'No-one was indifferent to him'
2009-12-01 16:19
Johannesburg - The Freedom Front Plus's Pieter Mulder on Tuesday paid tribute to former SABC radio executive producer and journalist Chris Louw who was found dead on his farm near Hartbeespoort Dam in the North West.
"The outspoken way in which Chris Louw had struggled with the problems of South Africa, resulted in nobody being indifferent to him," said Mulder in a statement.
"In his last news articles he had, as a former member of the Dakar group, expressed the disillusionment of many South Africans whose high expectations of the new South Africa did not realise."
Louw, 57, was found with a gunshot wound to the head and the circumstances were not immediately clear, according to a report on the SABC.
Louw was known for his controversial open letter to the late Willem de Klerk entitled, "Boetman is die bliksem in" (Boetman is angry)".
This was followed by a book, Boetman en die swanesang van die verligtes (Boetman and the swansong of the liberals).
It became known as the "Boetman debate".
Dakar
The letter to De Klerk, a National Party opinion-maker and brother of former president FW de Klerk, accused the older generation of Afrikaner leaders of political cowardice and deceit by sending the younger generation to war to defend apartheid.
Louw was also part of a group of South Africans who held meetings with the then banned African National Congress in Senegal in 1987.
He was a journalist for several publications, including the Mail & Guardian, the Farmers' Weekly, Vaderland and Oggendblad and wrote many articles for Beeld newspaper.
Louw is survived by his wife, son and daughter.
Mulder continued: "I had great appreciation for the honest way in which he criticised others, but also himself. The fearless way in which he stormed at everything and everyone which he regarded as being dishonest, remains his big contribution to the South African debate."
- SAPA