EFF ATTACK ON FW DE KLERK AT THE OPENING OF SONA
Last night at the opening of SONA, FW de Klerk, former President and Nobel Peace Laureate, and his wife Elita had to endure wave after wave of vitriolic attacks by Julius Malema and EFF members of Parliament, clad in their trademark red boiler suits. They claimed that his hands were dripping “with blood”, including the blood of those who had been slaughtered at Boipatong. Worst of all, FW de Klerk had denied - in a TV interview the previous week - that apartheid was “a crime against humanity.” Their demands that he should be removed from the chamber were rejected by the Speaker, Thandi Modise. De Klerk - who will turn 84 next month - sat impassively in the public gallery as he watched the spectacle below.
De Klerk has repeatedly acknowledged the grave injustices committed under apartheid and has sincerely apologised on a number of occasions to those who suffered under previous governments. These were more than empty words: he dedicated his entire presidency to the abolition of apartheid and the negotiation of a new Constitution that would entrench the rights of all South Africans regardless of race. He oversaw the process that culminated in the repeal of all the remaining apartheid laws.
But was apartheid a crime against humanity?
First we have to look at the origins of the charge: In November 1966 the UN General Assembly declared apartheid to be a crime against humanity - and in 1973 it adopted the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
Both the Resolution and the Convention were political initiatives of the Soviet Union - which had itself committed atrocious crimes against humanity that involved the killing of millions of people. In 1976, when the Convention came into force, 23 of the 31 signatories were, according to Freedom House in New York, “not free”. Six were partly free - and only two were free. Ironically, South Africa was classified as “partly free” - and had a better human rights score than 27 of the signatories.