By Moshoeshoe Monare
The death of PW Botha triggered ironies and a gap between Cosatu and ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma.
While Cosatu, which stood behind Zuma in the ANC succession race, described Botha as a brutal dictator whose hands were stained with blood, Zuma extended a reconciliatory hand, saying he was saddened by Botha's death and hailed him as a pioneer of reforms.
Cosatu and the Young Communist League said Botha had no choice but to succumb to mounting pressure in initiating those reforms.
"Cosatu rejects the notion that the late President PW Botha made any positive contribution whatsoever to the democratic transformation of our society.
"On the contrary, he remained to the very last a staunch defender of apartheid, racism, dictatorship and inequality, for which he refused to make the slightest apology," Cosatu said in a statement.
"The Wiehaan commission on trade unions, which recommended minimal rights for trade unions, and the tricameral parliament, which delivered a veneer of limited rights for a select few, were forced on his government by the pressure of the masses for change," it added.
But Zuma's sentiments echoed that of President Thabo Mbeki, former presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, DA leader Tony Leon and IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi who acknowledged Botha's role in initiating reforms.
Zuma said Botha had been brave to tell his followers to adapt to change or die.
"This brave statement was not an easy one to make in the then National Party and was not well received by the party faithful at the time," Zuma said.
He ought to be remembered for seeing the need for change, even though his approach to this was controversial, Zuma added.
But Cosatu said: "He remained to the very last a staunch defender of apartheid, racism, dictatorship and inequality, for which he refused to make the slightest apology.
"When the time came for real change, Botha and his allies were redundant - shunted aside by the capitalist class who had prospered under his dictatorship but were quick to ditch him when they were forced by the masses to change course and switch to the route of democracy," Cosatu said.
"He will be remembered as a brutal dictator who enthusiastically presided over a system which denied the majority of people their most basic human rights.
"He was responsible for the misery endured by the millions of South Africans he condemned to poverty. He robbed the majority of a chance to live a normal existence and improve their lives.
"He was responsible for the pain inflicted on the thousands who were jailed, assaulted and tortured by his apartheid state thugs. His hands were stained with the blood of hundreds who were murdered during the struggle for democracy and liberation under his presidency."
The Young Communist League attacked De Klerk for crediting Botha for the demise of apartheid. "FW de Klerk must not try to re-write our history to distort our national memory. It was the masses, not the racist leaders, who brought the apartheid regime to an end," the league said.
Meanwhile, on Friday Mbeki explained why he instructed that all national flags fly at half mast and why he offered to give Botha a state funeral.
He said the government and ANC took a decision "to honour all these leaders equally, including captains of apartheid, because of our commitment to the success of the process of national reconciliation," Mbeki wrote in his online newsletter, ANC Today.
He said the government would "do everything we have to do in tribute to the former state president, fully respecting" the family's decision to have a private funeral.