PW's condition still unknown

2006-10-13 15:25

George - Former president PW Botha was admitted to the George Medi-Clinic on Friday, hospital manager George Schutte has confirmed.

"Mr Botha has been admitted," he said. "At this point it's a routine check-up, so I'm not 100% sure of what the outcome would be."

However the hospital intended to issue a statement to the media at 16:00. He said Botha was admitted at about noon.

Botha, who was head of government, first as prime minister then as state president, from 1978 to 1989, turned 90 in January this year and walked with the help of a stick.

He lives at his Wilderness lagoon-side home Die Anker with his second wife Barbara.

Botha was elected MP for George in the landslide 1948 election that brought the National Party to power, and was head of government through the most turbulent years of the anti-apartheid struggle.

Minister of defence before he took over the leadership of government, he coined the phrase "total onslaught" to justify the ever-greater use of force to suppress growing black resistance to whites-only rule.

He was seen out of the presidency in 1989 by FW de Klerk after suffering a light stroke earlier that year.

The George Medi-Clinic describes itself as a 160-bed multidisciplinary private hospital.

- SAPA