SOUTH AFRICA’S last apartheid president claimed yesterday he was not culpable for the oppression and bloodshed in the final years before democracy.
FW De Klerk made the assertion in an interview with eNCA news before he joined two other ex-presidents in piling pressure on unpopular office-holder Jacob Zuma.
Thabo Mbeki, sacked by the ANC in 2008 over his persecution of then-vice-president Mr Zuma and other ministers, and his successor caretaker president Kgalema Mohlanthe joined Mr De Klerk at the National Foundations Dialogue Initiative in Johannesburg.
Challenged on his moral authority to criticise Mr Zuma over his shady ties to the Gupta business family, Mr De Klerk said he was cleared by the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“There was no atrocities executed by order of me, I was never part of any decision justifying or authorising any gross violations of human rights.”
But last year the Anti-Racist Action Forum laid 22 criminal charges against Mr De Klerk, including the 1990 Sebokeng massacre of 27 people, the deaths of the Cradock Four and the 1991 Daveyton massacre where 13 people died.
The notorious Vlakplaas Farm death squad also operated on Mr De Klerk’s watch.
“The rose we planted in 1994 is indeed sick,” Mr Mbeki said at the forum, referring to the first democratic elections.
But the event was disrupted by the EFF party, a split from the ANC, storming the stage to denounce Mr De Klerk.
The South African Communist Party reiterated its position that Mr Zuma must step down earlier this week.
Second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila said: “We will roll out our own programme until the ANC can listen to the masses of our country that they don’t want this president to lead them.”

The plan is to stigmatise and destabilise South Africa in preparation for breaking it up while creating a confused and highly racialised atmosphere around immigration in the US to aid in denying rights to non-white refugees, explains EMILE SCHEPERS