Our World

Africas Last Apartheid Leader Dies at 90

The South African president that led South Africa through its years of terrible racial violence and international isolation died Tuesday. P.W. Botha, who was 90 years old, was known as the apartheid era president. Botha was nicknamed the “old crocodile” in regards to his feared temper and brutal manners. He served as the head of the white racist group in South Africa from 1978 to 1989. He was also the president who resisted the pressure by the nation to free Nelson Mandela. A year after he stepped down from presidency Mandela was released after 27 years in prison. Botha was known for his strict restrictions on black political organizations and his act of detaining more than 30,000 people. In December of 1997 Botha resisted appearing in front of a court investigation his apartheid related crimes.
A little background on Botha, he was born in 1916 in the Orange Free State province. He never graduated fro college. Instead of joining the army during WWII he joined a group called Ossewabrandway which was a group of Nazi supporters. Following this Botha held many positions in the government of South Africa. As prime minister he gave himself more power and changed his title to president.
Botha died peacefully in his home.
This news on Botha fit nicely into our class discussions on Sub-Saharan Africa. The country has been fighting for equality among the races as we saw in the film “Cry Freedom.” To see that Botha was what is said to be South Africans apartheid leader shows a possible hope for change. Now that he has died possibly his ideas have died along with him, or at least been overlooked.
To read the full story and get more information of Bothas life as a leader read http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15500869/page/2/
To read more about the apartheid in South Africa you can read http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html to learn more about what it did to the country.

posted by Anonymous @ 11/01/2006 07:41:00 PM