South Africa: Ex-President FW de Klerk laid to rest in a private funeral

F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last white president has been laid to rest. He was a member of the apartheid system. He was laid to rest in a private funeral service on Sunday. It was a small ceremony outside the family home. Only friends and family were present at the ceremony.

A convoy of two vehicles, one car with the former President’s wife Elita Georgiades, made its way to the Durbanville Memorial Park, in Cape Town. De Klerk died on the 11th of November. his death had increased tension in an ongoing debate among South Africans over his role as President during the apartheid era.

After his death, his foundation published a video in which De Clerk apologized for crimes against other ethnic groups during decades of white minority rule in South Africa. Firstly he refused to apologize which prompted a backlash as recently as last year. He said that he did not believe that apartheid was a crime against humanity.

On the other hand, he is reported to have angered right-wing Afrikaners who viewed him as a traitor to their causes of white supremacy and nationalism by leading the process that ended apartheid.

Data source: news24