Archbishop Desmond Tutu, PW Botha’s political nemesis, is not prepared to speculate whether the former president is now in heaven or in hell.
”God is the only one who decides,” he told the domestic news agency Sapa in Cape Town on Tuesday.
Tutu, a leading voice in the internal anti-apartheid movement during Botha’s presidency, was overseas when Botha died last month at the age of 90, and was not immediately available for comment.
He said that when he heard the news, he had felt sad for Botha’s family.
”I hope his soul rests in peace,” said Tutu, former head of the Anglican church in Southern Africa.
Commenting on the debate over whether Botha had received adequate recognition for his role as a reformer, he said: ”I think we shouldn’t be dismissive of anybody. I always reckon that each one of us has the capacity to become a saint, anyone and everyone. I’m willing to acknowledge whatever initiatives he may have taken.
”But I think that he will be remembered mostly for his … he was granite-like, you know. And the finger-wagging. Those are the things people are going to remember him for.”
It was fair in any assessment to mention both the good and the bad.
Asked whether he had ever been angry with Botha, he said during one exchange, he and Botha had ended up ”pointing fingers at each other”.
”I had gone to speak to him about the possibility of a presidential pardon for the Sharpeville Six, and he said no, the thing has to take its course, the justice system will take its course.
”And then he wrongly accused me of having walked under a Communist flag at one of the funerals. And then we … we behaved a little bit like small boys.”
Tutu continued to be a thorn in Botha’s side even after the 1994 transition to democracy, when he became chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which sought — unsuccessfully — to call Botha to account for his actions in the apartheid years.
At one point Botha described the TRC as ”a circus led by a clown”.
In a gesture of reconciliation, Tutu attended the 1997 funeral of Botha’s first wife Elize. – Sapa