PW: We didn't begin apartheid

2006-01-25 23:07

Liesl Pretorius

Johannesburg - His opinion had never been that blacks were inferior, affirmative action was "a poor form of apartheid" and what was happening nowadays in parliament looked to him like "reading speeches aloud", said former president PW Botha said in the now-controversial interview with freelance journalist Cliff Saunders.

The interview has been turned down by e-tv, M-Net, kykNET and the SABC.

The Dutch actuality programme, Network, also decided against broadcasting the interview.

In an online excerpt from the interview, Botha said he never regarded blacks as inferior: "Because many blacks, I repeat, many blacks and coloured people co-operated positively with government policy."

He said this "part" of the apartheid policy, which denied people certain things on the basis of colour, "did not originate with us".

Some are still racists

"It's a very old policy and we didn't ask for it."

To a statement from Saunders that "we" promoted this policy because "we were racists at heart", Botha said: "Some of our people were and some of our people still are."

Botha said the "disastrous policy" of affirmative action destroys people's chances of providing a service to the country.

"I thought we were now a non-racist state, but affirmative action is being dragged into everything now.

"White farmers have to give up their farms. White farmers are being murdered and the government is not doing much about it."

'Speeches being read aloud'

Botha said he wanted to know where transformation was heading.

He said the houses of parliament still stood, but when he looked at the sittings on TV, all he saw were speeches being read aloud.

The interview is available online at www.mweb.co.za. The page where it can be downloaded has had 14 712 hits since Monday.

Director of Thuthuka Broadcasting Mark Williams, who produced the interview, said attempts were continuing to sell the interview to overseas broadcasters.

- Beeld