Die Groot Krokodil
2006-10-31 23:41
Johannesburg - Former president PW Botha, who defied world opinion by leading South Africa during the apartheid era for more than two decades, died at his home on Tuesday at the age of 90.
Botha passed away peacefully in his sleep just after 20:00 at his home in Wilderness in the Western Cape, according to members of his staff and family friends.
Security officer Frikkie Lucas said: "Botha died at home, peacefully."
Botha, nicknamed the "Groot Krokodil" for his tough and uncompromising stance on politics, led the white minority rule of South Africa between 1978 and 1989.
He first entered parliament as MP for the coastal town of George in 1948, when the National Party took power in South Africa, marking the official start of apartheid.
Defied the world
After a scandal forced the resignation of then-prime minister John Vorster in 1978, Botha slipped into his shoes, winning on a split vote within the party.
He quickly moved to impose a steel grip on political power, called "kragdadigheid".
He defied the world during the turbulent and violence-wracked period and turned a deaf ear to mounting international condemnation of the apartheid system.
The National Party leader stood down in favour of FW de Klerk, who later steered South Africa towards the country's first multiracial elections in 1994 which were won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.
The National Party has since folded and its last leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, is now a member of the ANC government.
Even in retirement, Botha retained his defiant streak and refused to appear before the country's truth commission which implicated him in human-rights violations.
The commission found Botha personally ordered the bombing of the anti-apartheid South African Council of Churches' headquarters and that, under the sinister State Security Council, issued orders using language which security forces interpreted as authorisation to kill government opponents.
'I will never ask for amnesty'
But, in June 1999, Botha won an appeal against the conviction for failing to heed the subpoena, saying he was "rejoiced by the decision".
"I will never ask for amnesty. Not now, not tomorrow, not after tomorrow," he said.
During a controversial interview ahead of his 90th birthday earlier this year, Botha said South Africa would have "gone down the drain" if it had achieved liberation in the 1960s and 1970s.
In the same interview, he said he never regarded blacks as inferior because "many blacks and coloureds (mixed race) co-operated with us".
His death comes barely a fortnight after he was treated in hospital for what doctors said at the time was a routine check-up, denying reports that Botha had had another stroke.
His first one in 1989 forced him out of politics.