"Hopefully now he’ll answer for the crimes he committed against our humanity…”

No wonder the Nelson Mandela Foundation described de Klerk’s legacy as “uneven”.