P.W. Botha dies at 90

Linked apartheid, national security
Botha won election to Parliament in 1948, the year the National Party came to power and began codifying apartheid legislation. He joined the Cabinet in 1961 and became defense minister in 1966.

As head of the white-minority government in 1978, Botha repeatedly stressed the paramount importance of national security. He charged that the anti-apartheid struggle was a “total onslaught” on South Africa instigated by communist forces.

During a series of gradual race reforms, he told white South Africans they must “adapt or die.” A new constitution in 1983 gave Asians and mixed-race people a limited voice in government, but continued to exclude blacks.

The new law also drastically increased Botha’s powers, changing his title from prime minister to president. He declared a national emergency in 1986 after widespread violence erupted in black areas, where anger focused on the new constitution.

State security forces brutally quelled the opposition, and one of his former lieutenants — police minister Adriaan Vlok — told the Truth Commission that Botha had personally congratulated Vlok for successfully bombing a building thought to harbor anti-apartheid activists and weapons.

But in documents submitted to the panel, Botha denied knowledge of the killings, torture and bombings.

Sanctions in the '80s
Botha’s reprisals against the black majority drew international economic sanctions against South Africa during the 1980s that contributed to apartheid’s fall.

In July 1989, Mandela went from prison to Botha’s official residence for a conversation, which increased speculation that Botha would free Mandela.

Mandela recalled going into the meeting thinking he was seeing “the very model of the old-fashioned, stiff-necked, stubborn Afrikaner who did not so much discuss matters with black leaders as dictate to them.”

He found Botha holding out his hand and smiling broadly “and in fact, from that very first moment, he completely disarmed me,” Mandela wrote in his autobiography.

ENCARTA SOUTH AFRICA: Maps, facts and figures

Mandela said the only tense moment was when he asked Botha to release all political prisoners — including himself — unconditionally. “Mr. Botha said that he was afraid he could not do that,” Mandela wrote.

The meeting was one of Botha’s last acts before he was ousted as National Party leader by de Klerk in September 1989.

Botha refused to attend a farewell banquet held in his honor by the party he had served for 54 years. After 1990, he quit the National Party.

Botha’s foremost loyalties were to his fellow Afrikaners, yet his moves to extend limited political power to nonwhites prompted a mass defection of hard-line segregationists from the National Party in 1982.

Beeld, an Afrikaans-language daily that supported Botha for many years, said, “The last image that will linger ... is that of a blind Samson who with his last strength tried to overturn the pillars of his party on himself and his own companions.”

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