De Klerk’s death sparks debate over his role in apartheid

By ANDREW MELDRUM
Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa is engrossed in debate over the legacy of apartheid’s last president, F.W. de Klerk, who died last week at 85. Some people want to remember de Klerk as the liberator of Nelson Mandela. But others say he was responsible for racist murders. The controversy comes 27 years after the official end of the brutal apartheid regime that oppressed the country’s Black majority for generations. The debate has been stoked by a video that de Klerk released posthumously. In the recording, he said he was sorry for the pain and indignity of apartheid and the damage it did to Black, brown and Indian South Africans.