[When my alarm went off this morning the first words I heard on the news was that Pieter Willem Botha had passed away last night in his sleep. But I see on the news report that he had already passed away at 8pm last night. PW lived a full life and he did what he truly believed in.

His enemies no doubt are having a ball – despite their fake “condolences”. I’m sure that today for the ANC is almost as delightful as that fantastic day when Kortbroek crawled shamelessly on his hands and knees to beg the ANC for an extension of his worthless political life. I’m sure that they are glad he will be out of their hair. His last comments and thoughts were published in that Rapport news item of over a week ago.

You will recall about 2-3 weeks ago there was the “health scare” that friday night. I was told shortly afterwards by the Botha’s that what had happened that evening was that PW had reached for a glass to hold it, but he could not get his hand/eye co-ordination right to clutch the glass. That was, as far as I was told, the only symptom that anything was strange. So they rushed him to hospital. He then was put through a BATTERY of every test imaginable including ECG and was found to be quite ok. He went home the next morning.

His wife told me shortly afterwards that the Govt had called them then already and had informed her that they were planning a state funeral for him. No doubt they can now proceed with the plans they started drawing up at the time of the health scare.

So I’m assuming, based on what she had told me, that PW will get a state funeral.

I see that they found him dead after 8pm. His normal bed time was 9pm, so he must have gone to bed a bit earlier last night.

You will note a Captain Lucas quoted below. Keep in mind that PW Botha and his wife live under state protection. The VIP Protection unit guarded them at all times and transported them around.

It should be noted that PW Botha’s memoirs and papers have long been passed on to people who will be filing them away.

So, as happens to all of us, God decides when our time is up. I always think of one of the psalms – I think it is Psalm 91. I can’t remember it exactly, but it says something to the effect that thousands may fall on your left and thousands may fall on your right, but if its God’s will then you will live. What is good is that in the final years and months of PW’s life, that people finally interviewed him and got his last thoughts about the rotten state of things here. After years of silence, he finally spoke his last thoughts. The ANC must have found that most irritating indeed – not to mention many others!

His ANC and Liberal enemies will no doubt want to portray him as a scumbag and no doubt each news report will be prefixed and suffixed with all sorts of items (as you will see below) trying to discredit him and reinterpreting history.

I’m sure the ANC and Mandela will enjoy presiding over his funeral.

PW was a greater man than any of them will ever be.

In due course, the whites will outlive the ANC.

The ANC, being “all image” and of no substance, will no doubt make the most of this.

There is a book about PW Botha, “Fighter and Reformer”, which he told me contained his thoughts which he stood by to the last. I have handed that over to a volunteer to try and compile it into an online book. When it is finished we will put it online in memory of PW and what he actually stood for compared to what his enemies claim he stood for. Others may slander him at every opportunity, but we will tell the truth about him. Jan]

01 November 2006 07:25

PW Botha, the former prime minister and president of South Africa, long known as “the great crocodile”, died on Tuesday night at his home in the Wilderness, in the Western Cape.

A member of his security staff, Captain Frikkie Lucas, said: “Botha died at home, peacefully.” He was 90. His second wife Barbara found him dead in bed just after 8pm. He had seemed to be in good health.

The African National Congress, which now rules South Africa but which was outlawed as a terrorist organisation under Botha, was one of the first organisations to offer condolences — in a symbol of how the new multiracial South Africa is trying to heal the wounds of its apartheid past.

“The African National Congress extends its sympathies and condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of former president PW Botha, who passed away this evening. The ANC wishes his family strength and comfort at this difficult time,” it said in a statement.

Pieter Willem Botha saw South Africa descend into anarchy under his watch as he kept a tough line against what he called the “total onslaught” of communism and its partners in Africa’s black liberation movements, leading South Africa through its worst racial violence and deepest international isolation.

He will be remembered as South Africa’s “securocrat” — a man with a legendary temper who tried to bring a “total strategy” to bear on his perceived enemies, the black people of South Africa, whom he believed were waging a “total onslaught” against the state.

As part of this strategy he created a hidden form of government, the “national management system”, made up of the military, which shadowed their civilian counterparts.

He is widely believed to have been responsible for the setting up of hit squads which conducted a murderous campaign against anti-apartheid activists. And it is also suspected that he signed a pact with Israel which included the transfer of military technology and the manufacture of a least six atom bombs.

Botha suffered a stroke in 1989, as a result of which he was forced out of power by his successor, FW De Klerk, who was, by Botha’s standards, a reformist.

The number of deaths for which Botha carries “command” responsibility will never be known. But under his government the security forces killed more than 2 000 people, and an estimated 25 000 people were detained without trial and often tortured.

But black South Africa has treated him with surprising leniency. Nelson Mandela has credited to Botha for the “critical role” he played in South Africa’s transition to a non-racial democracy.

In 1994 Botha refused to testify before Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, describing it as a “circus”. He was convicted of contempt of the commission and fined, but successfully appealed.

Botha was first elected an MP in 1948, when the National party came to power under DF Malan. In 1983, five years after becoming prime minister, he introduced a Constitution for a “tri-cameral” Parliament in which whites, coloureds and Indians were given representation. He was elected the first state president under this Constitution. In 1986 he made perhaps his biggest blunder, his infamous “Rubicon” speech. He had been expected to announce a reform programme, but instead famously wagged his finger at the cameras and warned the world that he would not surrender to pressure.

This speech was the straw which broke the camel’s back as far as the international community was concerned, and a number of important financial institutions withdrew investments. The South African currency collapsed as a result.

In his own words:-
o Where in the whole wide world today can you find a more just society than South Africa has? (1976)

o The separation of races happened long before the nationalist government. God separated the races (1984)

o I’ll keep order in South Africa and nobody in the world is going to stop me (1985)

o I switch off the lights and sleep within a few minutes. I never take a guilty conscience with me to bed (1987)
Compiled by Piter-Dirk Uys, published by Penguin (1987) – Guardian

Unlimited (194)Â Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Source: Daily Mail & Guardian
URL: http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/br…/p>