Both President Thabo Mbeki and former president FW de Klerk will attend PW Botha’s funeral on Wednesday.
Botha, who was head of the government from 1978 to 1989, died peacefully at his Wildnerness home last week, aged 90.
The Presidency confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that Mbeki would go to the public memorial service, which begins at 2pm in the Dutch Reformed Church in George.
The statement added that Mbeki had emphasised the need for a ”balanced” appraisal of Botha’s life, the better to promote nation-building and national reconciliation.
It said that though Botha led South Africa during a period of sustained repression, it was also in this period that contact between the apartheid government and the African National Congress was initiated, ultimately leading to the 1994 democratic
settlement.
The government has ordered that flags at state institutions fly at half mast in honour of Botha.
De Klerk’s office said he and his wife Elita would attend the service.
He was going as a former leader of the National Party, which Botha headed before him, and to represent former colleagues in government who could not make the occasion.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who attended the funeral of Botha’s first wife Elize in 1997, would not be attending, his secretary Lavinia Crawford-Browne said.
She said Tutu was in The Hague, attending a meeting of the board of directors of the International Criminal Court’s victims’ trust, a body that deals with reparations for those who have suffered at the hands of perpetrators convicted by the court.
She said Tutu had however sent a message of condolence to PW’s wife Barbara and the rest of Botha’s family.
At Elize’s funeral, Tutu rubbed shoulders with former defence minister Magnus Malan, former defence force chief Constand Viljoen, and members of Botha’s Cabinet including Chris Heunis, now dead, and Adriaan Vlok.
Former president Nelson Mandela will not be going to George, his office said.
Nor will another former National Party leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who is now a member of the ANC. His spokesperson Riaan Aucamp said Van Schalkwyk was attending the World Travel Market expo in London. – Sapa