A state funeral for ex-president PW Botha is an insult to African people, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) said on Thursday. Botha died on Tuesday, aged 90.
”The offer to give PW Botha a state funeral is naked appeasement to the forces of apartheid. It is bordering on docility and is an insult to the intelligence of the African people,” said PAC MP Motsoko Pheko.
”The PAC is appalled that the ruling party has offered a state funeral to Botha, who butchered so many Africans in this country and the neighbouring African states.”
While expressing their condolences to Botha’s family, the PAC said ”it cannot subscribe to appeasement”.
Botha’s wife, Barbara, turned down President Thabo Mbeki’s offer of a state funeral on Wednesday.
Half-mast
South African flags flew at half-mast on Thursday in a tribute to the hard-line apartheid leader.
Pheko slammed the decision to fly the national flag at half-mast for ”such an obviously unjustified decision and undeserving man”.
”Lest it be forgotten, PW Botha refused to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Is being given a state funeral a reward for his defiance and genocide crime?” said Pheko.
Botha oversaw one of the most brutal periods of apartheid, including the state-sanctioned murder and torture of activists and raids into neighbouring states that backed the anti-apartheid movement.
But, in a sign of growing reconciliation between South Africans, he was widely praised on Wednesday, as news of his death spread, for taking the first steps towards moving the country towards a peaceful transition from apartheid.
After ordering army crackdowns in the 1980s to quell township protests against his government, Botha later initiated secret talks with the African National Congress (ANC), which eventually led South Africa to democracy.
After the first all-race poll that marked the end of apartheid in 1994, Botha was bitter about what he called his people’s isolation in the ”new” South Africa and rejected the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to probe apartheid abuses.
People are able to sign books of condolences at the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria, and the official residence Tuynhuys outside Parliament in Cape Town.
Botha ruled as prime minister and then president from 1978 to 1989, when he was ousted in a Cabinet rebellion. He retired to Wilderness, a quiet town 350km east of Cape Town where the old South African flag still flew outside his home. — Sapa, Reuters