Article: Outrage after FW de Klerk CNN interview

[HideInLight]

Mostly the ANC supporters ... In fact anyone educated by the really poor ANC education system.

ANC provides propaganda, not Education...

 

[FrankCastle]

Of course he had a choice... just like every State President before him.

The rest of your comment is just pure speculation and flies in the face of the facts.

By the time FW became President the overwhelming condemnation against Apartheid had reached a boiling point.More countries imposed sanctions which would inevitably lead to an economic meltdown.FW succumbed.

By the late 1980s, however, with the tide of the Cold War turning and no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience with the apartheid government began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/Democratic initiative in the US favoured economic sanctions (realized as the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act), the release of Nelson Mandela and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line, but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_South_Africa_during_apartheid#End_of_Apartheid

The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986[1] was a law enacted by the United States Congress. Sponsored by U.S. Representative Ron Dellums in 1972 with support from the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Howard Wolpe, chair of the House Africa Subcommittee, the law was the first United States anti-apartheid legislation. The act was initiated in reaction to the plight of blacks in South Africa and demanded the end of apartheid. The legislation was passed in 1986 and imposed sanctions against South Africa and stated five preconditions for lifting the sanctions, including establishing a timetable for the elimination of apartheid laws and the release of political prisoner Nelson Mandela.[2]
The legislation banned all new U.S. trade and investment in South Africa and was a catalyst for similar sanctions in Europe and Japan. Direct air links were also banned, including South African Airways flights to U.S. airports. The withdrawal of operations from major corporations and the loss of confidence by the global banking community caused South Africa's economy to go into a deep recession.[2] The act also required various U.S. departments and agencies to suppress funds and assistance to the then pro-apartheid government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Anti-Apartheid_Act

 

[Jola]

By the time FW became President the overwhelming condemnation against Apartheid had reached a boiling point.More countries imposed sanctions which would inevitably lead to an economic meltdown.FW succumbed.

No country has ever failed due to sanctions, and no meltdown would have taken place.

eg Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cuba. There are many more examples.

But then one doesn't always want your country to turn into a backwater like Cuba, and it was for this reason, amongst others (eg that it just wasn't right), that the whites decided to change course.

The pressure from the Soviet Block effectively ceased in 1989 when the USSR collapsed, so that wasn't a factor either.

The disappearance of the communist threat did, however, make it easier to change course, as there was no longer a viable threat which could be use as an excuse (ie "die Rooi Gevaar").

The saddest part of the story, however, is that the ANC are now doing their very best to turn SA into a backwater like Cuba.

 

[Mila]

So you are saying there were no heros. Just politicians that happened to be there when the inevitable happend due to international pressure.

 

[FrankCastle]

No country has ever failed due to sanctions.

eg Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cuba. There are many more examples.

But then one doesn't always want your country to turn into a backwater like Cuba.

Most of those countries adopt a dictatorship ideology where everyone suffers equally but in South Africa the upper class stood to bear the brunt of the sanctions.
the lower class couldn't care less ut had the support of the international community.

The Economic effects of sanctions during the height of Apartheid:
http://richardknight.homestead.com/files/uscorporations.htm

South Africa was fast becoming like the rest of Africa and therefore bowed to international pressure.

 

[Jola]

So you are saying there were no heros. Just politicians that happened to be there when the inevitable happend due to international pressure.

Not sure that it was that inevitable due to international pressure.

But changed circumstances, ie the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the fact that white South Africans just did not like being the pariahs of the world, created conditions where perceptive politicians could create an environment for change.

The sanctions, and the miltary expenditure, did cost the country. However, now there is a huge cost in the form of corruption.

 

[FrankCastle]

So you are saying there were no heros. Just politicians that happened to be there when the inevitable happend due to international pressure.

Correct.
On paper it does seem like FW willingly disbanded the ANC and disolved Apartheid but he did not do this out of his own free will.

Would he have done so if there were no sanctions imposed.Some say yes but his current view suggests otherwise.

 

[Jola]

South Africa was fast becoming like the rest of Africa

Now that is happening anyway !

 

[Jola]

.. his current view suggests otherwise.

Which current view ?

The one which he actually explained, or the one that you incorrectly attribute to him ?

Your arguments all become trash if you don't check your facts.

 

[Vrotappel]

Are the people suffering from impaired thinking still going on about this. Quite evident that lies and deception is the ANC's greatest tool.

 

[Vrotappel]

Correct.
On paper it does seem like FW willingly disbanded the ANC and disolved Apartheid but he did not do this out of his own free will.

Would he have done so if there were no sanctions imposed.Some say yes but his current view suggests otherwise.

Don't put words into his mouth.

 

[Mila]

So Mandela was also just there. No heros in SA. Just politicians in the right place at the right time.

 

[empirex]

He didn't have much of a choice did he.He did not do what he believed but rather what he was told to do to avoid an all out civil war.

Told by who? Many in the NP were against what he was proposing..

So you think PW or any previous president would have done the same as de Klerk?? Your view of history and political leaders is skewed.

 

[Necuno]

So Mandela was also just there. No heros in SA. Just politicians in the right place at the right time.

Back dealing always needs back dealers.

 

[FrankCastle]

Told by who? Many in the NP were against what he was proposing..

So you think PW or any previous president would have done the same as de Klerk?? Your view of history and political leaders is skewed.

FW's reforms were based on a list of predefined demands made by the US and other countries.Had the sanctions come earlier PW and perhaps Vorster would have eventually bowed.

Which current view ?

The one which he actually explained, or the one that you incorrectly attribute to him ?

Your arguments all become trash if you don't check your facts.

According to his interview FW clearly believes in another 'system' other than what was ultimately presented.

 

[Jola]

FW's reforms were based on a list of predefined demands made by the US and other countries.Had the sanctions come earlier PW and perhaps Vorster would have eventually bowed.

Nope, you exaggerate the impact of the sanctions, SA still had trading partners, notably Iran (pre-1979), Israel, Taiwan, etc, etc.

Also, your view of history conveniently leaves out Vietnam, and the impact of the communist threat on the USA. They would never have agreed to sanctions at an earlier stage.

Best you do more research, and not flout ignorant opinions.

According to his interview FW clearly believes in another 'system' other than what was ultimately presented.

Nope, that is just your view.

 

[zippy]

What he does not seem to understand is that people do not want to be forced to be seperate. People have a right to live together in a country and be integrated as a nation. If you infringe on that right, it becomes a problem.

What he and the other apartheid apologists just don't get is that the world was not offended by any wish to be independent, but rather that they thought it was okay to have 3 quarters of the countries workforce live like slaves and have no political rights in the country of their birth, simply because of their race.

 

[Fudzy]

What he and the other apartheid apologists just don't get is that the world was not offended by any wish to be independent, but rather that they thought it was okay to have 3 quarters of the countries workforce live like slaves and have no political rights in the country of their birth, simply because of their race.

This... very much this. If South Africa didn't have such a strong defence force, who would be more at threat? The country or the minority controlling it?

 

[OrbitalDawn]

What he and the other apartheid apologists just don't get is that the world was not offended by any wish to be independent, but rather that they thought it was okay to have 3 quarters of the countries workforce live like slaves and have no political rights in the country of their birth, simply because of their race.

Why do people purposefully misread or misunderstand what he said? He said the goal of self-determination for different groups of people was what he believed in when he was young, but the way that it was implemented in SA was "morally indefensible" and a failure, which he apologised for at the TARC. The goal was "separate, but equal". Obviously the equal part never happened, which is why he "became a convert against the system".

 

[Fuma]

"F.W.", as he became popularly known, was first elected to the House of Assembly in 1969 as the member for Vereeniging, and entered the cabinet in 1978. De Klerk had been offered a professorship of administrative law at Potchefstroom in 1972 but he declined the post because he was serving in Parliament. In 1978, he was appointed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and Social Welfare and Pensions by Prime Minister Vorster. Under Prime Minister P.W. Botha, he held a succession of ministerial posts, including Posts and Telecommunications and Sports and Recreation (1978–1979), Mines, Energy and Environmental Planning (1979–1980), Mineral and Energy Affairs (1980–1982), Internal Affairs (1982–1985), and National Education and Planning (1984–1989). He became Transvaal provincial National Party leader in 1982. In 1985, he became chairman of the Minister's Council in the House of Assembly.

As Minister of National Education, de Klerk was a supporter of segregated universities, and as a leader of the National Party in Transvaal, he was not known to advocate reform. However, after a long political career and with a very conservative reputation, in 1989 he placed himself at the head of verligte ("enlightened") forces within the governing party, with the result that he was elected head of the National Party in February 1989, and finally State President in September 1989 to replace then president P.W. Botha when the latter was forced to step down after an apparent stroke.

Link
He has been part of the system. If his intention was to become the country's president and eventually abolish the apartheid, then I will salute him. But I don't think so.