SOUTH AFRICA: PW Botha, who was the face of white South Africa as president at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, died at his home yesterday at the age of 90.
Mr Botha was toppled in a cabinet rebellion in 1989 and later replaced by FW de Klerk, who repudiated almost everything the finger-wagging hardliner had stood for, including the laws that were the foundation of apartheid.
Although Mr Botha's security forces killed more than 2,000 people and an estimated 25,000 people were detained without trial and often tortured, he refused to apologise for apartheid and denied he had known about the torture and assassinations.
He declined to appear when summoned by the state-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which in its final report in 2003 blamed him for much of the horror of the last decade of white rule.
But his failing health helped him escape prosecution and he spent his final years living in seclusion with his second wife Barbara in a lagoon-side home on the Western Cape coast, occasionally emerging to launch broadsides at the African National Congress, which has ruled the nation since 1994.
Throughout his leadership Mr Botha resisted mounting pressure to release South Africa's most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, who was freed by Mr de Klerk in 1990.
Mr Botha always stressed the paramount importance of security to thwart a "total onslaught" from communists. He tenaciously defended the framework of apartheid, insisting that whites must retain segregated schools and neighbourhoods. He repeatedly made it clear that his foremost loyalties were to his fellow Afrikaners.
Mr Botha suffered a stroke in January 1989 and a week later resigned as leader of the National Party, when he was replaced by Mr de Klerk.
He stayed on as president and in July arranged a secret meeting with Mr Mandela in what critics said was a display of one-upmanship over his rival Mr de Klerk.
Mr Botha was born on January 12th, 1916, the son of a farmer in the rural Orange Free State province. During the second World War, he joined the Ossewabrandwag (Ox Wagon Fire Guard), a group that was sympathetic to the Nazis.
He won election to parliament in 1948, the year the National Party came to power and began codifying apartheid legislation. He joined the cabinet in 1961 and became defence minister in 1966.
After he was ousted as president he severed all links with his party and became increasingly withdrawn and bitter. - (Reuters/AP)