Pieter Willem Botha or Pieter Wilhem Botha (born the January 12th 1916 in the free of Orange and dead State the October 31st 2006 with its residence of Wilderness in the Cape-Westerner), was a Politician of South Africa. Minister for Defense of 1966 with 1980, Prime Minister of 1978 with 1984 and President of the Republic of 1984 with 1989.

Known under its simple initial of PW or its nickname of " Groot Krokodil" in Afrikaans which results in “large crocodile”, it devoted its life to Afrikanerdom (Nationalisme afrikaner), to the National Party and the anticommunism. Its pragmatism also led it to try to reform the policy of Apartheid with the installation of a Parlement tricaméral.

The militant of the national Party (1934-1958)

Wire of farmers afrikaners, Pieter Botha was born in Paul Roux in the free State from Orange. His/her father, also named Pieter Willem Botha, had been a war veteran of the Guerre of Boers whereas his/her mother, Hendrina de Wet, had lost her the first two children in the British Concentration camps of Lord Kitchener.

After the college of Betlehem, Pieter Botha started studies of right in 1934 to Bloemfontein. It adhered to the associative movements afrikaner S as with the “national Parti” Daniel Malan which it helped to reorganize after his scission with the moderate ones of James Barry Hertzog.

Malan then proposed an official station in the Cape to him to organize the party. Botha left Bloemfontein then and gave up its studies.

In 1939, in the Cape, with Theophilus Donges and John Vorster, it took part in the formation of the regional branch of Ossewabrandwag (" sentinels of the chariots"), an organization afrikaner of which it became some time one of the leaders and where it was opposed, without success, with the nazification. It then took its distances with Ossewabrandwag and thus avoided the internment in the British prisons a contrario of Vorster. It even vigorously attacked the organization and the National-socialisme of which she claimed herself and which it considered irreconcilable and dangerous for the values of the national-Christianity whose Afrikaners were prevailed. Its exclusion of the movement did not delay and preceded by little the order of Malan to all the members of the national party who were members to leave Ossewabrandwag.

In 1946, Botha took again its rise in the internal organization of the party. It took an active part in propaganda in particular by disparaging and defaming its political adversaries. Thus it targeted successfully Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, the dolphin of the Prime Minister Jan Smuts, known for its support for the racial equality.

Elected at the Parliament in 1948 in the district of George under the colors of the victorious national Party, Pieter Botha was a lawyer convinced of the racial segregation to protect freedoms and the rights of the people afrikaner.

The Minister for the national Party (1958-1978)

In 1958, he became Secretary of State inside in the government of Hendrik Verwoerd.

In 1961, Verwoerd inserted Botha and John Vorster in his cabinet. Botha became Minister for the development of the communities charged with the mongrels and Vorster, the new Minister for justice.

Honest and disciplined, hostile to the public debates on the decisions taken by the government, Botha applied the policies of apartheid conscientiously. It carried out in particular the expulsion of the populations of color of district 6 in the Cape although it on several occasions emitted within the cabinet of the reserves on the consequences of the decisions which were adopted there.

In 1964, it was named public Minister for Labor.

In 1966, it is elected president of the national Parti in the Cape Province. He became also Minister for defense, named by Verwoerd, station which he preserved until in 1980.

During its years at this station, it modernized the South-African army by obtaining self-sufficiency as regards armament in particular and by starting the installation of a military and civil nuclear program.

In 1968, it founded the first industry of armament of the country, Armscor.

In 1975, supported by the US government of Gerald Ford, the Prime Minister John Vorster planned clandestine operations to install a government pro-Westerner in the new State independent of Angola, controlled then by the Marxists of MPLA (Popular liberation movement of Angola). But Pieter Botha and its chief of the armies, Magnus Malan, convinced of the existence of a Soviet global level of which the goal is the catch to be able in South Africa, were then made the lawyers of a more radical plan, an invasion of the country by the South-African troops to drive out the MPLA of Luanda.

In August 1975, the South-African troops invaded the south of Angola and pushed until Luanda. In December, the American congress made withdraw its financial aid with the movements and troops hostile with the MPLA whereas the South-African army was with the doors of the Angolan capital. Furious and humiliated, the South-African ones then seemed the only culprits of the invasion and were obliged to withdraw country. They will henceforth bring a logistic help to the rebel movement of UNITA of Jonas Savimbi so in particular protecting the northern border from their colony of the South-western African against the infiltrations of the independence organization SWAPO.

In 1978, South Africa became eleventh manufacturing of weapons in the world whereas the country is the subject of an embargo of UNO since 1977. In 1979, South Africa has its first atomic bomb.

The Prime Minister of South Africa (1978-1984)

At the time of the succession at the post of Prime Minister in 1978, Botha managed to draw aside its rival, Connie Mulder, empêtré in an accounting scandal in which the responsibility for John Vorster was then shown by a commission installation by Botha. Turned sour, Vorster is then obliged in June 1979 to resign of the presidency of the Republic

Partisan of the “securocrats” of the administration, Pieter Botha is not regarded less by it as a “verlighte” (enlightened) within the national Party, conscious of the limits of apartheid, contrary to the “verkramptes” (contracted on the privileges of apartheid).

In 1979, to counter the conservatives who call upon the threat of the total attack of the Communists ( total onslaught ) on the country justifying the reinforcement of apartheid, Botha develops the concept of a total strategy covering all the fields as well political, economic, cultural, military and sedentary, summarized by the principle “of adapting or of dying”.

In 1979, it completes the desegregation of the army which it had initiated whereas the country makes a success of its first nuclear test in the Kalahari Desert.

In 1982, its will to reform the system runs up against resistances of the most preserving elements of the national Party of which its ministers Andries Treurnicht and Ferdinand Hartzenberg. The latter leave the government and the Party to create it Conservative party which immediately receives the support of personalities like John Vorster or Connie Mulder.

Henceforth centred and drawn by the most liberal elements from the national Party, he undertakes a constitutional vast reform assisted by his Minister for the constitutional reform Chris Heunis.

In 1983, Botha managed to make adopt a new constitution by Référendum instituting a Parlement tricaméral with rooms separated for the mongrels and the Indians, as well as an executive presidency. The old failing senate is removed, the decreased powers of the National Assembly, the reformed administration and the presidentialized mode.

The President of South Africa (1984-1989)

In 1984, the new Constitution came into effect. The post of Prime Minister being removed, Botha was elected President of the Republic, a function which had been until there only honorary and which from now on was the principal function of the executive.

In spite of its opening in the center and its pragmatism, the authoritarianism of President PW Botha did not manage to change the image of the country abroad. Man coleric and authoritative with the scorning lippe, it caricatured in spite of him the image which the outside world had of Afrikaner.

However, the diplomacy of its government arrived to some successes like the signature of an agreement of non-interference and good neighborhood (Accords of Nkomati) with Samora Machel, president of the Mozambique the March 16th 1984. In these agreements signed solemnly by the two presidents, the Mozambican government promised not to more bring of assistance to the African National congress in exchange of the end of the South-African support for RENAMO. In same time, Botha gave its agreement to discrete talks between representatives of the government and members of the ANC in exile.

But starting from 1985, the revolts of the black population and police repression in the Township S led to UNO with the imposition of new economic sanctions and financial international against South Africa.

Under the internal and external pressure, several reforms were undertaken. The " great intention réformiste" limited itself however, in addition to the new Constitution, with the legalization of the interraciaux marriages, the modification of the law prohibiting the multiracial political parties and the law on the separate habitat (Group Areas Act). It also opened the municipal representation with the blacks of the townships of the urban areas.

Botha refused nevertheless " to cross Rubicon" and to grant any right to vote with the Blacks and to call into question the political supremacy of the White.

In 1986, the principal economic partners of South Africa issued economic sanctions against the country whereas Botha declared the state of emergency following the riots and with the confrontations violent one which ensanglantaient the country, in particular between the black movements and the police force and between partisans of ANC and the Zulu Inkhata.

With the center even of the white electorate, the weight taken by the conservative party with the municipal elections and general encouraged it to restrict the reforms.

In May 1988, the reactivation of the agreements of Nkomati is decided at the time of its meeting with Joaquim Chissano, the Mozambican president in order to better ensure the safety on the South-African border but also in order to start again the economic development of the septentrional area.

Botha also entered into direct correspondance with the imprisoned leaders of the ANC and took measures to provide the foundations of a peacefully negotiated payment. He asked his minister justice Kobie Coetsee to start the dialog with Nelson Mandela, condemned to a custodial sentence with perpetuity since 1964. Thus in 1989, Botha itself met Nelson Mandela with the presidential residence of the Cape.

Following a heart disease in January 1989, Botha was briefly out of state to control. Chris Heunis took over temporarily the duties of the presidency during 100 days whereas its succession was already the object according to discussions among nationalists. Botha then agreed to leave the presidency of the party but refused to resign of its function of Head of State.

The August 13rd 1989, it announced finally its resignation, forced, on television while denouncing the political operations of the members of its Cabinet and the new president of the party, Frederik De Klerk, which succeeded to him then the position of president of the Republic.

The pensioner of George

He withdrew himself in his area of George in the Cape Province, or he did not cease denouncing all the reforms of Klerk, in particular the release of Nelson Mandela, the legalization of the black parties and the progressive dismantling of apartheid.

In 1992, at the time of the Referendum on the constitutional negotiations, it invited to vote “not” against the reforms of Klerk.

In November 1995, its meeting in residence with Nelson Mandela was this official and televised time. In 1997, it refused to testify in front of the Commission " Truth and Réconciliation" chaired by the archbishop Desmond Tutu, denouncing a " cirque". Recognized guilty of insult at the Court to have refused to testify on its role as a president to the South-African Safety advice, he was initially condemned to one one-year suspended sentence, before gaining in call. In his final report in 1998, the commission concludes that Pieter Botha was the author of the order authorizing the secret services to make an attack against a building of Johannesburg sheltering an anti-apartheid group and against the buildings of the African National congress (ANC) with London, in 1987.

In 2005, Pieter Botha confirmed in an televised interview that he would not ask any excuse for apartheid and affirmed that he was not with the current of the assassinations and other exactions, reproached by the Commission, when he was with the capacity.

Pieter Botha is deceased in its residence of Wilderness in the Cape-Westerner the October 31st 2006. It was 90 years old.

National homage

The paid national homage the shortly after its death insisted on its initiating role of the reforms which were going to put at bottom apartheid. If the flags were put in Bern until the burial envisaged on November 8th at George, the official funeral suggested by the presidency was declined by the family. Homage by Nelson Mandela to the " Groot Krokodil" was noticed the most by the foreign press.

• " Whereas for much Mr. Botha will remain a symbol of apartheid, we also remember him for the steps which he undertook in order to open the way towards the final agreement negotiated peacefully in our country " - Nelson Mandela, November 1st, 2006
• " Pieter Botha took the direction of the government at one difficult moment of the history of the pays" (…) " It is necessary to put at its credit the fact that it carried out futility to fight against what was inevitable end of the racial segregation (…) From both and the former president of the ANC [[Oliver Tambo]], one can say, taking again the words of the Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat, when he spoke about the Israeli Yitzhak Rabin, that they were partners in the installation of a peace of the brave men " - Thabo Mbeki, which confirmed that Botha had approved the first secret negotiations between the ANC and of the official representatives of the government since 1985.
• " It is with sadness that I learned death from former president Pieter Botha (…). Pieter Botha was president at one time when the country was in conflict and blood. But as he was convinced of the need for the change, he made some become aware his party and his faithful with his speech “Adapt gold Die” (…). It was not easy for him and it was not accepted among most dogmatic from its party (...). It was also Pieter Botha which sent the first emissary Lange to meet members of the ANC in order to discuss the possibility of negotiations " - Jacob Zuma (ANC), former vice-president of South Africa
• " I wish to honor P.W. Botha for his enormous contribution to the preparation with the way towards the South Africa news " Frederik de Klerk, former president of South Africa.
• " Botha chaired South Africa which was more and more divided and absorbed by an incipient civil war. It had placed a great confidence in the safety appliance of the State to repress the disorders. It is under the mode of Botha that the Act on immorality, the Act on the mixed marriages, and the Right-of-way was removed and the Parliament of the white minority was replaced by a model with three rooms " Tony Leon, chief of democratic Alliance
• " It was very disciplined. And he loved people. He loved his people and the children " - Adriaan Vlok, former minister for the law and the order
• " It left me the bent frank ones to negotiate with the adjoining countries. " - Pik Botha, former Foreign Minister
• " It forever be one of my friends. In fact, I was his pet peeve when I was at the Parliament. It was very irritable and had bad character. It was not terribly intelligent (…) It had simply sufficient good sense to realize that a change had become essential because black resistance gained in power and the opposition of the international community was increasingly strong. " - Helen Suzman, former deputy of the party progressist
• " It gave its chance to the community of color (mongrels) " - Gerald Morkel, former Prime Minister for the province of the Cape-Westerner
• " It is with emotion and compassion that I learned disappearance from Mr. Pieter Botha. This man who had illustrated himself during his mandate by the starter of several reforms aiming at fulfilling the political requirements of South Africa more representative and just receives by my voice today the homage of the Gabonese government " Omar Bongo, president of the Gabon
• " Its hands carried the traces of blood of the hundreds of people who were assassinated in the fight for the release under her presidency. Crushing the majority of the South-Africans and the rest of the world will not remember P.W. Botha that with hatred and dislike " Patrick Craven, spokesperson of COSATU

Its funeral took place on November 8th, 2006 with George. Nearly 800 people attended the funeral office of which South African president Thabo Mbeki and its wife, former president Frederik de Klerk, the former ministers Gerrit Viljoen and Gene Louw, the former chief of staff Constand Viljoen, the former minister and former chief of the conservative party Ferdinand Hartzenberg.

It is buried with the cemetery of Hoekwil, close to Wilderness.

Personal life

Married in 1943 with Anna Elizabeth Rossouw, Pieter Botha had 5 children (3 girls and 2 boys). Widower at the end 1997, it remaria with Barbara Robertson, 57 years, in June 1998.

References

Random links:

1775 | Literature into Breton | Euryanassa | Pierre Salviac | Centrogeniidae