Word: klerk
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...victory of such magnitude on an issue so fundamental could easily push a political leader toward hyperbole. But President F.W. de Klerk was not exaggerating a bit when he said in Cape Town after last week's referendum, "Today we have closed the book on apartheid...
...Even De Klerk and his government were surprised at the 2-to-1 mandate for reform. A population widely perceived as the most stubbornly racist in the world was effectively agreeing to give up its monopoly on power and share it with a black majority that whites have traditionally feared, persecuted and patronized. "Good and sensible people must be breathing sighs of relief," was the verdict of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Others agreed. "South Africa is a different country today," blared Business Day, Johannesburg's financial daily. Approved the Sowetan, the largest black daily: "Whites did the right thing...
...into air-force headquarters in Pretoria and stole a large cache of weapons. With the police on his tail, he disappeared underground for six months and tried to organize commando cells. To spark a Boer revolt, he went on a bombing spree, targeting the offices of two senior De Klerk aides and Melrose House, the historic site of the 1902 Afrikaner surrender in the Anglo-Boer...
Mcerwa ponders the question, What will he do if the current negotiations lead to the formation of an interim government that includes Mandela? The A.N.C., he replies, has been co-opted by De Klerk. It has betrayed the people. "If the masses believe this government is undemocratic, we will resist," he says...
...Afrikaner civil servants stream out of Pretoria heading for their middle- class suburbs, Rudolph is eager to make a move. It may not be much longer, he speculates, before South Africa descends into civil war. If De Klerk hands over power to the A.N.C., he predicts, the volk will fight. If the pro- apartheid Conservative Party defeats De Klerk in his reform referendum, then it will be the blacks who rise up. Either way, the Boers stand to lose whatever powers and privileges they enjoyed during the apartheid years. "Time has run out in our land," Rudolph says. "Now this...